We're all human beings, except...

Ben-Gurion University is a bastion of pinko, leftist liberalism, anti-Zionist and post-Zionist thought and some really hot women. It’s also home of the myth that its campus is the most integrated in Israel. A veritable cornucopia of Israeli Jews and Bedouin Arabs living, loving and learning together - all within the close proximity of a few city blocks and unrecognized villages.

A myth, ey? Want to hear about it? Here it goes.

It is true that our campus is the most mixed. But, integrated, well, not even separate but equal. State sanctioned racism, including unrecognized villages, gross lack of public transportation to Bedouin population centers and limited access to social services, are huge. Never the less, BGU does what it can to throw a few variables into the mix.

Most campus computers do not have Arabic characters on the keyboards. There is a campus synagogue, complete with a campus Rabbi, but there is no campus Mosque or Imam. If you're Christian, wondering where you fit in, you can bugger off; you're third on the list. And, the University website is not available in Arabic. Not even the site for The Center for Bedouin Studies and Development. Odd.

Now on to other Arabs. Bigger and scarier Arabs.

Palestinians, we sure do love ‘em. We even hold the namesake of our institution at fault for having done too little to prevent the life shedding conflict that we’re still in today – even Benny Morris, in his own, special way.

A couple weeks back, our student union hosted a group of young Palestinian entrepreneurs for a round table discussion. Regardless of what anyone might have to say about the event itself, an age-old truth was proven: Put a group of idiots in one room and words will be strung together in the most idiotic of ways.

Appetite whet for examples? Here’re some tasty tidbits for the most discerning palates.

A Palestinian man offered a few words of wisdom to commence the precipice of open dialogue. We are all human beings, he pointed out, adding that despite our external labels, inside we’re all the same. Shylock revisited: good point.

Banal as it may be, who’s going to argue this message? Our Dutch moderator apparently thought someone would and offered the mike. I half wanted to accept his offer and, with my amplified voice, agree with the notion that Palestinians and Israelis are, indeed, human beings, the same on the inside, with the exception of each groups’ homosexuals. But, then again, I also half wanted to maintain my welcome on campus and the various gay clubs I frequent. So I kept my mouth shut, as did everyone else.

Later, a fellow BGU student, a Jewish Israeli, was kind enough to pick up the torch of stupidity, offering a gem of a cliché. It seems the whole situation results from a lack of trust, she regurgitated, and then asked the inevitable, how do we build trust? Ooh, good one! With fucking trust Legos, obviously. Thank your unholy god, the response was a formulaic wet dream. One Palestinian guy admitted, in spectacular, yet misappropriated English, that he does not know how this much needed trust would be built, then offered the uplifting thought, that it must start with open dialogue.* Perhaps he meant the very same one in which he was participating at that very moment? Delicious!

Other comments included an Israeli Jew blaming the Palestinians for the entire conflict; a Palestinian countered with the reflexive myth that it’s all Ariel Sharon’s fault; a remarkably attractive Palestinian woman asserted that her people were here first and are, simply, innocent victims raped by Israel; which, was balanced out by a goofy looking Israeli Jew, whose fresh insight maintained that Jews have no where else to go while the Palestinians can choose from any one of the many Arab countries. Most shocking about that last one was that he went on to say he was not telling the Palestinians they could not stay, then trailed off, unable to complete his own ignorance. Poor sap, he must not have a good Palestinian friend enabling him to claim that he is not a racist.

Unable to further bear the suffocating nature of the exchange, I left the room. Upon exiting my shadow was waiting and actually spoke to me! “Six more years of conflict,” it said. That’s awesome, I was certain of another decade at least.

* A friend, of “a friend from out of town” fame, noted that it would have been appropriate and funny to have asked him to raise his shirt to see he was not rigged, reasoning that then we could trust him for sure.