Dr. James Zogby

Viewpoint Episode & Transcript: 08/21/08

Posted on Friday August 29, 2008

Jim Zogby: Hi.
I’m Jim Zogby.
Welcome to a special edition of “Viewpoint.”
Tonight we’ll be talking about a group of Middle Eastern and north African students participating in the University of Delaware.
Funded by the Middle East Partnership Initiative, a program that exposes undergraduate students from the Arab world to contemporary American life.
It empowers them to take leadership positions when they go home.
Candidates in the program are nominated by U.S. embassies and selected by the State Department.
The students participate in seminars and round tables that cover politics, society, economics, history and culture.
I interviewed the students in 2006, and I am delighted to have a groove back this year.
Thanks for being with us.
We had a chance to talk a little bit before we started the program, and I just wanted to start in kind of where we were in the conversation we had in the room.
First thing I would like to do is do a sort of hands-up/hands-down.
How many of you come away from these six weeks with a better impression of America than before?
How many have a worse impression than before?
How many about the same?
Ok.
So the program did improve.
Tell me what you — if you could.
I would like to start with you.
What did you expect when you came?
What were you expecting to find about this country when you came that maybe changed as you were here for a while?

Student: Actually, I didn’t expect American people to be as friendly as they are.
I expected silence.
I expected that they hate Arabs and they won’t deal with us in the proper way.

JZ: And what did you find?

Student: The other way around, the opposite.

JZ: Somebody, you were telling me before that when you were in New York, you were shocked with how people were greeting you?

Student: Even when we first arrived, staying here in D.C., just random people in the hotel would talk to us about where are you from.
Is it true that you guys live in tents?
Or do you have cars or some things like that.
And when we tell them that we do have houses, we do have cars, they would be shocked, and then they would apologize because they didn’t know, and it was the media and all of that.

JZ: Back there.
You are from Israel?

Student: That’s right.

JZ: An Israeli-Arab.
Where are you from?

Student: I am from the center of Israel.

JZ: And what differences were there here that you found from what you had expected?

Student: Actually coming from Israel, I didn’t see that much of a difference.
Like when I walked from the airport, I was like this is America?
I expected something bigger.
I have to admit that when we got to New York, it was so much not like Israel because everything was bigger, the buildings, even the portions of food, everything was big.
But it wasn’t that big.
We have almost the same culture.
We take things for granted like recycling, driving, speed limits, all the simple stuff that we have in common can prove that we are not that different.
What I was actually surprised about was when I saw those things are not taken for granted in Arab countries.
Recycling is not taken for granted, enforcing the speed limits there in the streets or highways.

JZ: You are from Dubai?
Student: Yes, I am.

JZ: And that is big.
Getting to be like New York?

Student: Getting there.

JZ: When you were in New York, and you are looking back at Dubai, what reflections came back in your head?
Do you want to end up looking like that?

Student: Before getting to New York I was thinking to myself is it going to be similar?
What are the similarities that I will find between Dubai and New York?
Many people hen they compare die by to any other city internationally, they would compare it to London, New York.
New York was overwhelming, busy all the time.
Many people walking down the street.
It was very, very much fast-paced.
When I thought of Dubai, I don’t want Dubai to get to where New York is right now.
I want some parts of it to be like New York, but in and out all of Dubai.
I want to have traditional and quiet places you can escape to and feel that you are in a country or a city from the Gulf.
I would say I want it somewhere in between.
Somewhere in places like down Dubai where the bridge it, I want that place to be very busy like New York, and I want other places to slow down a bit more.

JZ: Who found the differences so great that it was uncomfortable almost?
Any of you?
So you were comfortable with what you found?
And did you like it?

Student: Do you mean the United States?

JZ: In general, yes.

Student: Of course I like it.
I usually don’t like crowds because back home I live in a very small village.
But the crowd of New York, it is just different.
It is a crowd, but it is organized somehow.
The streets, the lights, the people, the cars, everything is organized somehow.
Since this is my first time traveling, everything seems different — not different, but it was very good to see all of this — these places here.

JZ: You are from Palestinian, from Nabos?

Student: Yes.

JZ: And it has been going through a difficult time this summer?

Student: Yes.

JZ: Did you hear from family while you were here?
What was it like knowing the difference between the two worlds, it is one you came from and the one here.
Did people you think understand who you are and what your situation is like?

Student: Do you mean here?

JZ: Yes.

Student: I found that not all people know about it.
I thought it was very popular and fame because we are always on it is news in the conflict.
When you hear the news, they say Palestine, and we say no, Gaza.
Some people say you live the hard life.
We are just hoping to have our state and to be independent one day.

JZ: Did you find that Americans knew as much as you thought that they might know?
I mean it is the superpower in the world.
They are heavily involved throughout the region.
Or did you find them just not as aware as you wanted them to be?

Student: According to the political people, they were aware.
But the youth, I guess they are not aware enough about the other situations in the world.
She expected to know more about Palestinian.

JZ: Who here felt that Americans knew enough about you?
Or felt that they just didn’t know at all?
Let me go back here.

Student: I have some cases where I was very shocked.
First when we were talking like this, an American boy.
I told him I am from Morocco.
Once we were talking like this, and this is the Morocco.
The third one that was a shot to me.
There was one place in Morocco which produced the things, and just before I go, I have a comment.
I want to say we do respect the laws.
The next generation and our generation in the Arab world know the speed limits, and we respect that.
We know that the law has been made to be respected.
Thank you.

JZ: About the question of what Americans know and don’t know, the big issue, of course the United States feels Americans aren’t understood in the Middle East.
If you were to put it on the scale, do Arabs know less about Americans than Americans know about Arabs, or is it about the same?
Let’s start with do Americans know less about Arabs?

Student: Yes.

JZ: Or do Arabs know less than Americans.
Let’s start here.

Student: We are probably always accusing the American people that they don’t know anything about us.
But it really depends on who you talk to.
Some people know a lot.
It is just the same as I was.
Some people know a lot about American citizens, and some don’t.
By nature our people are very emotional, and they are rarely —not rarely — but they don’t always say their statements.
It is more on emotions and impressions.
One thing we will do when we go home is you might not like the American foreign policy, but the key — you would say I have been there, done this, and I have talked to these people, and I can say this as a fact.

JZ: You wanted to say something?

Student: About the thing that American people don’t know about us?

JZ: Yes.

Students: Thanks to the media, we know about Americans quite a lot, but they don’t know real facts about us.
So I think that we might know a little bit more than they might know about us.
That is all I wanted to say.

JZ: Just to extend on what she was talking about, definitely we know more about the Americans because of the media and the movies we watch or the TV shows.
I watch more TV shows and American movies, and it is our fault at the same time that Americans don’t know much about us because we are not doing a very good job when it come to media-wise, in portraying who we really are, what we are about, and our culture and personalities.
We are leaving it to the western media to cover it and reflect our story, and it is not always the best story that gets covered.

JZ: You are from Syria?

Student: Yes.

JZ: And that is a country that has that has had a problem with the United States.
Did you find that as people knew you were Syrian.
Did people treat you differently than for example somebody from Morocco or somebody from Algeria where there are no foreign policy issues.
We were kidding in the back room.
How did that play out?

Student: Actually it played out in airports.
When the security officers would see I am from Syria.
I would like to write essays.
Every time I would go to the airport in the United States, I would write some kind of essay.
It differs from airport to airport, and it is a serious procedure.
It only affected me in the airports.

JZ: Who got searched in the airports?
Who didn’t?
About half and half.

Student: I was searched in France.

JZ: I actually got stopped in France and Germany because I had a Syrian Virginias in my passport.
There is a list.
Let’s close this section out right now because we are going to take a break and come back in a second.
I just want to have you think about something.
Were you able to think about ways that you could, in the long term — I know you have projects to do back home — but projects in the long time.
If you had an idea that could help Americans understand Arabs, having learned from this experience, what would it be?
We will come back in a second and talk about it and hear from a couple of you about that.
Stay tuned.
We will be right back.

JZ: We are back, and I’m talk to go a group of students from the Arab world participating in an American studies and leadership program from the University of Delaware funded by the United States Middle East partnership initiative.
When we ended the last segment, we were talking about ideas they might have picked up while here about how they could help Americans better understand the Arab world and people, now that they are going back home, ideas they might suggest.
You said you had an idea?

Student: I have an idea.
The problem that changed our point of view about the Americans and America.
Maybe the United States would arrange for the same program, like the opposite, from the United States to the Middle East.
Maybe one program in the media, like a channel in the Middle East on TV.

JZ: What country are you from?

Student: I am Palestinian, but I live in Qatar.

JZ: Would they find the same thing?
Would American students come back from the Arab world saying I didn’t expect them to be so friendly and open?

Student: Absolutely, because the Arab world is known for hospitality.
That is what I think the people who would go there.

JZ: Is it different with generations?
Did you find American young people different than American older people?

Student: Absolutely.
Most of the terrorists from the Arab world are from the older people, not from the youth.
If we take 15 teams of young people to the Arab world, they would talk about it and let other people know about it.

JZ: Ok.
You had something?

Student: The exchange program, that American people come to our country, Egypt also, and I’m sure that they would change their ideas.
Something like making TV programs that are broadcasted in the American television, and that would be good to make the American people change their ideas about our people.

JZ: Yes?

Student: Actually, when I came to the states, I had a lot of ideas and stereotypes which have changed, and things that have not changed.

JZ: What was the stereotype that you had when you came?

Student: Before we came here, I was warned by my mom, for example, like you might be shot because that is what they see on movies.
And from other people they say yeah, you are going to brainwash you now, and you are going to come back Americanized.
And then after we have been here and spending six weeks at the University of Delaware, and seeing the diversity of the United States, we have been to Plainfield, Massachusetts, and to the opposite like New York.
But what I wanted to say about how Americans could change their points of view of the Arab world, many people, especially the youth, they don’t care a lot about what is happening outside of America.
Many of them have their iPods and their lives here in the United States.
I think we should reach those people on the internet and focus on those people.
Like we have some international channels that broadcast in English, but those people don’t have it because they have cable TV, and cable TV doesn’t broadcast those channels.
But American youth should try to start listening to the outside world.

JZ: You talk about the violence issue.
We did a poll — it was during the civil war in Lebanon.
We polled in the U.S., and we polled in Lebanon, and we asked a bunch of questions, which society respects family values more.
One of the questions was which country is more violent, and Americans of course thought Lebanon was more violent because it was in the middle of a civil war, and it is Lebanese thought America was more violent because at the time there were like 20,000 Americans shot dead each year from handgun violence, not to speak of dying in other ways.
It is a violent country, and it is an issue that we have not come to grips with in our way.
But your impressions changed.
Let me hear from you.

Student: Well, concerning the buildings and the cities, I used to see all those things on TV.
Actually what we really discovered it the good side of American people.
They are very good persons.
They are just like us.
We have difficult cultures and different religions, but we are all humans, and we share good values.

JZ: Let me hear about some of your projects.
I know that you have projects that you have to do when you go back.
Talk to me about yours?
These are projects that are part of the program that you will take back and will implement them once you are back in your country?

Student: Since I am from Algeria which is too much related to France, it is rare where you can find people who speak English.
What I am going to do — it will be like an English club to teach people English.
The world’s universal language is English.
I want to get Algerians out of the French culture.

JZ: Can I tell you a story?
When I first studied Arabic in 1968 — that’s how old I am — I got a grant to go to the University of Pennsylvania to do an advanced sort of language study program.
All the students in my program were Algerian.
It was that soon after independence, and they were just learning their own language, and the joy that they had in learning their own language was great.
I never forgot that.
It was quite stunning to me.
What is yours?

Student: My project is similar.
It is about literature.
I do teach at my university, I do teach classes in English for my colleagues.
Now I want to expand this idea and have more people to teach them English.
Back home I am involved in the English society club, and we have certain people working with us.
So the idea is let these people, along with other people, to attend these classes and learn something in English.
Because a lot of my friends need to learn English.
That’s going to take a few months, three or four months, to teach this group something.
The other part of my project is to have this group of 30 or 40 or whatever number of people and get them to volunteer.
I am a member of an organization for blind people.
My idea is to do something with this group to help blind people.
Reading is very difficult, and books are very expensive.
The organization I am with, they have only the holy Koran books.
I am thinking about teaching my people how to speak English.

JZ: We had a project with the environment.
Did you want to talk about that a little?

Student: My project is about the environment because I am studying environmental engineering.
We have a lot of universities in my country.
It is a small country, but you have between 32 to 35 local and private universities.
We have a ministry of environment, but it is a new one, so it’s not active a lot.
I want write a proposal to each company that sells Coca-Cola, or Pepsi, or plastic companies, to write a proposal to them to fund this project to make a recycling station.
I want to divide Jordan into three parts – middle, north and south – and get 10 units in each part and make a recycling station in each part.

JZ: Anybody else have something they want to share with us?
Yes?

Student: My project is about leadership course for children between the ages of seven and 10.
What I am trying to do is to expose them to new things, to get as much experience as they can get as they grow up.
To apply what I have learned here in my country.

JZ: And you?

Student: I’m from Palestine, so I am going to be — Palestine, so I am going to be working with my colleagues with children.
We live in a hard situation, and we want the Palestinian children to experience like a normal childhood as much as we can away from violence and occupation.
Most of their games are ok, you are an Israeli, I am a Palestinian, and we will fight.
Or they buy toys that look like guns and fight with them.
We want them to experience a normal childhood like everyone else.
That’s what we are going to be working on.

JZ: How difficult is it for the two of you to see each other when you are there in terms of distance?

Student: In terms of distance, it is not far, but factoring in the checkpoints, it could take forever.
Going through checkpoints depends basically on the mood of the soldier.
If he had a bad day or a fight with his girlfriend or something, I’m not going through that day.

JZ: You come from all parts of the Arab-year-old.
The situation with the Palestinians, is that something you knew about, or did you learn about it from your colleagues on this trip?

Students: I never knew about the check points, to be honest with you.
I knew about the Israeli and Palestinian conflict.
But since it is not affecting us directly, I never knew about the checkpoints.
When I heard about the difficulties they go through, even when they go to the university, they have to wake up at 5:00 A.M. to get to university by 9:00 A.M.
And they have to think about the checkpoints they have to go through and the things they have to take.
When I heard about it, I was shocked, and I am much more sympathetic.

JZ: Hands up.
Who learned more about the Palestinians on this trip?
Back here?

Student: I live in Israel, practically next door.
I see the news coverage every single day, and the media coverage.
It is not as bad as some talk about.
They are talking about checkpoints, sitting there for six hours, or not getting into their universities without getting searched.
I live next door, and I don’t know about the stuff because the media does not cover it. I watch the Israeli channels and news, and there is no coverage.

JZ: My son wrote an article about 15 years ago comparing the situation here in Washington, which is divided as a white city on one side and a black city on the other side.
He was in a place in west Jerusalem, and he was saying 10 minutes away is one side, and the kids here on the Israeli side have no idea what is going on there, just like kids in white Washington have no idea what goes on every day in black Washington.
But you had a chance to educate your fellow Arabs about a situation they did not know about before.

Student: Actually, this is my first time to travel abroad.
This was the most difficulty I have ever had.
Student: I went from one country to another, and it took me 12 hours driving by buses, cars, and working through checkpoints.
I had to go through the Palestinian points, Israeli points and then the Jordan points.
We Palestinians, everybody knows that we are the people coming here.
We had to get a permit to go to Jerusalem, and we had to have the interview to get the visa and the passport.
It took a long time to get the visas.
It was a good opportunity for us to know more.

JZ: Let’s go away from Palestine in a minute and talk about other parts of the Arab world that you got familiar with that you hadn’t been familiar with before this trip.
Anybody?
Give her the microphone.

Student: Actually, just to add something concerning the Arab world and who got to come and who was late.
We don’t have a single Iraqi student from of all the Arab world.
Or the Libyans.
I think we have one.
But I am talking about Iraq, and their situation.
Young Iraqis can come and live the experiences we are living.

JZ: I have had young Iraqis on earlier shows the two other times we have done this show.
They haven’t been able to appear on camera for fear of going home.
You had something back here?
No?
There is somebody else?
You wanted to say something?

Student: Regarding the first question you had about the Palestinians and the Israeli conflict.
I thought I knew a lot about it because I took some classes like political science, and what happened and the history of the Middle East and all that.
But I didn’t really like — until I met her, I didn’t know that there were some Arabs there living that would say that they are Israelis.
I thought that would be like something that is impossible for any Arab person.
But getting to know like the group, I learned a lot about every country in here.
The region is not that big, but at the same time maybe you live your whole life without being in some of the countries there.
Being with this group and living with them for like a month and a half made me realize things about each and every one of them and their countries.

JZ: I have a homework project for you.
When I did my doctoral dissertation on the Arabs in Israel —and they are not known — I did it from 1948 to 1967.
I worked with Mahmoud when I was still in Israeli, and Zaed, their poetry, and it will give you a real feeling about the Arabs and this community, what they did and how they feel about their homeland.
You had something?

Student: When we went to the American embassy in Cairo, the woman who was working on the leadership program told us that there are no Iraqi students in the program because of the illegal immigration in the United States.
So they gave the opportunity to the Egyptian students to participate in this program and to attend the leadership program. That is why there are no Iraqi students in the program.

Student: I think actually they were supposed to have come.
They were supposed to come from all eight.
The last two weeks, and the other two.
And the person who was in charge in the American embassy in Morocco, she told us that they canceled the Iraqi group.

JZ: Listen, we are about to take a break.
I want to come back in a minute.
What I want to talk about is what was the big story while you were here, and that is the U.S. presidential election.
I want to get your take on it, the issues you think are important in it, and how you felt it was being covered while you were here.
So we will be back in a minute.
Stay tuned.

JZ: I am Jim Zogby, and you are watching Viewpoint.
We are talking about a group of students as part of the leadership studies at the University of Delaware.
We have been talking about what they have learned while they were here and some of the projects they are going to bring with them when they go back home.
But I want to talk to them now about what they felt about the big story that was going on in the states while they were here.
Funny, the group that was here in 2006 — it was Lebanon was being destroyed.
Gaza was being strangled.
Iraq was being wrecked with the war that was going on, and the war had taken a different turn at that point in 2006.
It was into the ethnic cleansing.
But the big story was a young girl on one of the islands who had gone summer vacation and were missing.
The kids were horrified.
They say people are dying in the Arab world, but Americans aren’t following it at all.
But the big story this year has been the elections.
I just want to get your reaction to it, what you thought about the way it was covered and the issues that were covered.
Let’s start with the way the election was covered.
Has this election been — is it of interest to you?
Not just because of the candidates, but generally, is this election of interest to you?

Student: I think we learned to be more interested in it.
We had great lectures about constitutional rights and that sort of thing.
We learned the story about America.
We are actually concerned about the elections.
So it has to be of interest to us, because each of our countries has something to do with the American elections.
So I guess it is of interest to us.
We learned more about it.
We learned how it is Democratic, the Republican Party all the — I don’t know what to say — all the official stuff about it wasn’t really known.
Actually, I didn’t know much about it, and it got me more interested to know more about it.

JZ: Did you learn about the process the same way?
For many Americans it is in the air.
They feel the elections are coming.
There are a whole lot of Americans who don’t even care and some don’t even know at this point who the candidates are.
What experience did you have with the elections while you were here?

Student: I was interested in the political issues because I am studying political science.
Before I came, I was interested in the American elections, and I was following what was happening.
With Professor Magee, he extended to us more details of the elections.

JZ: Of how it worked?

Student: Yes.

JZ: Do you see the Barack Obama election as interesting?

Student: Yes.

JZ: Tell me why.
What about it is interesting to you?

Student: One of the purposes of the program is to empower the youth and enforce the fact that a young individual even by himself can make a difference.
I believe the youth is not very much in the election, but once he is involved, he can make a difference and can improve and make the image of the United States much better and brighter in the eyes of the Arab world.
And I think it would be vice versa.
The image of the Arab world would be better in the eyes of America as well.
JZ: Here, and then we will go to you.

Student: I think that those elections are one of the most important American elections ever because the American image all over the world has been like it is now one of the worst images in the history of America through the past eight years.
A lot of people now are anxiously following what is happening on those elections because they are looking and seeking for a change to happen and to change it is American foreign policies.
The second thing is in those elections, there is a black president, and this is a big change for America.
Is it ready now for a black president?

Student: Actually, one of the programs — program’s purpose and the homework back home is to improve the American image in the Arab world.
So if they get a representative that can help us in that homework, I would be so happy.
If we get another Bush, this will complicate our homework more and more, I think.

JZ: Many people back in the Arab world, speaking from my personal experience, they look at Senator Barack Obama as the reflection of change, as the person who will bring change.
I have a friend who told me don’t you dare come back to Dubai without an Obama T-shirt with you.
So even people who have nothing to do with America directly are also very much interested in and want a change for the United States in order to affect the foreign policy of the states with the Arab countries most importantly.

JZ: There are some who think that — here in the Muslim community — who think that he has been running away from his middle name and sort of distancing himself from his past.
Did you feel that?
Did you feel that people felt that?
Has that been something that affected you, or that you thought about or that bothered you at all?
Anybody want to comment on that?
Let’s go to you.

Student: Actually, if he was doing that, I wouldn’t really care.
I know that most people don’t have the positive image of Islam that he is running from.
I know he’s a smart guy, and he is just doing that maybe to get the advantage or to get a plus for his campaign for the election.
I am not allowed to vote here, but I wish we had the opportunity.
I am like supporting him, and I know he will give America a very positive image in the Middle East.
We really need a fresh person back there because America doesn’t have a very good image in the Middle East pause of all of the conflict it has with Arabic countries.

JZ: Let me go to you.

Student: We learned through discussions with American kids that were interested is the complex system about voting and the electoral college, and popular vote.
People do elect their president, but oh, they don’t.
It was really interesting to discover this system.
In most of our countries, all of them except Lebanon, which is struggling to be some kind of democracy, this whole process of voting and being involved and engaged in the process all together is complex.
It would be interesting to examine the system and how the administration of the process has a lot to do with who actually gets elected regardless whether the people want them, more or less.

Student: Talking about religion, when you mentioned religion, the way Obama was accused of being a Muslim shows how sensitive people are here about religion, how people might be just so uncomfortable because he might be a Muslim, he is black, his father is Kenyan.
No, he must not be our president.
This is declared scandalous.
We must look at the person deep inside.

JZ: Let’s come down here.
Get her the microphone.
I spoke at the American university of Cairo this year, and in my talk I noted that in Germany they had done a poll where 82% of Germans favored Obama.
But I said if a son of a Kenyan with the middle name Hussein was running in Germany, he wouldn’t have won the nomination of his party.
Even if he loses, there’s something significant about what is going on here.
I think this dynamic is taking place.
Boast of importance.
John McCain is a war hero.
He was in a prison camp.
He was tortured.
The North Vietnamese wanted to let him go when they knew his father was an admiral, and he said I will not go until the last prisoner is gone.

He is a very courageous guy.
And then there is this other image.
Both are real.
Both are competing for the mind and heart of the American people and it is world.
You have something to say?

Student: I just wanted to add I didn’t think Obama was trying to run and hide from his middle name.
If you are running to be a president, it doesn’t matter what your name is as long as you have this goal in heart and mind to have a better country for all of the people in it.
It doesn’t matter if you are Muslim, Christian, Jewish or even like a Communist.
No matter what you are, as long as you want to make this country a better place for other people in it.

JZ: Let me hear from you?
Pass it right back.

Student: What about?

JZ: About the election generally.

Student: Most of the youth like Barack Obama, and most of the older people, which are very interested in these kinds of things will go with McCain because they think that he has more experience.
Barack Obama is still young are, so he has no experience.
They would prefer to vote for McCain than stead of — instead of trying like a younger president.

JZ: Yes?

Student: I think that another paper that is going to be played against Obama is his color.
The tiny minority here, that will affect him.

JZ: Did you have any experience with Arab Americans while you were here?

Students: Yes.

JZ: And what was your sense of them?

Student: I spoke to a Lebanese American.
She was one of us, I think, very friendly.

Student: I think she was a part of the program once before, as I recall.

Student: No.
That was someone else.

JZ: Anybody else?

Student: Actually, it is very nice to talk to them.
She was born and raised here and her parents have been here for a very long time.
So she has assimilated into the culture and all.
She always told me with a lot of nostalgia that she wants to go back with the people she loves and be home.
For her, I thought this was home, too.

JZ: We have just a couple of minutes left. But if I were to ask for one word that describes America, what would you say?
Let’s start with you and go over this way.

Student: Freedom.

Student: Freedom of speech.

So big that everything said about it is likely to be true.

Student: Freedom.

Student: Diversity.

Student: Diversity and tolerance.

Student: Diversity and friendly.

JZ: And come down here?

Student: Respect to us, respect for diversity.

Student: Freedom of religion practice.

JZ: Let me ask you another one.
If I were to ask you one word to describe Arab, what would you say?

Student: I am one of them.

JZ: What did you learn?
What characterizes you as an Arab, what quality?

Student: Hospitality, courageous.

JZ: You?

Student: Curiosity.

JZ: Arabs?

Student: Yes.

Student: Loud.

Student: Hospitality and emotional.
Americans, fast food and freedom.

Student: Arabs I would say morals and values.
When it comes to America, one word.
Diverse.

Student: Arabs are very generous.
I could say that all Arab countries — all Arab countries are peace-seeking people.

Student: I would say they are outside their own countries when they meet together, and America is freedom and how the life should be.

JZ: Here?

Student: About America, freedom.
About the Arab region on, I say love.

Student: You feel very comfortable with you are staying with the people.

JZ: We are about out of time, but I think you all very much.
Diversity and freedom, and generosity and hospitality.
That is a good meeting.
We will be back next week.
I want to thank the University of Delaware for making this possible.
We will see you next week on “Viewpoint.”