At the time I was in the middle of lunch with Hossein and some doctoral
candidates and faculty at Tel Aviv University's Centre for Iranian
Studies. I'd just been discussing the results with one of the doctoral
candidates and the interesting thing is that neither of us was
particularly alarmed that Hamas had won 75 of the Palestinian
Parliament's 132 seats. Like Imshin, we were actually impressed that
the elections had been clean, fair and transparent; we too saw the vote
not as popular support for terrorism but rather rejection of the chaos
and corruption over which Fatah had presided. I'm no expert on
Palestinian politics and I have no idea what the Hamas victory will
bring in the long run. Like everyone else, I can only speculate. And I
don't like to speculate. All I can say is that I'm not hysterical, I'm
not depressed and I'm willing to wait and see what happens next before
I even start to adopt an attitude beyond curiosity.

Hossein's presentation at the university attracted more people than the
room could hold. About 25 students were turned away, and the university
is already asking him to make another presentation before he leaves. I
was fascinated by the number of Internet geeks who had come to hear
about how Iranian bloggers were managing to circumvent government
censorship. There were also, of course, many students of Persian
history, literature and culture. Some were Iranian, but most were not -
and those who were not were studying a country they could never visit.
After the presentation was over, people lined up to ask more questions,
thank Hossein for coming and offer their phone numbers in case he
wanted any help or information.

After we'd had lunch Liora, a doctoral candidate who is writing her
dissertation on Iranian women's magazines of the 1960s and 1970s,
walked us over to a university cafe, where we had a date for coffee
with my most excellent friend, Allison. On the way over, Hossein asked Liora, who is an Ashkenazi
with no Persian family connections, how she became interested in
studying Iran. She said that she'd fallen in love with Persian poetry
when she took an undergraduate course.

Really, asked Hossein. Could you recite your favourite poem, in Persian, for my recorder?

Liora demurred, saying she was ashamed of her accent. But she
did agree to recite the Hebrew translation of this beautiful poem by
Saadi.