Return to Transcripts main page
American Morning
Story of Two Palestinian Teenagers Far From Home; What Is It That Drives a Person to Become a Suicide Bomber?
Aired April 04, 2002 - 09:15 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
BILL HEMMER, CNN ANCHOR: Now we're going to move on to the story of two Palestinian teenagers far from home, strangers in a strange land.
The girls came to America to attend the Academy Awards for their part in an Oscar nominated documentary. Now they are stranded there, unable to return home to Bethlehem. As they watch the Middle East violence unfold from here, it is still too close for comfort. They must hope for the best and get ready for the worst. CNN's Rusty Dornin has their story.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
RUSTY DORNIN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: 15-year-old Sanabal Alfersa (ph) and 16-year-old Kian Al-Safey (ph) can't go home. Stranded in San Francisco, these Palestinian teenagers can only watch the skirmishes near their refugee camp in Bethlehem.
What has been like the last few days watching these scenes on television?
AL-SAFEY: I feel angry. I feel worried. I feel afraid because I want to be in my country with my people, with my friends, with my family.
DORNIN: The teens came to the U.S. last month after documentary promises in which Sanable was a star was nominated for an Oscar. It's the story of five years in the lives of Jewish and Palestinian children in Jerusalem. Thoughts and feeling the teens feel more comfortable at times discussing in Arabic.
What was happening to your camp the week before the Academy Awards?
AL-SAFEY: The army and the soldiers entered my house and entered my - entered our camp. They destroyed 10 houses.
DORNIN: What about the movie? Sanable, at one point, you asked two of the Jewish boys in the film to come to the refugee camp. How was that for you?
ALFERA: We had heard that there are two Jewish kids that support us in Israel. It was a very special day for me. It was very important to see that there are Israeli children who believe in our rights, who respect our rights and who support us.
DORNIN: Have your feeling changed about them, about these Jewish boys or about the Jewish people or your feeling for peace?
ALFERA: I met them in Los Angeles at the Oscar. Actually they tried to contact us after the siege but since the telephone lines were cut off, we didn't hear for them. And for a while I was afraid that they have changed their position and they will not supporting us anymore. So I was really happy to learn afterwards that they did indeed try to contact us.
DORNIN: I know that you had recently told an interviewer that you would be happy to be martyr for your homeland and that you agreed with the suicide bombers. Do you still feel that way or have you feeling changed about that?
ALFERA: At the time of the interview, I was feeling a lot of anger. The Israeli tanks were 10 meters away from our house. They were surrounding us and that affected me a lot. I cannot say that I support these suicide bombings and I cannot tell somebody that they should go and lose their life in a suicide bombing because of the despair we are living under. At the same time, I cannot tell somebody not to do a suicide bombing.
DORNIN: I know you must have been calling your families. Have you been able to reach them?
ALFERA: I talked to my mother and my siblings but our fathers and our older brothers, we don't know anything about them. We don't now where they are. They are not at home. And I'm constantly worried, wondering what has happened to them. If they're OK, if there are still in hiding, if they have been killed, if they have been injured.
DORNIN: Once you do get to go home, what kind of future do you see for yourself?
AL-SAFEY: I think our future - we haven't a future.
DORNIN: Not if things stay the way they are, feelings of despair from teens who've yet to graduate from high school. Rusty Dornin, CNN, San Francisco.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
ZAHN: In Rusty's story, we heard young Sanable talk about why someone would want to become a martyr for their country. What is it that drives a person to become a suicide bomber. Well this week in Time magazine, a Palestinian psychiatrist tries to shed some light on this new breed of militant. And Dr. Eyad Sarraj joins us this morning from Gaza. Thank you very much for being with us sir. We just listened very carefully to Sanable ...
DR. EYAD SARRAJ, PALESTINIAN PSYCHIATRIST: (INAUDIBLE).
ZAHN: OK. We were just listening to Sanable's story and I think it was so difficult for anyone living in America to understand the kind of despair she's talking about and how sort of a peaceful, loving kid could make this change where she would be willing to blow herself up, to become a martyr. How common is that mindset?
SARRAJ: Well you're talking about a very complex phenomenon. And it involves, of course, the question of the psychology of relations, the psychology of the individual, the psychology of the nation involved and the culture in which people are brought up.
In fact, you're talking about the politics of the Middle East conflict. Now, if we can talk about their - the few important factors here. One of them is that Palestinian-Israeli conflict is really essentially is the conflict between the powerful and the powerless. This is exactly the asymmetrical relationship between the Israelis and the Palestinians and it is now obvious, of course, to everyone when they Israeli invade all these places in the West Bank and Ramallah and Bethlehem and Nablus, with very little resistance of the Palestinians.
That involves 35 years of the Israeli occupation, of treatment that is characteristically been a treatment of dehumanization, on both sides but particularly the Palestinians were at the receiving end of a very subhuman kind of treatment. And that has generated out of feeling of shame within the Palestinian psyche and shame is very powerful emotion. It tells people that life is not worth living if not in dignity. In fact, this indignity is better than life in humiliation.
And that kind of individual psychology is also affected by personal history of trauma. For instance, today's suicide bombers or martyrs, as we call them, are the children of the first intifada 12 years ago when many of them have witnessed the beating and the humiliation of their fathers and they have taken so much inside themselves and they wanted revenge. And when they grow up somehow their identity becomes molded with the identity of the nation that has been suffering for the last 50 odds years since the uprooting of the Palestinians from their homes in Palestine.
ZAHN: And Dr. Sarraj, I think you've done ...
SARRAJ: (INAUDIBLE).
ZAHN: Right. And I think people can understand the desperation you're talking about. But yesterday Secretary Rumsfeld made a point that money has something to do with this as well and that might be a motivating factor. When he said that Saddam Hussein is passing out big checks to the family members of suicide bombers. Let's listen to what he had to say yesterday.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DONALD RUMSFELD DEFENSE SECRETARY, UNITED STATES: He has raised that amount and it's $25,000 per family, not $10,000 per family. Think of it. Here it is, an individual, who is the head of a country, Iraq, who has proudly, publicly made a decision to go out and actively promote and finance human sacrifice for families that will have their youngsters kill innocent men, women and children. (END VIDEO CLIP)
ZAHN: So Dr. Sarraj, how much of a motivating factor is this big money? We all know the economy and the occupied territories is in shambles.
SARRAJ: Yeah. Well, in fact, from all of the cases I have observed myself, in the clinic and outside the community, money or financial situation has never been a motive for anybody to kill himself really in such a way at all. The economy, the economy factor or the education a factor even was not a significant one.
What was very significant, in our research, was the personal history of trauma. The culture in which the people are brought up in and the type of - or the degree of faith these people have and their own interpretation of themselves, the nation, the conflict and Islam itself. That is the most - these are the most important factors. The economy not a factor at all.
ZAHN: All right. Dr. Sarraj, thank you very much for ...
SARRAJ: But of course, there are the people ...
ZAHN: ... for your perspective today. Unfortunately, our satellite hookup is running out of time. We're going to have to wrap up our conversation now. Dr. Eyad Sarraj, again, thanks for joining us on American Morning.
TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com
