When I was 16 years old and at summer camp, I bunked with an Israeli Jew named Shimœn. We spent three weeks with about eighty other youth in southern Virginia. I was surprised to learn how westernized he was, listening to my genre of music, wearing jeans and T-shirts, speaking English with only a slight accent. Now, years later, I can only wonder where Shimœn is. My thoughts run to the possibilities: Is he in the Israeli army? Has he killed with an M-16? Was he killed by a bomb? Is he still the open-minded and energetic young Jewish man I once knew? I wonder if I found him, could we still laugh the way we did? Surely life would have changed him, as it has me. But need that be in a pejorative manner? Why couldn’t we have lunch together in Tel Aviv, looking out to the Mediterranean and reminiscing?
Obviously, I can’t very easily travel to Tel Aviv. The conflict between Israelis who want a homeland for the Jewish people and the Palestinians (and the Christians and Druze caught in between) who have lived there for generations ebbs and flows, as it has for the past century. I understand that emotions run extraordinarily deep about this conflict, and that a permanent solution is as likely as oil and water mixing. Still, that should not deter open-minded and balanced individuals from different ethnicities and religious traditions, including college students, from conversing and learning.
In the microcosmic world of AU, Jews and Muslims, regardless of their ethnic background, must continue to dialogue as they have in past years. Outside of Friedheim Quad, however, both sides have vilified one another disgracefully. Some Muslim circles call Jews a “tribe of pigs,” untrustworthy and stingy. The arguments of some elder Jews is that the Palestinians don’t have any right to this land; they are Bedouin wanderers who have no culture and have created no infrastructure. At the University of California Irvine, just days ago, 11 protestors from the Muslim Student Union were arrested for repeatedly interrupting a speech by Michael Oren, Israel’s ambassador to the United States. And one should not need to be reminded of the inhumane collective punishment enforced by Israel in Gaza just over a year ago — just read the Goldstone Report.
What should matter to AU students is that we work towards understanding one another. We needn’t solve the world’s problems — if we can overcome “otherizing” each other, we will have made progress in the path towards peace. The new Middle East Studies program has hinted at this dialogue since last fall, inviting various AU professors to present on hot topics. If we can’t talk about it, regardless of how out-of-reach a permanent solution might seem, how shall we progress at all?
I exhort the AU Muslim Students Association and Jewish Students Association to dialogue together, peacefully and respectfully. Let us enjoy Seder and Shabbat together and enjoy the Thursday evening halaqah together. Let us make an effort to involve those of the Jewish faith and those of the Muslim faith in service projects both on and off campus. We have all been hurt by the machines of hate fueled by the conflict in the Holy Land; let us continue to find common ground on which to stand so that our children do not perpetuate a legacy of hate.
Parevez Khan is a graduate student in the School of Public Affairs and the religion and international affairs columnist for The Eagle. You can reach him at edpage@theeagleonline.com.
