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CNN Sunday Morning

Interview With Jamal Abuzant, Koby Sadan

Aired June 23, 2002 - 08:21   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.
MILES O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: What will it take for Israelis and Palestinians to come to peace? That's a big question. Some youth from both sides may have an answer, at least in small part. They will attend the annual Seeds of Peace international camp for conflict resolution. The camp starts tomorrow in Auburn, Maine.

And with us are two camp counselors, Palestinian student Jamal Abuzant and Israeli student Koby Sadan. Good to have you both with us.

KOBY SADAN, ISRAELI STUDENT: Thank you very much.

JAMAL ABUZANT, PALESTINIAN STUDENT: Thank you.

O'BRIEN: Let's just be clear, this particular camp, it isn't just focused on the Middle East conflict. It focuses on conflicts all over the world, right?

SADAN: That's right. The program started focusing on the Middle East but this is the tenth anniversary of the program, of Seeds of Peace, and through the years it has also spread to other regions of conflict and we also have kids coming from India and Pakistan, and there is the first delegation coming from Afghanistan. There are kids coming from the Balkans, from Greece, Turkey and Cypress.

So basically a few regions of conflict. And the program is mutual for all of them.

O'BRIEN: Jamal, when you go through that list of points of conflict all over the globe, you might have the sense that this would be a camp, well, call it camp discord, if you will. Is it, though?

ABUZANT: Camp discord? Well, I don't think it's really like that. I mean it's basically just for conflict resolution. It brings just teenagers from all over regions where there's conflict and just brings them together to show them how life could actually be when there's peace and show teenagers who have lived all of their life in regions of war how life could actually be with peace and give them hope and encourage them to work and make where they live better, make their world a better place by working to make peace and live a life just like they live at camp, and make camp a reality in their own world.

O'BRIEN: Well, tell me, though, Jamal, when you got there, how your preconceived notions perhaps were not supported by the reality once you had an opportunity to actually meet with Israelis who are your peers?

ABUZANT: It was, at the beginning, at my first year when I came in 2000, I was expecting that I would see really mean people that would not like me at all and that I wouldn't like them. But after the first week of being at camp and getting to know these people as human beings and just as other teenagers and not just people from the other side of the conflict, it erased most of those stereotypes that I had in my head and I just was able to understand them as human beings and cope with them and talk to them just face to face and not think of any conflicts that we had between us and think of them as they're the bad people and we're the good people.

O'BRIEN: Koby, did you have a similar experience? And I'd like you to add, if you think this is a panacea for peace or is this just kind of a little asterisk in the whole process? In other words, does it really amount to anything on the ground in the Middle East?

SADAN: Yes. Yes. First of all, I joined Seeds of Peace when I was 13 and that was in 1994. And so it is important to specify is that Seeds of Peace is not only a camp for three weeks where the kids come together and they sit with each other and get to know each other and get to understand each other as human beings, but the program goes on when they go back to the Middle East or they go back to their regions and there is follow-up and they can come back to camp as returning campers or as counselors, as I came back this year.

And so this experience is not only a three week experience, it becomes a lifetime experience. And today we have educational programs whereby Seeds of Peace tries to help seeds from Seeds of Peace to get educational opportunities so that they can have the tools to go back to their regions and make a difference.

And there is a difference that you can see in the region whereby seeds from Seeds of Peace bring their families and their friends for meetings that we have together. We have activities all throughout the year between the Israelis and Palestinians and Arab Israelis and Jewish Israelis.

The kids themselves form into groups where they have different activities that they decide upon. They go to schools and lecture and they tell about their experience. They work with kids. They've gone to bettered women shelters.

O'BRIEN: Well, I'll tell you what, I've got to ask you one more question. If we could pull back on a two shot so we can see both of you as I ask this question. Given the atmosphere in the Middle East right now, when you return, can you really be friends? Can you really maintain a relationship...

ABUZANT: That's what the whole thing is about.

O'BRIEN: ... in the region right now?

ABUZANT: That's what the whole thing is about is not just being friends and showing the people around the world that we came to this camp and we made friends with Israelis and Palestinians, but the real challenge is when we go back home and to keep in touch with our friends. When I go back home and I hear that there's a bombing in Tel Aviv, I call up my friends in Tel Aviv and ask if they're OK and their friends are OK. And the same vice versa.

And I maintain what I learned in camp at Seeds of Peace and apply it to my daily life back home. I communicate with my family and friends and tell them about how I got to make a friend with an Israeli and how I got to understand them and how they, a lot of Israelis think the same way that we do, that this whole violence and this whole cycle should just stop and we should just live side by side as two countries.

O'BRIEN: Surely it must be...

SADAN: That's right, and the difference is that...

O'BRIEN: It must be rather frustrating, though, to watch events unfold as they are then, given your experience.

SADAN: Definitely. The differences between us and other kids, beyond the experience that we go through at camp, is that when we go back home and we look at the news, when we see that, when I see, for example, violence taking place in the Palestinian Authority, for me it's much more vivid, because I think of my friends, like Jamal and Fadi (ph) and Bushra (ph) and other friends of mine that live in the Palestinian Authority and I think what do they have to go through at that specific moment. And they think the same when they look at suicide bombers on the news and on TV.

So this whole process really humanizes the conflict, because it's not only about Israelis and Palestinians, it's about me and my friends. And because I have friends on the other side, I also have a lot of motivation to work towards reaching peace. And that's what it's also about. It's about bringing kids who have a lot of leadership potential and taking them from when they are kids until they are grownups and helping them and giving them tools to become better grownups and to grow personally so that they can really make a difference in their region. And that is personally my point of view and my...

O'BRIEN: All right, good place to end it.

Koby Sadan, Jamal Abuzant, Israeli and Palestinian, fellow counselors and friends. The best to your continued friendship and we hope it all adds up to something some day soon for the region.

SADAN: We hope so, too.

O'BRIEN: All right, take care.

SADAN: Thank you very much.

ABUZANT: Thank you.

O'BRIEN: Thanks for being with us on CNN SUNDAY MORNING.

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