"Beirut is the most important and fascinating human and political place to be in the world today. It is the Berlin Wall of the new Cold War," Rami Khouri, director of the Issam Fares Institute of Public Policy and International Affairs at the American University, told a meeting with a delegation of nine American students pursuing research in Lebanon.

Apr. 02, 2007, The Daily Star- With Khouri's words on their minds, nine undergraduate students from Tufts University in Massachusetts traveled to Lebanon on March 16-27 to study issues of state and society

Accompanied by project coordinator Rudy Jafaar, a Lebanese-Canadian PhD candidate at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, the group met with prominent local figures such as Prime Minister Fouad Siniora, Druze leader and MP Walid Jumblatt, Hizbullah MP Hussein Hajj Hassan, senior Shiite cleric Sayyed Mohammad Hussein Fadlallah, academics Amal Saad Ghorayeb and Paul Salem, and several AUB professors, civil society leaders, journalists and students.

The opportunity for on-the-ground research was sponsored by the New Initiative for Middle East Peace (NIMEP), a student research and outreach program coordinated by the Institute for Global Leadership at Tufts. In the past, NIMEP has sponsored similar trip to Israel, the occupied West Bank, Egypt and Turkey. In 2004 the Iran Dialogue Initiative (IGL), a project of NIMEP, sent the first American group to Iran since the 1979 revolution.

"I felt it was essential to be able to insert students, with safety and precaution, into the fulcrum of contemporary history as quickly as we can to comprehend what is happening on the ground, to encounter firsthand what all sides are thinking and feeling," said Sherman Teichman, director of the IGL. "It's particularly important in the aftermath of a war with all sides portraying themselves as the victims and the other side as the aggressor, when propaganda is unabating. It is essential to take students who we believe are young leaders to provide this kind of immersive education, to test their preconceptions, to challenge them, to open their minds, to gain perspective and render their own decisions."

Each of the nine students are pursuing independent yet intertwined projects in areas such as education, sectarianism, governance and non-state actors. Ultimately the students' research will be published in   Insights, an annual journal of original research on the Middle East by NIMEP members and academics. The students also are compiling a multimedia presentation of audio recordings, still photographs and video.

"It is crucial for students of Lebanese affairs to supplement their book knowledge with what I term an 'organic understanding' that can only be gained ... on the ground," said Jafaar. "In fact, I would venture to say serious American students cannot but travel to the region and listen to all sides if they wish to construct as accurate and objective a picture as possible of the Middle East and its predicaments."

"By transcending the discourse in the US environment and exploring areas outside of the students' comfort zones,| he added, "I believe the IGL delegation accomplished just that."