The Blogs: NYU Colleagues Argue for Middle East Peace

After Hamas’s barbaric attacks on Israel on October 7, 2023, a colleague of mine at New York University whose first name is Ariane approached me at a crowded professional event and asked how I was doing. I was surprised yet touched; we’ve worked together for several years and never discussed politics.

She shared that she was born in Iran during the monarchy that preceded the current dictatorial theocracy and fled to the United States with her family in the 1980s. She recounted that friends of her family had been tortured and boiled alive for voicing their disagreements with the new regime. We related about our horror at the prospect of any democracy becoming a repressive regime. From the comfort of the United States, as imperfect as it is, at least we are entitled to our voices. I’m realizing how precious that privilege is.

Ariane and I zeroed in on Iran’s threat to annihilate Israel (its “little Satan”) on its way to decimating our home, the United States (its “great Satan”). It is hellbent on imposing its prohibition against free speech and the rights of women, minorities, and those who identify as LGBTQ+ in an expanding web of dictatorships throughout the Middle East and beyond.

After decades of attacking Israel through its proxies (e.g., Hamas, Hezbollah, the Houthis), Iran fired 300+ missiles at Israel during its April 13, 2024 attack – its first direct one. While Israel, the United States, and an array of European and Muslim-majority countries shot down most of the missiles, the road ahead appears to be a conflagration of ever-increasing violence. Meanwhile, the attacks from Iranian proxies continue to foment – with battles between Israel and its many enemies filling the skies with the choking smoke of darkness.

What can we do to stop this downward spiral into the imploding tunnels of hell? If the evil comes knocking on our door, where would we flee from our homes in New York? Who would hide us? How would we fight? Ariane was born in Iran, a predominantly Muslim country, and I a Jew, of Eastern European descent, in the Bronx. I am grateful to her for sparking this dialogue.
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Nancy: Where do you draw the line between freedom of speech and hate speech?

Ariane: I’m big on freedom. Freedom to say and do what we want is everything – with a caveat: as long as our freedom doesn’t harm or limit the freedom of others. Hate speech at a minimum diminishes the value of other people’s freedom, and often worse, is the cause of unrest and violence in society. Despite that, in Iran, people are speaking up and will continue to protest and speak up against the repressive regime. A filmmaker just escaped Iran, and his film won the jury prize at the Cannes Film Festival.

Nancy: How do you view democracy?

Ariane: We had a monarchy in Iran that, despite all the controversy about it, was a lot more democratic than the current oppressive regime. I don’t believe everyone has to have equal say. For example, if you’re brought to a hospital in an emergency, you don’t have equal say on best form of treatment along with your doctor; he/she is the expert. We all tend to want equal say on everything and that doesn’t work. Democracy for me means equal representation, equal rights, equal dignity, earned respect, and earned expertise.

Nancy: What do you think Americans take for granted?

Ariane: Many liberties. Having access to goods and services. So many resources. Other places in the world are fighting to have even a fraction of them.

Nancy: What was Iran like before your parents moved your family to the United States?

Ariane: I grew up in a society that was modern, progressive, and open. Then I watched it turn upside down, overnight.

Nancy: What was that like to experience?

Ariane: Freedom and democracy are fragile. They can be gone in what seems an instant. No one believed such an oppressive regime could last four months, much less more than four decades. Rights aren’t taken away all at once, but one by one. People get busy with the daily distractions, but lose sight of the bigger picture.

Nancy: How are women in Iran handling the way the current regime treats them?

Ariane: Women are fighting back. They find workarounds and tend to have two lives – public and private. Women will bring the much overdue and needed change. Women are mothers, daughters, sisters. They have a lot of influence and impact. Having to wear a scarf or other restrictions the regime pushes doesn’t hold women back and only emboldens the causes of women, life, and freedom. An Iranian woman, imprisoned for her stance, won the Nobel Peace prize.

Nancy: What are the protestors on campuses from New York to Sydney missing?

Ariane: The protestors at universities around the world are missing an awareness that they want free speech to support a group (Hamas) that is fiercely against free speech. They also hear one side on a megaphone that’s reaching them through social media and tuning out many realities. Iran and its proxies are celebrating the protesters in other countries. Yet in their own countries, protesters are imprisoned, even tortured or killed, for protesting.

Nancy: Why do you think playing the victim card is so effective?

Ariane: In general, people don’t want to see others hurt, we don’t want civilian casualties; we want a “fair” fight. The victim card works on some people, and a lot has to do with how people understand responsibility and how they assign blame.

You might wonder why Arab countries who verbally support the Palestinians aren’t actively trying to improve their situation. Also, why Jordan or Egypt don’t welcome Palestinians to move to their countries. The prevailing narrative is to blame Israel for the entire situation.

Nancy: In our conversations, you’ve mentioned a blindness to the hypocrisy of Hamas. What do you mean by that?

Ariane: Few people question why Hamas builds a city of tunnels under civilian locations and deliberately puts Palestinians in harm’s way. Few question why leaders of Hamas are at a 7-star resort far away from the conflict or why much of the funds received are not used to build schools, hospitals, roads, and other infrastructure.

There isn’t an emphasis on who started the attack on October 7 and why so many hostages were taken. This seems to have gotten lost in the narrative. Instead, Israel has been blamed for its strong response to being attacked.

Nancy: What do you mean by strong response? How about all the Palestinian deaths? We often hear the terms disproportionality and genocide in the fierce arguments against Israel’s response to the October 7 attacks – mostly on civilians.

Ariane: Israel is also being blamed for being better prepared in their response. The Palestinians, unfortunately, have more deaths because their population is put in harm’s way by Hamas. They also haven’t spent as much money on infrastructure, on training, on development; they used the money to build tunnels to attack Israel, to buy weapons to attack Israel. They’d have much better lives if they focused less on attacking Israel and more on their own development. All in all, whoever initiates an attack may receive a strong response back; if not prepared, then that’s on them.

Nancy: It’s such a heartbreaking situation. If you could share a message with the people of Gaza, what would it be?

Ariane: Peace can only be achieved with an open mind. An open mind is achieved through upbringing, education and the stand society takes to foster peace. It’s important to take responsibility, and look among yourselves for better leadership that doesn’t use terror. That takes hard work and making it a priority to improve lives rather than destroying them.

Nancy: What about now? That could take generations.

Ariane: With the current mindset, peace is not achievable. The hatred that has been brewing doesn’t just dissipate and those who want peace get attacked, both verbally and physically. Start with children – teach them different. Teach them to love and be open. Change the rhetoric in schools, in communities, and in families. Hit a reset button and stop carrying the heavy load from the past into the future you want to create.

Nancy: Yet Gazans, Iranians, and so many others around the world risk their lives – and their families’ lives too – to speak up. How does one do that?

Ariane: When quality of life is at stake, the risk is less, and it’s actually more of a risk not to do something. It is important to take a stand. It’s about who you choose to be when you’re alive. We all die. It’s our life, and it’s the examples we set that matter. None of us will last forever, but we can have an impact and we can be positively and often remembered.

Nancy: I’m inspired by our dialogue and heartened to know that we both desire peace. Any additional thoughts on how to achieve it?

Ariane: Peace depends on all parties moving toward it. Iran focuses on sabotaging this process through funding terrorism around the world, fueled by the Islamic Republic.

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This discussion is a reminder of the fragility of the rights we’ve come to take for granted. In the United States, we can go wherever and wear whatever and say whatever and date whoever we want.

Yet, we live in a world in which we constantly face enemies – and our ancestors have passed that mentality along to us from generation to generation; that’s all we know as a species. Also, we haven’t gotten past labeling one another. Ariane and I have our own identities that we respect in one other. But forces of evil will forever label her a Muslim and me a Jew in the most one-dimensional way – regardless of our personal beliefs. It’s as if we’re branded with what others call us versus how we see ourselves. It’s as if there’s only good and evil, oppressed and oppressor, colonized and colonizer. Why so black and white? How can we can see our fellow humans as multidimensional beings, leading with curiosity rather than hatred?

The mortal enemies in Northern Ireland and Ireland come to mind as people who came to some sort of truce. Some of Israel’s former enemies (e.g., Jordan, Egypt, the UAE) are now its trading partners. I want to encourage my readers who can have a voice to use it. To agree to disagree, with an open heart and outreached arms, to people from different backgrounds, with different perspectives, to find a way to co-exist. Call me an idealist, but I am hanging onto the strongest desire that we can all live in this world together – and not only use our voice, but also have our ears and use them.