Freshman Katrina McKinley said she wanted to become informed about issues in the Middle East after attending a speech given by Consulate General of Israel Barukh Binah on Thursday.
"It's very easy [for students] to get wrapped up in doing all your class work and not stressing yourself out," she said.
Binah spoke about the situation in the Middle East to a room of about 25 students, faculty and Muncie residents at 3:30 p.m. Thursday in the Ball State University Fine Arts Building. His speech, "The Middle East at the Crossroads," focused on how problems with Iran are the biggest issues facing the Middle East.
"Iran is posing a threat not just to Israel but to the Gulf States, the Arab states and to the peace of the world in general," Binah said.
The Middle East is in need of peace and stability, and countries like Israel that promote such progress need to be supported, he said. It is important for Americans to know the Middle East is not only a source of oil, Binah said, but, unfortunately, a source of terrorism that has made relations with the region some of the most urgent issues on the international agenda.
Iran is a very important, large and rich country, he said, and the Jews have lived in harmony with Iranians for years. However, in light of the Iranian government's nuclear program and support of terrorist groups such as Hamas, Israel is taking Iran's threats against its security seriously, Binah said.
One audience member said she thought the conflict between Israelis and the Palestinians sprang from the problems of social injustice that come up whenever people try to coexist. She said she felt the speech was one-sided and asked what he thought about compensation for Palestinian refugees displaced by the creation of Israel.
Binah said refugee issues are important, but there are refugees on both sides. Jewish refugees who left Arabian countries did not suffer as much as Arab refugees who left Israel because Israel willingly absorbed them, he said. Palestine internalized its refugee problem and used it as a political weapon against Israel, Binah said.
The audience member also said Israel was created as an apology to Jews for the Holocaust.
Binah said Israel was created despite the Holocaust and not because of it. Jews have been in Israel for approximately 3,000 years and were the ethnic majority in Jerusalem by the 1950s, he said.
The Middle East needs to put problems in the past and focus on peace in the future, Binah said. Israel does not threaten the existence of countries in the region, but some countries threaten the existence of Israel, he said.
Binah said he understands Arabs' emotional response to Israel. He understands some will never be able to like Israelis, but he cannot tolerate terrorism, he said.
It is important Israel survives as a state for historical and emotional reasons, Binah said.
"The fact that there is a Jewish state allows any Jew to feel at least a cultural pride, and those who need a safe haven from persecution have a place to go," he said. "They don't need to wait for quotas, they don't need to wait for visas."
Binah, who is the first Israeli diplomat to shake hands with a Palestinian diplomat in front of the media, said the conflict between Jews and Palestinians in the Middle East is not unsolvable, despite what some people may think.
"It can be brought into a peaceful, stable situation if the world community stands together showing to the terrorists that there's only that much that they can do, containing them [and] pushing them back," he said.
In the future, Binah said he hoped the countries of the Middle East would be able to live next to each other in harmony.
"Israel's desires and Israel's ambitions are not to have more territory, to make any military advances, but to make peace," he said.
Binah said he saw hope in how some large Arab groups opposed extremist actions by the Iranian government. In a United Nations report on the Arab condition, Arab intellectuals identified the inferior status of women and lack of freedom of speech as some of their society's most pressing problems, he said.
McKinley said speeches like Binah's are a great opportunity for students, and they should go to many kinds of cultural speeches because the speeches give students a chance to learn about the world outside Muncie.
Despite the conflict Americans hear about the Middle East, Israel is not always at war, Binah said. It is a fun country with a booming tourism industry, great beaches and hip-hop music, he said.
Binah's speech was sponsored by the Provost Office and the Zeigler Advisory Committee as a part of their Jewish studies program, Francine Friedman, political science professor, said. This was Binah's second visit to Ball State, as he came to speak last year.
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