Praying for the sons of Abraham:
Baylor professor grew up knowing both sides of strife

Waco Tribune-Herald by Terri Jo Ryan

Born in Texas, raised in Israel and taught the English language by Arab instructors, Bill Baker is a man in the middle of three cultures. The Baylor University professor of Arabic says he is more than just a casual observer of the Middle Ease peace process.

“I love them both (Israelis and Palestinians) dearly as people,” he said. “I hope and pray that in my lifetime, I will see peace coming to the sons of Abraham.”

The 31-month-old uprising of Palestinian militants against Israeli rule continues to thwart the U.S. government's efforts to implement the proposed “road map to peace,” which seeks an immediate halt to the violence and the creation of a Palestinian state by 2005.

But Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon on Sunday persuaded his government to endorse the steps of the U.S. backed peace plan. Among the issues to be discussed, eventually are the borders of a Palestinian state, the fate of 4 million Palestinian refugees and their descendants, the status of Jerusalem and the future of Jewish settlements on the West Bank.

Baker, a senior Middle Eastern intelligence analyst during most of his 27 years with the U.S. Air Force, said, “We have to find room for both peoples. If we as Americans take sides and only take one line, we are part of the problem.”

The two parties are fighting over a segment of land no bigger than New Jersey, he added.

“If CNN had been around in 1948, it would be a different story. Nobody seems to be giving a flip about the indigenous population of the region,” he said, noting that Muslims occupied the Holy Land for almost 1,300 years before the creation of the modern Jewish state. “These folks have been disenfranchised and forgotten, while all they are looking for is dignity, respect, fairness and security.”

The United States’ blind allegiance to Israel, to the exclusion of the Palestinians, clouds and affects every aspect of international relationships in that region, said Baker, a political military affairs officer during his active duty years. He said Arabs have a saying: “The friend of my enemy is my enemy.”

“It's nothing short of amazing to me that the Arabs even give us the time of day, except that they like our technology,” he said.

Baker, Baylor's first full-time professor of Arabic, is at work on a second book, Blood Brothers, about the shared heritage, shared tragedy and shared destiny of Jews and Muslims. His first book, The Cultural Heritage of Arabs, Islam and the Middle East, was released April 29.

His tiny office at Morrison Hall is a minor museum of his exotic past, including boxes made of camel bone that contain frank incense and myrrh; a Jerusalem chalice made of olive wood; a greeting card from King Abdullah II of Jordan; a mother-of-pearl in laid box from Damascus, filled with his ancient Roman coin collection and bits of Roman glass; and a framed copy of the Lord's Prayer written in Arabic.

“One of my colleagues in the department has suggested I charge admission for the tour,” Baker said.

He's sharing some of the intellectual souvenirs of his years in the Middle East with students and the general public through his new book, which retails for $19.95 and is published by BrownBooks.com

Written as a primer

His goal with the book is to combat rampant ignorance of the region and its inhabitants.

“Most Americans can't name two Middle Eastern countries next to each other on the map,” he said, “Most Americans can't do it in our hemisphere.”

The book is written as a primer, from the vantage point of an American, on what knowledge one needs to operate in the part of the world, whether through business, the government, the military or tourism, he said. His aim is to cultivate an understanding of Muslims in their social and geopolitical context.

“They're not going away, so we might as well be smarter about it,” he said. “You cannot understand the Arab people without examining their major religion.”

The Arab Christian community is sizable, he said, but the major influence on the region's language and culture is Islam.

Baker recently concluded his third year at Baylor University, which started a Middle Eastern studies minor about the same time he retired from the Air Force in 2000 as a lieutenant colonel. He had taught Arabic at the U.S. Air Force Academy for four years before retiring and coming back to his Lone Star State roots.

Baker was born in 1949 in Pampa, Texas . Nine months later, his Southern Baptist missionary parents, Dwight and Emma, took him to Nazareth on Galilee, where he grew up with the infant nation of Israel . His parents retired several years ago to Duncanville after their assignments in Israel and India .

Growing up in a predominately Arab-Palestinian area, he learned to speak Hebrew and Arabic as a native, he said. He was taught to read and write in English by Arab instructors.

“I was much better in Arabic than I was in English, until my teen years,” he recalled. At 18, he came to the United States for his senior year of high school and attended Baylor University while active with the ROTC. He struggled with his command of English the whole time, he said. When a teacher noticed his frequent misspellings, she determined she had to grade him on the scale she used for foreign-born students.

He met his wife, Carol Sue, 34 years ago when they were college students.

Baker graduated in 1973 and was commissioned a lieutenant in the Air Force. He had three major overseas assignments: in Tel Aviv, from 1988 to '91 during the First Gulf War; in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, from 1996 to '97, as the air attache to the U.S. Embassy; and in Doha, Qatar, from 1997 to '99, also as air attache.

The adventurous professor is sure to add to his collection of exotic office paraphernalia this summer. From early June to mid-July, Baker will join other scholars in an archaeological dig of Canaanite ruins on the West Bank of the Jordan .

Excavations have already uncovered 18 levels of habitation on the site, where the first Hebrew king, Saul, and his sons were killed in battle with the Philistines and nailed to the city wall. By the time Jesus, the city was the center of Roman influence in the region.

Baker noticed some have compared the United States to the Roman Empire, because it has imposed its collective will across the known world to forge a kind of peace.

“The U.S., of all people, needs to be the honest brokers of peace,” he said.

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