By Julianna Parker
Two seemingly at odds University of Oklahoma student groups will unite this coming week for a joint fundraiser.
The Lebanese Student Association and the Hillel Jewish Student Association will co-host a charity dinner to raise awareness and money for the landmine crisis in Lebanon.
The dinner will feature authentic Israeli and Lebanese food and will be 6-7:30 p.m. Wednesday in the Regents Room of the Oklahoma Memorial Union. Dinner will be free but donations will be accepted.
"The event is geared towards reconciliation, peace and ascension above the tragic politics of the region," Hillel member Yonathan Reches said in an e-mail.
Reches, who was born and spent much of his childhood in Israel, e-mailed Lebanese Student Association President Marc Breidy about the possibility of co-hosting a fundraiser.
Breidy, an international student from Lebanon, said he was originally wary of joining with the Jewish Student Association, who so avidly support Israel.
But Breidy said he couldn't turn down an offer to join forces in such a noble cause.
"At the beginning we had some points to agree on -- like no politics whatsoever," Breidy said.
So after striking a deal that politics would be entirely left out of the equation for the night, Breidy and his organization started to help plan the event. Breidy and Reches, fellow civil engineering majors, have done the bulk of the organization for the event.
Various university offices have agreed to cover all event costs, Reches said. All money raised from the event will be donated toward the efforts of the U.K.-based nonprofit Mines Advisory Group (MAG) in the Chouf Mountain area of Lebanon.
At the event, Breidy will give background information on the landmine crisis in Lebanon. Organizers hope there also will be a teleconferenced speaker from MAG, he said.
The landmines were placed in the Chouf area south of Beirut by different factions during 1975-1990, Breidy said he learned from MAG.
The manufacturers of the mines are primarily Israel but already Italy, U.S., the former Yugoslavia, China and Russia, according to MAG. There is no way to tell who placed the mines where; each could have been placed by Israel, Syria or one of the groups within Lebanon during the bloody civil war that raged there. MAG has identified 26 landmines that need to be removed carefully to ensure the safety of surrounding residents, Breidy said.
These mines aren't out in abandoned fields, though. Breidy said they are in an area of homes and villages populated mostly by the Druze and some Christians.
"It's not like a closed area no one can get in," he said. "No, that's the problem: They could be anywhere."
Reches said the fundraiser is intended to alleviate the suffering that landmines impose on the civilian population, decades after they were placed.
"But even more than that, it is designed to foster peace and reconciliation in the Middle East," he said. "This is a daunting task, indeed. But if the expatriate communities here in America can unite in this cause, then maybe there is hope for a broader peace. If we can peel away one layer of suspicion and hate, maybe peace won't seem so far away anymore."
Julianna Parker 366-3541 jparker@normantranscript.com
