“Go into each interaction with the intention of giving each office the opportunity to do the right thing”, these were the words that Craig Corrie, Rachel Corrie’s father once told Donna. The same words resonates with her and inspires her to do more for the families in Palestine. The same words motivated her NGO’s latest campaign – Recognizing American babies in Palestine. 

When Donna was on a Leadership Learning Mission to the West Bank with the Congressional Staff, she couldn’t bring the mission back home. In January 2020, she was invited by a friend and his wife from the school to stay and that’s when Donna learnt about the dilemma a Palestinian-American family were going through with the visa issues. An issue that may seem peculiar and unique at first, but has affected 25000 others – the neglect of Palestinian babies by the Israeli government. 

It was this family that Donna was asked to help, leading her to work with more families like them which started Rebuilding Alliance’s advocacy campaign, “Recognizing American babies in Palestine”. But why was the Israeli Government not recognizing American babies? Because Israel’s plan to annex the West Bank disappointed the Palestinian Authority – the interim self-government – who had no choice but to retaliate by severing security coordination with the Israeli Government. Therefore, in the books of the Israeli government, these babies never existed and so there was no way they could freely travel out the West Bank or the Gaza Strip – and this hurt Morgan Cooper’s family who fell victim to this power politics.

Morgan Cooper with her pack of four – her new-born, unrecognized (by Israel) baby, Lourice Cooper, her four-year-old son and her husband Saleh Totah – they all simply wanted to travel back to the States to attend a family emergency. With Cooper’s uncle in hospital due to the COVID-19 in NYC and her parents in California which recently was ablaze due to the wildfires, it became even urgent for her to go back to the States, but what could she do, she was denied the transit – that’s when Rebuilding Alliance under the direction of Donna Baranski-Walker stepped in.

RA intervened when Cooper reached out and advocated for her with her Congressional Representatives and Senators back home. Through the medium of RA , Cooper reached out to her Rep. Doug Lamfapo, Sen. Dianne Feinstein, Rep. Rice and Sen. Kamala Harris, the vice-president elect of the United States, currently who will hold the second-highest office in the United States. Emails were even sent to Reps and Sens in NYC, where Totah holds residency. 

This wasn’t enough. There was work to be done on all grounds – with the US Embassy, Israeli Embassy and Consul General, Civil Administration of Israel and other NGOs like Hamoked. RA coordinated efforts with all agencies they could. An exciting news came on September 22nd, 2020, when an Israeli journalist from NPR covering Cooper’s story and the RA’s story <insert NPR Story link> reached out to COGAT (Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories) and managed to get the baby’s registration and permit to travel. Just like NPR, even Vice covered RA’s and Cooper’s story <insert link>.

Working on this back and further – with the US Congress, US Embassy, Civil Administration of Israel, the Israeli Embassy and Consul General and other NGOs in Palestine like Hamoked simply seems not to be an easy task due to the bureaucratic processes and unresponsive agencies – but Donna knew that it her latest challenge and she would get it done with perseverance. “If it was easy, we wouldn’t do it”, a smiling and happy Donna said, when her advocacy efforts helped bring Cooper family get their permit. 

While Cooper’s family are registered, many others still face similar fate including the Ramadan family who has reached out to Rebuilding Alliance and is closely working with Donna. RA helped the family get in touch with her Sens and Reps back home but this time it was even tougher. The Ramadan family also appealed to Hamoked. Together, Hamoked and RA have filed a lawsuit and is awaiting response. 

Donna says it was “being persistent” that helped her succeed in getting Cooper’s family back home and that her main focus was to “get people to transition or change”, so coordinated efforts could be accomplished. She says, “US Embassy and the Israeli Embassy and Consul General gave a great response but a lot in the US Congress failed to respond” and that was a major challenge. But, nevertheless, she remains determined and will continue to advocate and do her “4-AM-in-the-morning” work. 

The campaign which took off on the August 26th 2020, when Cooper’s family first reached out, still continues to this day with one family on hold and many more to work on.