Humanitarian response and politics makes for a volatile mix, creating dilemmas for aid agencies in their relations with host countries and, in some cases, their own donors—nowhere more than the Middle East, as I learned during a 13-month consultancy with Oxfam America. This article presents a critical account of the Lebanon emergency program I organized during the 1982 Israeli invasion and how its cancellation in the face of external pressure and internal division led to the formation of Grassroots International, which I cofounded and directed for eight years, expanding into Eritrea, Ethiopia, South Africa and other politically charged sites of struggle and human need.