News broke last week that the U.S. government had moved to seize four U.S. mosques and a skyscraper on Fifth Avenue, which are owned by an Iranian Muslim non-profit organization. The Alavi Foundation, the non-profit organization in question, provides many extremely important services to the Shiite Muslim community in America. Because of this, the Alavi Foundation has a lot of influence in this community.

This past summer, on a hot Saturday afternoon back home in Oklahoma, I decided to take my car to the dealership for an oil change. Not surprisingly, this dealership is located in between a bunch of other dealerships. But the interesting thing is that located right across the street from these dealerships is a cemetery. This is the cemetery where my aunt’s grave is located.

[Editor’s Note: This column is the second installment of a two part series, the first half of which appeared in yesterday’s Sun.]

Editor’s Note: This column is the first installment of a two part series, the second half of which will appear in tomorrow’s Sun.

A few weeks ago, I had the pleasure of listening to one of my friends give a presentation about his summer in Palestine. During the summer, my friend worked as an intern with a human rights group in the West Bank. The part of his presentation that I remember most is his trip to the village of Bil’in. During his brief stay in Bil’in, my friend took part in a protest against a wall that separates the village from a nearby Israeli settlement. The wall cuts off 60 percent of Bil’in’s farmland, in an economy that is heavily dependent on agriculture. Moreover, the International Court of Justice and the Israeli High Court have both ruled that the wall is illegal. The villagers of Bil’in have peacefully protested against the wall every Friday for the past four years. And every single Friday, their protest is broken up by the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF), who often throw canisters of tear gas to break up the peaceful protests. Sometimes, they even fire live rounds at the protestors. This, of course, is less likely to happen when the media or international supporters are there to take part in the protest.

How would you feel? How would you feel if you were randomly and unexpectedly called into your boss’s office one day and told that you were being moved? No questions asked. You have two weeks to move from the place that you have been working and making a living at for 20 years. I would feel completely disrespected, but at the same time, I would feel powerless. And I would feel powerless because a large institution treated me with so much cruelty, that my 20 years of service to this institution and to an entire community garnered no respect. Not even enough respect to give me any sort of choice whatsoever.

On Monday, the Cornell International Affairs Review held a panel discussion entitled “Tehran Divided: Iran’s Presidential Election and Implications for U.S. Foreign Policy.” The discussion featured three professor panelists, each from the Near Eastern Studies department. The panelists were Prof. Ziad Fahmy, Prof. Iago Gocheleishvili and Prof. David Patel.