Yeshiva students model other side of issue

When the North Shore Hebrew Academy High School applied to attend the National High School Model United Nations, they asked to represent a logical choice: Israel.

Instead, they got Iraq.

It put the students from a school their adviser calls "very Zionist" in the unusual position of playing the role of an Arab, predominantly Muslim country that does not recognize Israel.

At first some were reluctant and unsure they could do it, said the adviser, Joyce Levine.

But eventually all 13 came around, and on Thursday, as the model UN got under way in Manhattan, they even attended a specially arranged briefing at the Iraqi Mission to the real United Nations.

The students from the Great Neck modern Orthodox yeshiva started firing questions at the No. 3 official at the Mission on the Upper East Side. Then came a surprise -- the ambassador himself showed up.

He gamely fielded questions about everything from a broken-down dam to the country's position on human trafficking.

The touchy issue of Arab-Israeli relations came up in an exchange about the Golan Heights, strategic Syrian territory Israel has held since the Six-Day War in 1967.

The ambassador, Hamid Al-Bayati, said Iraq is a member of the Arab League and supports its proposal of "land for peace," which would require Israel to revert to the pre-1967 borders.

The students said they had gained a new appreciation for Iraq's struggles through their own research and their hourlong meeting with Al-Bayati.

"The Middle East is always a very shaky topic," said Alyssa Berlin, 17, a junior from Great Neck. "But I thought it was really cool just being there" at the Iraqi Mission.

Some 3,000 students from 150 schools and more than 20 countries attended the model UN event in midtown Manhattan Wednesday through Friday.

Al-Bayati, dressed in a pinstripe suit, responded in detail to the students' questions, while displaying a diplomat's best effort to cast his country in a favorable light and blame current problems on the U.S.-deposed regime of dictator Saddam Hussein.

Marcelle Breitbart, 16, a junior from Great Neck, wanted to know what Iraq was doing to fix a leaking dam that could collapse and cause disastrous flooding.

Al-Bayati blamed the dam on Saddam, saying the dictator built it in a bad location and that the new government is building another in a better spot.

Saddam, Al-Bayati said mockingly, "was an expert in everything" and "nobody could dare say no to him."

Bradley Garczynski, 16, a junior from Atlantic Beach, enjoyed the sit-down.

"I went in not knowing what to expect," he said. "It exceeded my expectations."