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| By Associated Press September 16, 2005 |
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In a New York college class, the MTV camera and all eyes were on the door, awaiting the professor. Surprise! In walked Israeli Vice Premier Shimon Peres.
"I am your surprise," the 82-year-old Nobel Prize winner, cracking a smile, told the NYU undergrads.
The result was a taped-for-MTV discussion of the world's troubles, with Peres telling the politics majors that the biggest achievement of the past century was the liberation of women.
The session is to air Sept. 27 on MTV's college-targeted network, mtvU, which pipes student-aimed programming onto more than 700 U.S. campuses, as well as the cable channel's public Web site.
When questions-and-answers time came, Peres was peppered with queries about everything from how he felt when the Palestinian flag was raised over Gaza after Israeli settlers left, to whether Israelis and Palestinians could live side by side.
Stay tuned for the answers, when the class airs on MTV's year-old channel, whose other fill-in professors at various colleges have included rocker Marilyn Manson, author Tom Wolfe, rapper Nas, Arizona Sen. John McCain and singer Sting.
Peres ended with a zinger, telling students that "America is the big Satan, and Israel is the little Satan" -- that is, he added, according to the leaders of Iran, whose government Peres said is run by "a secret, sacred group of ayatollahs" he called "killers."
This hardly resembled the class advertised to students to hide the surprise -- a session devoted to making "a promotional video for incoming freshmen."
Still, 21-year-old Stephen Gallo was nonplussed by the high-power politician.
"It's an insider view of the Middle East," said the senior. "I didn't learn anything I didn't already know. But he's a Nobel Prize winner, and there have been a lot worse Peace Prize winners -- like Yasser Arafat."
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