The professor had gently urged his students to speak openly about what motivated them to sign up for his course on the Arab-Israeli conflict. Several had already spoken. Some were Arab students from the Gulf states, some were American Jews, some were immigrants to the United States from Iran, and some were even Americans of far more vintage stock.
"I watched the first tower come down. Then I fell down, also. I literally lost the ability to stand. I sat straight down on the floor in front of the television," an Israeli student, David Yitzhaki, told the class of about fifteen people. "That's when I understood," he continued, "the threat we were facing in Israel was the same that the rest of the world is facing today."
Even before he finished speaking, the classroom nearly exploded with vocal, and mostly very incensed, reactions. These were followed instantly by loud and forceful replies. And back again.
The professor leading the course, "Neighborly Relations: The Palestine Conflict", tried desperately to regain order. He banged on the table at the front of the room, trying to get someone's - anyone's - attention. It wasn't working.
This was meant to be a civil, intellectual discourse, with open exchange in a classroom environment, on the Arab-Israeli conflict. As an expatriate Jordanian, Professor Nazim Malik should have known better. "What an idiot I am," he thought to himself, shaking his head in exhaustion.
Because he was originally from an Arab state, yet also a member of the ethnic Circassian minority in that state, Malik was seen as a fairly neutral arbiter by his students. Although, truth be told, his Jewish students were more likely to credit him with neutrality; after all, ethnic minorities were still quite suspect in Arab states. But what the label "neutral" meant in practice was that students from either side of the issue were able to drag out his name in support of their particular point of view, while saying "even Professor Malik says...."
What it meant at the moment was that everyone was ignoring him.
The cacophony had reached a level that Malik started to call names in order to get a little quiet. At least on the written page, the Hebrew, Arabic and English names sat peacefully and quite silently next to one another. Hashim next to Rivka and Jeff. Ahmed below Jonathan, but above Erez. David next to Ayat and Fares, who was in turn next to Mark, Kimberly and Georges. It looked so nice on paper.
As students heard names being called, they suddenly remembered that there was, after all, a professor in the room. Despite his frustration, Malik didn't allow himself to show anything but a smile. And the smile wasn't entirely for show, either, as he genuinely enjoyed watching young minds in combat.
When the students learned - with his help, Malik thought - to muster evidence and formulate intellectually rigorous arguments, the debates among the students appeared to him as elegant as a finely choreographed Tai Chi exhibition. But this? This was World Wrestling Federation stuff - all bluster and no substance.
"Look," he finally said when there was silence in the room, "this is just our second session. Let's leave the debates until later in the course, okay?"
Then it was Hashim Shak'a's turn to speak.
"I am a Muslim, a Palestinian raised in Kuwait," he said, with an ever-so-slight accent, "and, as such, I have a built-in interest in this course." Then, turning in his seat to face David, who was behind him, he said, "And let me tell you about my experience of 9/11."
Hashim turned forward, looked at the professor, and continued, "On September 11, 2001, I was visiting family in Jenin. Now, I wasn't allowed to leave Jenin that day, because if I did, the Israeli soldiers imposing their 'hermetical' closure would've shot me. So, you'll forgive me if, for me, on that day, I felt more threatened by Jewish soldiers than Muslim ones."
Once again, the class erupted in comments, denunciations, cross-talk and finger-pointing.
Professor Malik mumbled to himself under his breath.
--*--*--*--*--
After a few more stormy introductory lessons - on the history of the region and its peoples - the class spent three sessions looking at Arab foreign policy and how it affected the "Neighbors" in question. David was not surprised to hear what most of the Arab and Muslim students had to say. Israel, for them, was responsible for everything that was not right in the Middle East, from Islamist internal terrorism to totalitarian dictatorships to repression of women.
During one class, the paranoia reached new heights when Hashim Shak'a stood up and loudly proclaimed that the blue stripes on the Israeli flag represent the Nile in Egypt and the Euphrates in Iraq, with the Jewish star in the center ruling over all of the Middle East.
"That is not true, Hashim," Professor Malik corrected him, "But let's stay away from polemics."
After the class, David even approached Hashim and explained to him that the blue stripes come from the thread that was traditionally tied onto the talit, the Jewish prayer shawl. To no avail, of course. David heard from a fellow student that Shak'a repeated the same Nile-Euphrates story in another class just two weeks later.
It was non-stop. It was purposeful. And it was relentless. Israel. Israel. The Zionists. Israel. Again and again.
Then there was Mahmoud Ghafour.
Generally, the guys from the Arabian peninsula - Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, etc. - came to the United States to let loose socially and religiously for four years. They partook of drugs, girls and alcohol, flashed around a lot of cash, and made a concerted effort to help each other slide through classes. Afterward, they generally returned to their conservative Islamic states with a framed document testifying to their having spent some time at a quality North American institution. With that in hand, they went on to join one family-run company or another created from oil profits.
They were not expected to behave like American students and become "activists" at the slightest provocation. And certainly not for the sake of any cause that would shed a negative light on their home countries.
But Ghafour was different. He didn't seem to know the unwritten rules. Or maybe he didn't care. Either way, his comments in the "Neighbors" class were enlightening, even for an Israeli like David Yitzhaki.
The young Saudi pointed out the failure of his home regime to allow even minority Muslim sects a voice; he criticized the Gulf states' contributions of funds to international terrorist organizations, even as they spoke out vehemently against domestic terrorists; he viciously attacked the repeated Saudi fear of public criticism over their disaster-ridden management of the Muslim pilgrimages to Mecca and Medina.
Ghafour also had a thought or two about the Saudi hypocrisy on Israel. He claimed that even as the Saudi leadership talked the talk - even publishing viciously anti-Semitic blood libels in major newspapers and encouraging Jew-hatred in the mosques - they found ways to do business with the Israelis. They ignored the Arab boycott when it suited them, he claimed, for motivations as base as the desire to stay at a particularly luxurious Swiss hotel, even if it was supposedly owned and operated by the Israeli Mossad.
These comments made most of his fellow Arab students, or at least those from the Gulf, quite uncomfortable. Sometimes, they tried to contradict what he said, but mostly they kept quiet. They knew exactly how much of what he said was true. But truth was not of paramount importance.
"You have to stop bashing Arab states," David overheard Hashim Shak'a lecturing Ghafour after one particularly intense class. "You are hurting your own people."
Mahmoud, Hashim and a third Arab student named Ahmed Tawfik were talking quietly in Arabic, but David caught enough of it to understand the gist of the conversation.
"I tell the truth," Ghafour countered.
"Truth?" Shak'a retorted angrily, "Truth is that our Arab people are dying thanks to Jews and Americans, and you are telling me - and more importantly, them," he gesticulated at the near-empty classroom, "about some minor infractions at home?"
"What has one to do with the other?" Ghafour insisted.
The physically small, but forceful, Shak'a looked Ghafour in the eye, and slowly said, "You are losing focus. You are serving the interests of the Zionists by drawing attention away from their massacres of our brothers, and toward Arab foibles. Some may think," he paused, "that you were doing it on purpose."
Tawfik latched his eyes onto Mahmoud's, with a hint of an impatient smile.
Ghafour looked down at his desk and went silent. He finished packing up his books and, without another word, walked out the door in long, brisk strides. Shak'a and his companion followed close behind at a more leisurely pace.
David remained seated a few rows back. It took him a moment to absorb what he had just witnessed.
And it wasn't over yet.
The following week, as Yitzhaki made his way into the building where the "Neighbors" seminar was held, he spotted Mahmoud Ghafour, Hashim Shak'a and Ahmed Tawfik. They reached the door simultaneously. David reached out and held the door for his classmates, smiled and theatrically waved them inside. They hesitated.
Then, Ghafour suddenly turned to David and said, in a voice loud enough so that everyone nearby could hear, "Listen, David. I am not a Zionist."
"Okay," David said haltingly, unsure what to make of this more-or-less obvious statement.
"Just because I say some things critical of my country doesn't mean I like Israel, or that I'm a Zionist," Ghafour elaborated.
"Okay," David repeated helplessly, still perplexed. His brow furrowed trying to think of a more intelligent retort.
"That's it," Ghafour said abruptly, glanced at Hashim and stepped through the door, which David was still holding open. Hashim and the other student followed right behind.
Yitzhaki was momentarily confused, but guessed that Mahmoud was hoping to prevent any pro-Israel students from getting too friendly with him. Or maybe it was shame. Maybe what Hashim told him last week made Ghafour honestly uncomfortable with how much he was talking about the Arab regimes. Or maybe making a public statement to a Jew about his anti-Israel credentials was a way for Mahmoud to ward off Hashim's implied threat from the week before.
Whatever the significance of his declaration to Yitzhaki, Ghafour didn't have many further insights on the Arab world after that.
On the other hand, Ghafour's last lesson was perhaps the most instructive of all.
