Young Americans and Egyptians talk, but don't see eye to eye

From jihad to occupation – East and West define the basic terms of the Middle East debate differently.

from the May 9, 2007 edition

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One young American stood up and said he'd had friends killed in Iraq and that he couldn't countenance the notion that all American soldiers are fair game.

But his Egyptian listeners hardly batted an eye.

"They would support fighting occupiers in their country, wouldn't they?" asked Mohammed Orabi, an Egyptian student. "To them jihad means fighting, but to Muslims jihad means any kind of struggle against injustice or to be a better person."

The crisis between Israelis and Palestinians was a constant backdrop to discussion. American participants found it hard to understand local support for the Islamic militant group Hamas, which conducts operations against Israeli soldiers as well as civilians.

Yes, killing civilians is wrong, but Israel kills civilians, too, said an Egyptian.

An American woman responded that Israel doesn't do so intentionally and Hamas does.

Well, said a chorus of Egyptians, it certainly looks as if Israel tries to kill civilians to us.

Such debate prevented an ambitious goal of the gathering: a joint condemnation of terrorism at the end of the conference. In the end, there was no common ground on how to define terrorism.

The conference did end with a series of agreement to work on more such programs and efforts from both sides to understand the complexities at work in the other's society.

Organizer Rashad said that some of the tense moments at the beginning of the conference "acted as a confirmation of the stereotypes they held going in," particularly for some of the Americans.

But, he said, as the conference wound down both sides got a chance to socialize together and build relationships, which is the real value of such efforts. "When they were touring together, it was really inspiring to me that the people who were yelling at each other about the definition of terrorism the day before were going to the pyramids and taking goofy pictures of each other," he said.

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