Would you help a smart, ambitious Palestinian father in Gaza pay $60 to renew his passport so he has a chance for a better life for himself and his family elsewhere?
I will share all the details if you are truly interested.
I first heard from M in April on Facebook. I'm easy to find and I hear from people trapped in Gaza fairly often.
"I am M from Palestine, from the Gaza Strip. We live in bad economic conditions as a result of the Israeli closure of the Gaza Strip for more than ten years. I have a family of five. Can you stand with me and help me"
I receive lots of messages like this and always reply. So many people in Gaza are desperate and ask for money. I cannot help much with money, but try to let them know that at least someone is listening and cares.
M wrote a week later, "It is very bad, we work to breathe. We only breathe but without life. Stand with me and help me. Sir, I beg you. We live in the worst days of my life. I want some money to buy the needs of my family and my sick daughter."
I decided to send $50 and did.
M wrote, "Thank you sir, you are a wonderful person. I have been able to purchase the needs of my family and children. Long time my family did not eat like this. Thank you. Thank you. If you have friends that can help, my page can even communicate with me."
M wrote again as Ramadan was approaching and asked me to help again so he could feed his family. I was feeling financial compassion fatigue and wrote back and forth with him but told him I would not send more money.
A month later, near the end of Ramadan and the coming of 'Eid, he wrote again asking for money so his children could have clothes and something special to eat for 'Eid. Again, I felt tapped out and responded with kindness, I hope, but said that I wouldn't send money.
On June 25, M wrote, "Sir: How are you, I'm very sorry if you are disturbed, but I have a lot of problems here, my family needs food and drink, and my daughter Jana is sick and she needs medication, please stand with me, for the last time. There can be a war over the coming period, it can be very soon. So I have to provide some of my family's needs, .. and also the medicine Jana."
I felt absolutely terrible. I have raised three kids. I have had tight times and been helped. Compared to M, I have so very, very much. Yet, I just did not want to send more money and I told him so. I thought this one family's needs are essentially endless. And there are millions of desperate people in this world. They all need help. How can I know when to help and when to say no? But, I did. I said no. It was hard for me -- and harder for M, I am sure.
Then, a week ago M wrote, "I do not know what to do, I do not have a job for a long time. I wish I could be able to get out of here to any other country. The time has been lost and we are waiting, more than ten years and we did not do anything, just waiting for the return of electricity."
M is highly educated and multi-skilled -- degrees in business administration, journalism and media. He was a journalist for AP and years ago traveled to Egypt and Malaysia. He is resourceful and persistent. He has great potential. I know others who recently have managed to get out of Gaza and begin a new life elsewhere. With Egypt opening the border at Rafah which was closed for years, M now has a chance to get out. M had a passport but it expired in 2014. He asked if I would help with the NIS160 fee for passport renewal (CDN$60/US$45). I agreed and tonight sent him that amount. With MoneyGram service charges, it cost me a total of $71.07.
I asked on my Facebook page if anyone would help share that cost. Several friends stepped up very generously and did that. So, that is done, ברוך ה', الحمد لله .
I hear from others in Gaza and want to help them. Today, a woman calling herself Warda wrote to me. I offered online friendship. She replied, "I am very happy with your friendship but I have 6 children and my husband is sick and I do not have money to buy food please help me."
If you would like, join with me. We can consolidate several small donations from us all and send them to people to are absolutely desperate. Also, I can tell you who they are and you can contact them directly on FB. Let me know if you want to do either of these.
We must do all we can to make systemic changes that will free these fellow humans from the brutal oppression that we contribute to maintaining. Meanwhile, we can help with direct, immediate needs of at least a few people who deserve as much in this material world as we do.
no, because I'm a heartless prick.
No, because charity lies in a tricky convergence of empathy, society and self-worth which is why the most successful efforts are cloaked in decorum. I've had four noteworthy experiences with charity that have shaped my perception: I ran a subreddit based on favors, I helped a guy in prison for a couple years, I had a scammer walk up to my door and take me for $40 and a ride to Compton while leaving my apartment undefended and I gave a friend a substantial amount of money to help him through a tough time.
/r/favors taught me that all people are generous but that a small percentage has no compunctions about taking advantage of that generosity. Maybe it's drugs, maybe it's sociopathy, maybe it's fundamental disrespect; I've found that the resentful poor can talk themselves into a place where the "rich" (anyone with more money than them) deserves to be taken because after all, they don't deserve to be poor. I learned that it doesn't take much for an otherwise upstanding person to feel entirely okay about scamming others because they need the money.
My experience with Youngluck taught me that I was giving to him because I had a personal connection and a moral code. I learned that I could get others to give to him not necessarily because of what they thought of him, but because of how I performed my commitment to him. Call it the Jerry Lewis effect: the target of our charity is abstract but the vehicle of our charity is concrete. In the end, my actions mattered more to the charity available to him than his did.
My experience with the scammer (a homeless guy who got into our gated complex and impersonated a resident) taught me that there are those out there who are practiced at taking advantage of our charitable impulses and that I'm entirely vulnerable. I think most people are fundamentally good and deserving of charity and I think the rest of the world agrees; we'll give the benefit of the doubt to anyone who can make a connection with us and show/tell us just enough to make us believe we're doing good. It took me ten seconds to let a stranger into my home to case the place, and another 20 minutes to be giving him a ride five exits away before rush hour. At that point the act of giving him $40 to get out of my car so I could get back home in time to stop his buddies from raiding my place was a bargain (especially as my panicked calls to security got them to my door a mere 40 minutes later, as I was walking up the stairs). Once our defenses are down, they keep going down further. Becoming vigilant again is tough because then we have to admit we were wrong, we have to admit we misjudged and we have to admit to ourselves that our charity isn't bottomless after all.
My experience with my friend taught me that once you've given once, you'll be asked again. When we're in a pinch we'll go back to the easiest avenue available to us. It doesn't matter that my friend's parents have $1.5m in laddered CDs, a pension worth six figures a year and seven figures of real estate; he's in a fight with them so when he needed a little extra to stretch him until his disability started, he came to me, not them. Why? I was sympathetic and attached no strings. That I've got a business to run and a daughter to feed went into my calculations, not his.
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You have a connection with Gaza. I do not. Your friends have a connection with you. So do I... barely. You're not Jerry Lewis to me, you're lil's boyfriend. And I know that once I've let money leak out of that sympathy hole, it'll be a tough hole to close.
- I thought this one family's needs are essentially endless. And there are millions of desperate people in this world. They all need help. How can I know when to help and when to say no? But, I did. I said no. It was hard for me -- and harder for M, I am sure.
Exactly.
Multi-level marketing succeeds because it short-circuits the friend/business barrier: we extend empathy to our friends but skepticism to our trading partners and a Tupperware party is not Bed Bath & Beyond. And whether we understand it or not, we sense the barrier being short-circuited and it has an impact on us. If we like our purchase we're a closer friend. If we don't, or if we don't buy at all, we're more distant. And asking for money on a "friendly" forum has the same effect. It stretches the bonds of friendship - either to temper them stronger or break them.
- And asking for money on a "friendly" forum has the same effect.
By way of explanation to me mivasairski has said this: "In Warsaw in 1942, occasionally someone would throw a loaf of bread over the ghetto walls to the Jews inside. I can't solve the subjugation of Palestinians, but occasionally I can throw a loaf of bread."
Yeah I would say you are probably being scammed or at least word has gotten out about your generosity. Your are sending money into a war zone and it’s unclear if it’s going to buy passports food or guns/ieds. You really should ask for some sort of verification that the money went to the purposes described.
Also would highly discourage sending money to the woman in your post. There isn’t really a way for that to work out well. At best they will have food for a week at worst they will buy explosives both are consumables so either way they will hit you up for more money and the cycle will continue. At least in the previous case the money supposedly went to bettering the situation, although you will likely get hit up for more there as well
My interest is piqued. I'll give money to the drunkest looking panhandler because panhandling is not a bad excuse for getting drunk. I really hesitate to set up a direct channel for someone to guilt me into help though. I've been burned by empathy being exploited in the name of charity
We've given money to a person that helps local refugees in our community. We know the person and have some degree of immediate knowledge of what our money has gone towards.
I'd never give money to some random person on Facebook, no matter how tough their story is. Odds are they are on the make. My personal opinion is that you are probably on the make. It might be a flaw in my character but I've watched enough people get strung along by a good bit of story telling to use a good deal of caution when people have their hands out.
Sorry if that offends you, hope you aren't getting taken and I hope you aren't pretending to be something you aren't to make a sleazy buck.
