<p>Anyone interested in the impact of the outbreak of violence in the Middle East on the American University of Beirut should take a look at the following linked article in Inside Higher Ed. The American University of Beirut is chartered by the State of New York and accredited by the Middle States Association. John Waterbury, formerly of Princeton University, has been president since 1998.</p>
<p>Its terrible and especially because my dad studied there. I've seen the place and been there and it really is a great institution which offers great education. It saddens me to think that it might have to temporarily close.</p>
<p>Superwizard, AUB is a great institution and John Waterbury should be commended for his courage and the tremendous work he is doing in Lebanon to further American liberal arts education there. AUB is considered to be among the finest institutions to study international relations and Arabic. Now, it is "hot" and for all the wrong reasons. </p>
<p><a href="http://www.campus-watch.org/article/id/1233%5B/url%5D">http://www.campus-watch.org/article/id/1233</a></p>
<p>AUB students, which number many Americans, are wondering not only if they are going to have a university to go to in the fall, but if they do, whether or not to go back. One of my S' friends who is enrolled there left the country after spring semester exams and doesn't know what to do now.</p>
<p>This Inside Higher ed. article from July 17 gives an excellent overview of the fall out in the Middle East on the American University of Beirut as well as several other university centers in Lebanon and Israel all of which are affected by the outbreak of violence in the region.</p>
<p>Callie Lefevre, a student from Princeton University on the Arabic language study program, gives us a vibrant account of her summer experience at AUB, and the situation in Beirut, leading up to her safe evacuation from the region.</p>
<p>I think Callie sounds like a brain-washed naif. Or a sanctimonious, self-absorbed little twit. Take your pick. Reading these essays makes it clear why Beirut is the destination-of-choice for Juan Cole, when he wants to get the "real" Middle East picture.</p>
<p>
[quote]
Nasrallah said that any Lebanese mother could understand Hezbollah's action, if she imagined it was her child in the Israeli prison. This was the only way to get her child back. The international community ignored the existence of these Lebanese prisoners, so Hezbollah had no other way to gain leverage than through this game of "prisoner-swapping".
[/quote]
[quote]
Why had Israel decided to change the rules? Because that's exactly what they did. And that night, Hezbollah realized that they had to play by different rules. Israel threatened to bomb Beirut itself, so Hezbollah said they would fire rockets at Haifa if Israel hit Beirut. But then, mysteriously, two rockets were fired at Haifa, and Hezbollah denied responsibility. At that point, I was furious enough to think that Israel had fired them itself, in order to be "justified" in hitting Beirut.
[/quote]
[quote]
At this point, I was so enraged at the general conduct of my government, I wasn't sure I could trust them to get us out. They had supported Israeli's bombardment of Lebanon under the aegis that it "has the right to defend itself". They had just vetoed a ceasefire. How could they conduct a safe evacuation without a ceasefire? Why would we not become legitimate targets of anyone as angry at American foreign policy as I was becoming? If Lebanon was crying for a ceasefire, WHY DIDN'T OUR GOVERNMENT AGREE TO IT? Why would anyone, EVER, not explore the possibilities of diplomacy in any given war? I couldn't see the faces of Bush or Condoleeza Rice without turning away in shame.
[/quote]
[quote]
So the Ivies had all purchased first class tickets out for their students and students from other colleges and universities would have to wait for the American embassy to get its act together. Our evacuation had all the class divisions of the Titanic. Qualms about unequal privilege were just part of what made the decision to go with SOS difficult. First, leaving Beirut now meant that I was accepting that this war would continue to ravage the city, and not just blow over by Monday morning as we had originally thought.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Out of curiosity--and a personal history of my own in visiting the Middle East--I decided to check up on how some of the Israeli colleges/universities are faring. I wonder why we don't have valley-girl Princeton students crying a river about their plight. I've never been able to visit Israel, but always wanted to. However, having an Israeli visa stamped into my passport would have made travel in Arab countries impossible, at a time in which my family needed to do so.<br>
<a href="http://www.technion.ac.il/%5B/url%5D">http://www.technion.ac.il/</a>
[quote]
2 Av 5766
July 27, 2006.
To: The Technion Community
From: The President of the Technion
A week has passed since we reopened our doors after we were closed for a week
following missile attacks on Haifa. This was a difficult week during which a number of
times a day the eerie sound of the siren pierced our peace and quiet, and the boom of
missiles could be heard clearly, sometimes in the distance and sometimes very close by.
Missiles fell not far from the Neve Shaanan campus and also near the Faculty of
Medicine in Bat Galim.
Many of you have approached me and the administration asking if it was the right
decision to reopen the Technion while a missile threat still exists in Haifa. There is no
simple right or wrong answer to this question. The considerations pro and con concerning
continuing Technion activities are weighty. I, together with the administration, believe
that it is the right thing for the Technion to continue to operate, even if only partially,
especially since we have no way of knowing how long the present situation will last.
As a public institution, we operate in accordance with the guidelines and instructions of
the Home Front Command, which has explicitly instructed a return to work. This
reinforces our feeling that it is import for the Technion to continue its activities even in
this difficult period, and that returning to work contributes to our feeling of personal well
being. Returning to work also has practical significance. Despite the recurring
interruptions and changes resulting from the sirens and psychological stress in which we
all find ourselves, many important activities were carried out this week at the Technion.
For example: preparations continued for renewing exams and the summer semester,
registration for the coming academic year is at its height, we took care of various student
matters, we worked on paying August salaries, and many other, varied activities.
We are aware of the enormous difficulties some of our employees have in getting to
work. In spite of these difficulties, during the last week, more than 50% of our employees
came in. I am proud of them and their important contribution to the Technion.
We do not know what conditions will be in Haifa next week. We hope that the
emergency situation will end and we can return to our normal routine, without sirens and
missiles falling. If the current situation goes on, the Technion will continue to operate in
its present format.
I will you all Shabbat Shalom, a peaceful weekend and a speedy end to the emergency
situation.
Sincerely,
Yitzhak Apeloig
[/quote]
University of Haifa seems to have a continuously-updated "security" link too. Can't imagine why.
<a href="http://haifa.ac.il/index_eng.html%5B/url%5D">http://haifa.ac.il/index_eng.html</a></p>
<p>Wow Driver, strong reaction to a 20 year old. Callie Lefevre is a young girl who wrote beautifully of her experience. My daughter's political opinions often differ from mine and I don't think of her as brainwashed or a self-absorbed little twit. She is young. Agree with her or not, Ms. Lefevre's piece is worth reading.</p>
<p>Not only is it worth reading, it is worth commenting on. I didn't say otherwise.</p>
<p>The "self absorbed twit" is what got me and seemed a bit harsh....not the idea of general commentary. Your comments are always worth reading.</p>
<p>That was a little harsh, I apologize. I'm bothered that the kids at AUB seem to be getting one side of the story. They deserve better. You're right though, EE, my reflexive comments were over the top. And I'm always the first to defend the conservative kids on CC who get castigated by their elders for being young twits. Mea culpa.</p>
<p>Driver: I have known Callie LeFevre for years. She is a friend, although not a super-close one, of my child's. No one, but no one, who has met her would describe her as a "brain-washed naif", a "self-absorbed twit", or a "valley girl". She is very smart, judicious, caring, outgoing, serious; she has enormous respect both from her peers and from the adults in her community (which, by the way, includes plenty of people with strong ties to Israel). You can't wish away her experiences and perspective.</p>
<p>By the way, I know the State Department used to issue double passports to people who wanted to travel both to Israel and to countries in the Arab world. I also thought that the Israelis would, on request, eschew stamping a passport and issue some other visa documentation. I don't know if any of that still happens post-9/11, but I know plenty of people who have travelled in Israel and Arab countries (but not necessarily Syria, Iran, or Saudi Arabia) in the past few years.</p>
<p>Having already rendered my apologia for firing both barrels at Ms. Lefevre earlier, I'll now continue with my original intended theme. She writes well. She should flesh out her experience in the Middle East before extrapolating her college trips to Beirut into a major thesis on the region's conflicts and US foreign policy. I've not been to the Middle East personally since the Carter era--when I wasn't much older than her--but you could definitely not get into those three countries you mentioned (where I did go--particularly Saudi) back in those days, if you had an Israeli stamp in your passport. Perhaps Iran prior to the embassy crisis--but Iran is not, nor was it then, an Arab country, btw, but the point remains. People who needed to travel freely throughout the Middle East and parts of Northern Africa didn't have Israeli visas stamped in their passports.</p>
<p>I realize that you had apologized. I didn't mean to pile on, only to indicate, on the basis of my personal experience, that your characterization was not only premature, but substantively wrong. As for fleshing out her Middle East experience, I read tons of pontification on the region's conflicts by people who have not spent as much time in a country other than Israel, living with residents, as Callie has. And I know for a fact that she talks on a regular basis to people who have spent meaningful time in Israel -- some (not all) of whom would even tend to agree with her.</p>
<p>Yes, of course, it was wrong to include Iran in the "Arab country" parenthetical. Sorry, Iranians! (The parenthetical as first drafted referred only to Saudi Arabia, but then I added Syria and Iran because I figured the issue probably existed there, too, and forgot that I had said "Arab". My point was both to acknowledge that a serious issue exists, and to indicate that there are ways to deal with it other than boycotting Israel.)</p>
<p>
[quote]
on the basis of my personal experience, that your characterization was not only premature, but substantively wrong.
[/quote]
I'm going to demur on part of that point. Her on-the-scene reporting was well done. It was her conclusions that made her sound like a naif and a valley girl.</p>
<p>In light of the above comments, I re-read Ms. LeFevre's article and still come away with a sense of deep appreciation not just of her ability to capture on paper the riveting details of sound, smell and even taste connected to her truncated stay in Beirut but of her incredibly fine articulation of just what this experience meant to her on a very personal level. In an opinion piece that plays on the namby-pamby theme of "what I did on my summer vacation" from a rising sophomore who went to Beirut with the lofty purpose to skip 2nd year Arabic, I hardly expect a thesis on U.S. politics or the situation in the Middle East, and I sincerely doubt that that is what this piece pretends to offer its readers. The only thing that Ms. LeFevre might be rightfully accused of is a maudlin ending to an otherwise well-written account of her experiences.</p>
<p>I also doubt that most people give short shrift to the plight of all students and faculty at all the other universities caught in the current crisis whether they be in Lebanon or Israel. As far as AUB is concerned, there are numerous reasons why so much attention is focused on how the events unfolding at present affect this university in particular.</p>
<p>This web exclusive Newsweek -MSNBC article covers the impact of the Mideast crisis on students caught in the middle on both sides:</p>
<p>Inside Higher ed. piece comparing and contrasting the plight of the universities caught in the Middle East crisis to the impact of Katrina in the higher ed. in the States. AUB is given particular attention because it is a U.S. chartered university.</p>
<p>NYTimes article on the American University of Beirut and the challenge to presevere. There are currently about 7,200 students currently enrolled at AUB.</p>
<p>Concordia University and the University of Montreal are re-opening closed admissions processes to fast-track qualified Canadian and foreign students who might not have a place to study come the fall. "Some other universities, including McGill in Montreal, are trying to defer admission for students having difficulty getting to Canada for the start of classes next month." </p>
<p>
[quote]
The universities can't guarantee that the course credits earned in Canada will later be transferable to foreign institutions but the American University in Beirut, an English-language institution with nearly 7,000 students, said students wishing to register at other schools can take credit for their courses as long as they have prior approval.</p>
<p>The American University condensed its summer semester but has continued to operate during the bombardment.</p>
<p>In a statement posted on the university website, acting president George Tomey said they will go ahead with courses slated for the fall.
[/quote]
</p>