(Note to readers: I have changed the original title of this piece to emphasize the point of my article. You are encouraged to read it again and think with me about this and similar commonalities or needs that might help us to create peace between us and the Middle East.)
A few days ago the U.S. Senate refused to block Obama’s plan for accepting, after careful vetting, a modest number of Middle Eastern refugees. I was happy, also surprised that the news created very little noise, as though everyone is thinking of something else now.
But I did speak. It was too convenient an opportunity to stand up for what I think is not only right but wise. I issued a news release in which I said that receiving refugees will help to repair our relationships with the Middle East. I reminded people of our willingness to invade, to depose leaders, to torture prisoners, to bomb, to send drones, to train fighters, to sell arms. I declared that if, after all that, “we refuse to offer a home to desperate refugees, we have not only deserted our founding principles, which they know well, but we have dishonored ourselves in the world community. This would be the final proof that we cannot be trusted. In fact, harsh words from our politicians on this subject are already creating a negative impression of who we are.
“By showing kindness now, making a way for displaced families to have a home and giving their children hope for the future, we will recover some of our lost image and begin creating a path to peace.”
I said all this remembering what happened to me and my husband over and over in the Middle East.
In Lebanon we visited a small town in the north. Together with a Lebanese man, we parked our car and walked up the street, past the simple houses of the village. People who were sitting on a balcony got up to lean on the railing and say, “Come up. Come drink coffee with us.” A woman in a doorway said, “Welcome. Come in. Honor us.” At house after house it was the same. Because we were strangers walking in their street, we were invited in.
In Jordan on a Sunday afternoon, we went to a village where we knew no one, left our car and walked in the street. Our intention this time was to meet the people of the village, because we knew what to expect. The first people who saw us invited us in. We accepted and over little cups of strong coffee answered questions about ourselves and met all the members of the family. From there we walked on, receiving invitations, saying “thank you” as we kept walking. After another hundred yards, we accepted another invitation. And in this manner we spent the whole afternoon, revealed our own identity and reasons for being there, made some friends (and, in the process, used all the Arabic words we knew, some of them wrongly).
It happened in Egypt, where the waiter in a fine restaurant wanted us to come to dinner in his home, because his mother made that dish we liked so much better than the chef in the restaurant.
It happened in a refugee camp in 1967 where the Palestinians were still living in tents. I walked in the ten foot wide path between the rows, and the women spoke to me from the doors of the tents, “Tfadhali.” When I paused just to acknowledge the greeting and ask about their welfare, they would insist I come in for a cup of tea. I remember so well one of these families. An elderly man there was sick. No one said so, but his face told me that he was hurting somewhere, and his hand was hot, too hot. I knew he had a fever. I sat on the floor, the canvas floor against the ground, with him and a little girl. The woman brought us tea. I asked them about the events that caused them to be there. Sometime during this conversation, the little girl told me she had a rabbit. I think I must have asked her, “Where is it?” She left for just two or three minutes and came back with a fat, little bunny in a small cage. Her sweet face glowed with love as she talked about it. Trying to make conversation with this child, I told her that I could understand how much she loved that rabbit, because I had a little girl who really loved rabbits. I only meant for her to know that I could identify with her happiness, but she pushed the cage toward me and said, “Take it to her. It is a gift.” Then, of course, I realized that I had said the wrong thing. I knew better but I had stumbled into the situation and now she thought she should give me her rabbit, and there was absolutely no disappointment or sadness on her face. Of course, I made excuses; I told her there was no way we could take care of a rabbit at our house.
I have a point here. I am not saying that such trustful hospitality, such sacrificial generosity, will be found in any situation. It won’t happen in front of big houses with walls around them. It won’t happen if you come with a gun in your hand or representing the country that just bombed their house to bits.
But hospitality is a basic cultural value in the Middle East. It is taught by all the religions; it is required in the desert and in the city; it is so natural they have forgotten how to explain it; it is passed on to children by example; it is in the bloodstream, like a racial memory; it is inherent in the language. “Welcome; honor us; you are with family and everything is easy; the house is your house; do it again.”
This is something we must remember when we think about the horde of refugees who have fled from Syria. These are the same people who, in another situation, would have called to us from the balcony, “Come up; drink coffee with us.” Their lives are mostly wrecked. The people we can save are their children, their grandchildren. And ours.
If we want to have peace with the people of the Middle East, ever, we need to be working on it right now. We need to be carving out a path to a better future, and their values give us a clue about how to do this.
In the Middle East there is no value more obvious than this. In an Arab village the failure of one family to receive a stranger or offer water or shelter to one in need brings shame on the whole community, while hospitality honors both the host and the guest.
This is something we have in common with them. We too believe in hospitality.
Don’t we?