Leaders of the Muslim campus organizations at Stanford were requested to attend a meeting with Jewish student group Israel at Heart—but walked out when they realized they might be forced to discuss the truth.

Senior Rania Eltom, president of the Muslim Students Awareness Network, and sophomore Omar Shakir, co-president of the Coalition for Justice in the Middle East, left the event following several comments that they said they found disrespectful.

“I was requested to attend the event by organizers the day before, so I came out of respect for them,” Eltom said. “However, when we entered the event, it was made very obvious that we were outsiders. As soon as the speakers started generalizing Palestinians as wanting to kill all soldiers, it hit a nerve within me, especially [since it was] one day after three Palestinian school kids were shot dead by Israeli soldiers.”

Eltom added that she was very offended when the speakers talked about how suicide bombers are glorified in Palestinian classrooms. [But it isn’t limited to Palestinian classrooms. —ed.]

“I had to leave instead of engaging in an argument that might compromise my dignity and the event,” she said.

Shakir said he was also upset by the atmosphere at the discussion.

“I walked into this event to gain insight and because I was curious to learn more about the topic of Israeli life,” he said. “But I left the event because I felt disrespected and insulted at the fact that the first thing I saw as I walked into the Ziff Center was a flyer showing that three out of the first four events in Hillel’s programming for the quarter involves blasting the Islamic faith.”

He cited an event scheduled for next Monday entitled “The Trouble with Islam.”

“Dialogue and cooperation requires mutual respect, and the direction this organization has taken has made me feel that such respect simply does not exist on that side,” Shakir said.

All three speakers said that they were disappointed when they saw Eltom and Shakir get up to leave.

“I don’t understand why they left,” Aylin said. “We wanted to talk to them, and we wanted to discuss things.”

Mov and Schwartz said they were frustrated by the situation.

“We are here to engage in dialogue,” Schwartz said. “We are not here working for the Israeli government. We are regular people with personal experiences who just want to talk about the situation. Our goal is not to lay blame or distort facts. It is to promote peace.”

And there’s the rub. Some do not want peace.