At left in this photo is Ismail Ahmad, who came to Seattle from Iraq around 1970 to attend the University of Washington. In 1990, Ahmad was running the Islamic International House, housing in the University District for Muslim students. Wahab Almater, at right, from Kuwait, was a UW graduate student in business, living at the Islamic International House along with four students from Syria, Palestine, Morocco, and Jordan, and two Americans.

This photo of the two men was taken about a week after the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait on August 2, 1990. The friends shared concerns about family at home: Almater learned that his family home was being occupied by Iraqi troops, and Ahmad worried about cousins in the Iraqi army, and family members in Iraq that he could not reach. Though their views on the invasion diverged in many respects, they agreed that diplomacy rather than force was the better solution, and that, with a shared language and cultural history, they were “all Arabs,” with more in common than not.

Caption information source: ‘We’re all Arabs Over There’ friends watch homeland torn by ‘Family Fight’ by Diana L. Meredith and Sandee Taniguchi, Seattle Post-Intelligencer, August 11, 1990, p. B1.