From today’s Jerusalem Post:
On Wednesday, Israel joined with several US Jewish groups in sending $100,000 to support the International Rescue Committee and aid children in Sudan and Chad orphaned by the civil war in Sudan‘s Darfur region. . . .
Muhammad Yahya, a native of Darfur and founder of a group called Representatives of the Massaleit Community in Exile, said his countrymen are grateful for the assistance and astonished by its source.
"We have been taught for all our lives, from the primary school to the university, that you are the top enemy for Muslims and Arabs all over the world," Yahya said of the Jews and Israelis behind the $100,000 effort.
Now, he said, "we realized that what we have been taught all our lives is a kind of a rumor. When we have been killed, you are protecting us; when we are displaced, you are trying to save us; when our people are murdered and raped, you are there trying to help us.” . . .
Jewish groups collectively have sent more than $1 million in aid to humanitarian causes in Sudan since the violence in Darfur took a turn for the worse in early 2003, according to the American Jewish World Service, which supports humanitarian and economic projects in the developing world.
Earlier this year, the organization helped create the Jewish Coalition for Sudan Relief, a collection of some 15 groups. The groups involved in the new $100,000 aid package are the Union for Reform Judaism, the New Jersey MetroWest Federation and UJA-Federation of New York, in addition to the 15-member coalition, AJWS and Israel.
"The State of Israel is following the developments in Darfur carefully, and as a people who has gone through persecution, we could not sit idly on the sidelines through such a devastating humanitarian disaster," [Arye Mekel, Israel ‘s consul-general in New York ] said. "This is according to the Jewish values."
Much more is required.