Bring the Israelis to AUC

The usually apathetic AUC student body is up in arms over reports that the university is seeking to normalize relations with Israel. Rumors that the AUC administration has invited a delegation of Israeli academics to campus, is considering adding an Israeli professor to its faculty, and may begin allowing study abroad exchanges with Israeli institutions of higher education--allegations that have been circulated in the national press--are galvanizing students to take action and stand up for what they believe in.

"Ahmed Abou Laban, an AUC alumnus who had often organized sit-ins, protests, and donation campaigns in support of political and humanitarian causes, was invited to help students set an action plan to protest Israelis at AUC," reported the AUC student newspaper The Caravan on Nov. 4. "The students will push for a written policy to not allow Israelis at AUC, said Abou Laban. On the other hand, if the administration votes for normalization with Israeli scholars, students will resort to sit-ins, strikes and communication with the local and international media."

Oh the irony of it. After hearing AUC students widely profess their disengagement from political issues and their belief that activism is futile and change happens only with time, if at all (and with a president like Mubarak running the country for past twenty-five years, who can blame them?), all this talk of sit-ins and and policymaking would be refreshing, were it for a different cause. This is the language of revolution, of self-empowerment and youthful optimism, and for it to come from the cigarette-sucking mouths of bored, Gucci-clad Egyptian désenchantés is an occurrence worth noting. And yet they are arming themselves for the same tired battle that the Arabs have been fruitlessly, stubbornly fighting for more than a generation, this Trojan War that these days is more about wounded pride than about stolen land or the disenfranchisement of the Palestinian people.

The president of AUC sent out a campus-wide email today assuring us all that the rumors are fallacious and that the university remains "an independent, non-sectarian, apolitical educational institution...[that] does not take positions on political or religious issues." It is not the task of any university, nor should it be, to espouse a particular set of beliefs, much less foist ideologies or dogmas on its students. But to go all the way in the other direction, to loudly and publicly disavow debate in such absolutist terms, is a betrayal of the fundamental role of an educational institution. What better forum than a university to host dialogue between sworn enemies, a nonpartisan no-man's-land where life-and-death issues can be discussed in thoroughly safe, academic terms? To be worthy of the mantle of premier university in the Middle East, AUC needs to overcome its fear of controversy and its limiting situation in an authoritarian state.

The current brouhaha shows us what a few well-placed rumors can do to stir even the most disaffected youths into action. I'd like to see what would happen if next semester brought with it a posse of poli sci professors straight off the plane from Tel Aviv.