The Idea That Became ANERA

by John Richardson, ANERA's Executive Director in 1968 and President from 1973-1977
American Near East Refugee Aid (ANERA) is a leading American non-governmental fundraising organization active in the Palestinian Territories (West Bank and Gaza), Lebanon and Jordan. Its mission is to create opportunity and hope for people in the Middle East by improving health care and education, and stimulating job creation. ANERA’s four primary field offices in Jerusalem, Gaza, Beirut and Amman, its robust operating budget and record of minimal management expenses all contribute to the organization’s role as a leader in humanitarian and relief efforts in the region. ANERA is the only NGO whose program activities focus entirely on the Middle East.

The idea that became ANERA dates back to the Six-Day War in 1967 when Israel occupied the Sinai Peninsula, the Gaza Strip, the West Bank, eastern Jerusalem and the Golan Heights in Syria. The alarming displacement of hundreds of thousands of Palestinians drew international attention and mobilized communities of Arab-Americans within the United States. Collection campaigns invited donations of food, blankets, medicine, clothing and funds, which were then routed to partners in the Middle East to provide refugees with staples needed to ensure their survival in territories far from home.

Among the humanitarian groups that led crisis response efforts were the Arab Relief Agency in Detroit, U.S. OMEN in Los Angeles and San Francisco, the Cleveland Mid-East Relief Committee, the United American-Arab Appeal in the Boston-Quincy area, Pal-Aid in Chicago and the Arab Emergency Relief Committee in Washington.
Additional support from other sectors of American society reflected the strong cultural, educational, humanitarian and corporate links that existed with the Middle East. One Washington, DC-based group, American Friends of the Middle East (AFME), established a service that provided information about humanitarian initiatives resulting from the Palestinian crisis. The service included details about over 110 activities and 200 involved groups and individuals. AFME’s national advertisement appeal, “Who Speaks for the Arab Refugees?” appeared in prominent periodicals throughout the United States.

Among those involved in relief efforts, two individuals recognized how the humanitarian response might be consolidated for greater effect now and in the future. Attorney Jim Sams of the Arab Emergency Relief Committee and AFME’s Executive Vice President Orin Parker convened a Washington, DC conference in late August, with participation from over 20 relief organizations throughout the United States. Attendees quickly recognized a need for greater involvement to fully grasp how relief efforts impacting Palestinian refugees could be coordinated, leading to a larger, well-attended conference in Detroit, Michigan two months later.

It was at the Detroit conference that the idea was proposed to establish a single fundraising organization—tax-exempt, non-political and based in Washington, DC—that could build upon the momentum and enthusiasm of all other humanitarian activities and lead efforts to respond to future crises affecting displaced Palestinian populations. The proposed organization would serve as a meaningful statement to Arabs in the Middle East that a support base existed among sympathetic Americans who recognized the challenges facing Palestinians in meeting basic human needs and seeking hope for a better future.

To support an administrative structure and initial fundraising efforts for the organization, conference participants suggested that each “Founding Member” could deliver at least $10,000 in return for the opportunity to appoint a single member to the new organization’s Board of Directors. Several groups tentatively committed to serving in this capacity, which set a promising tone.

Sams and Parker then sought support from Near East Emergency Donations (NEED), an organization founded after the Six-Day War amid the highest corporate and political circles in America. (Former Presidents Harry Truman and Dwight Eisenhower served as co-chairmen.) Their initial fundraising effort had led to contributions of approximately $10 million to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA). Sams and Parker emphasized to NEED’s President James Linen the national support that existed for a new fundraising organization and requested a matching grant of $100,000 in response to Founding Members’ pledges, a well as counsel to help the start-up organization attract a strong Board of Directors. NEED agreed to help.

Jim Sams filed incorporation papers for American Near East Refugee Aid on February 21, 1968, and tax-exempt papers shortly thereafter. In addition to successful Founding Members pledges by American Friends of the Middle East, U.S. OMEN, the Arab Relief Agency and the Arab Emergency Relief Committee—the latter contributed $15,000—generous contributions by other individuals, families and groups provided a strong foundation for ANERA.

That summer, the first supporters of ANERA elected a Board of Directors from a prominent mix of Arab-Americans and Americans with accomplished backgrounds in the corporate and non-governmental communities. Board members included attorney Karim Ajluni, philanthropist Hugh Auchincloss, educator Dr. Norman Burns, Reverend Bertram Cooper, Egyptologist Dr. Henry Fischer, Ambassador Loy Henderson, Orin Parker, Dr. Hadi Salem, oil executives J.B. Sunderland and David Finnie, and the Honorable Evan Wilson, a former Consul-General in Jerusalem. John Richardson, former AFME Representative in Beirut, agreed to serve as ANERA’s Executive Director. ANERA’s first President and Board Chairman was Dr. John Davis, a former Assistant Secretary of Agriculture who had served as Commissioner General of UNRWA in Beirut from 1959 to 1964. In his 1967 book, The Evasive Peace, Dr. Davis displayed his understanding of the complexities of the refugee problem while focusing on critical political issues facing the Palestinian community in the Near East.

ANERA opened its doors on August 12, 1968 in the Woodward Building at 15th and H Street, NW in Washington, DC where it remained until moving to its current K Street location in Northwest Washington in 1979. When Dr. Davis stepped down in 1973, Executive Vice President John Richardson assumed the ANERA presidency for four years before passing the mantle to Peter Gubser, who served until January 2007. ANERA’s current President, Bill Corcoran, continues to pursue the mandate set by the organization some four decades ago. In the intervening years, the organization has grown in size and scope and has faced many challenges that broadened its original framework. ANERA now serves its traditional Palestinian population, as well as Lebanese and Jordanians.
ANERA’s two principal founders, Jim Sams and Orin Parker, symbolized the two streams of ANERA’s origins—arriving with expertise from the Arab-American and non-governmental communities, respectively. Over the years, ANERA has remained true to that mix, which is reflected within its Board of Directors, supporters and activities to this day. We are proud to have brought four decades of hope and opportunity to those most in need in the Middle East.