Former Everett student reflects on fighting in Gaza

Published 8:32 pm Saturday, January 10, 2009

Mohammad Zaidalk­ilani has been to Everett, but never to Gaza.

When Hamas rocket attacks sparked full-blown combat between Israel and Islamic militants in the Gaza Strip last month, I thought of Zaidalkilani.

I met the Palestinian exchange student in 2004. He was 16 and studying at Everett High School. Dan Hults, who with his wife Jean hosted Zaidalkilani at their Everett home, brought the teen to The Herald. I interviewed him Nov. 12, 2004, the day after Palestine leader Yasser Arafat died.

“I don’t think I’ll see peace in my lifetime,” the Palestinian boy said that day.

I remember thinking how sad that was, hearing such a statement from someone so young. Now, with each new report of war in Gaza, I have wondered: Where is that articulate young man? Is he safe?

On Friday, I was both happy to hear his voice and embarrassed to admit how little I knew of the geography and political nuance of his homeland.

Zaidalkilani, now 20, lives in the West Bank, not in Gaza. The only struggle he’s involved in is the fight for academic excellence. He’s a third-year medical student at An-Najah National University in his hometown of Nablus.

With the help of Dan Hults, I was able to get Zaidalkilani’s phone number. When he answered his cell phone Friday, speaking perfect English from his home on the West Bank, I was struck by how small our world has become.

It’s impossible to sum up the region’s fiery history and current flare-up in this column, but Zaidalkilani was forthcoming with answers to whatever I asked.

“People here are really sad,” he said. “At the beginning, we were afraid. Travel has been a bit constricted by the Israelis in some places. But other than sadness about what’s going on, nothing has changed with life here.

“The West Bank and Gaza are separated,” he added. “I have never been to Gaza in my life.”

Zaidalkilani said most Palestinians in the West Bank aren’t in full agreement with Hamas, an Islamic paramilitary and political organization supported by Iran and considered a terrorist group by the United States and European Union.

Hamas was elected in 2006 to lead the Palestinian National Authority, and in 2007 wrested control of the Gaza Strip from the more moderate Fatah movement, which governs the West Bank.

“Until this situation in Gaza, Hamas was not that popular here,” Zaidalkilani said Friday.

Yet, he said, “with the killing of children and women in Gaza, Israel is making a big mistake. It might draw people away from the peace direction, and make a lot of scars. People might turn more extreme against Israel,” he said.

Untouched by the fighting, Zaidalkilani lives with his mother in an apartment in Nablus, a city of more than 100,000 people. His father is in Montreal, Canada, completing doctoral studies in social work and community development.

A 20-year-old medical student would be a rarity here. Zaidalkilani said the system for Palestinian students allows for bypassing what would be an undergraduate degree in the United States. After finishing high school, he took an exam that determined where he would be placed in university studies. “It depends on your grade on the exam,” he said. “I worked very hard. The hardest to get into is medical school.”

Zaidalkilani credited two Everett High School biology teachers, Cindy McIntyre and Kris Sullivan, for sparking his interest in science. “My biology teachers were really nice, I wanted to thank them,” he said.

Sullivan is no longer at Everett High, where McIntyre now teaches honors and AP biology. “The first thing I remember about him is his smile,” McIntyre said Friday. “I have very high expectations of my students, and he was always working to improve. He’d be there in the morning if he needed help,” she said.

Dan Hults said his exchange student was a devout Muslim who prayed five times a day and fasted during Ramadan. Zaidalkilani was in Everett as part of a U.S. State Department leadership development program called Youth for Exchange and Study, or YES. After leaving Everett, he traveled to Washington, D.C., and met President Bush.

“He was friendly to us,” Zaidalkilani said Friday. “When I told him I’m Mohammad from Palestine, he said ‘I hope you have a state very soon.’ And we both said amen. With what’s going on now, the hopes I had one or two years ago are fading,” Zaidalkilani said.

For Hults, living with the Palestinian teen was enlightening. “It made me more aware that most of what we hear is from one side,” he said.

Hults recalled Zaidalkilani being amazed when they drove to Walla Walla that they could travel without stopping at checkpoints.

“Every time you create a hardship for the other side, you create new enemies,” Hults said. “They’ve got to live together — some way.”

Columnist Julie Muhlstein: 425-339-3460 or muhlstein@heraldnet.com.