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Oscar
Nomination for Palestinian Teen
From a news story by
CNN San Francisco Reporter Rusty Dornin
November 2002
Fifteen-year-old Sanabel
Al-Faraj and sixteen-year-old Keyan Al-Safy can't go home. Stranded
in San Francisco these Palestinian teenagers can only watch the skirmishes
near their refugee camp in Bethlehem.
Rusty asks. " What has
it been like watching these scenes on television?"
Sanabel Al-Faraja answers,
"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."
The teens came to the United States last month after a documentary,
Promises, in which Sanabel 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.
[These are] thoughts and feelings the teens feel more comfortable at
times discussing in Arabic.
Rusty asks, "What was happening to your camp the week before the
Academy Awards?"
Kayan answers, "The army, the soldiers, entered my house and entered
our camp and they destroyed the tin houses."
Rusty, "What about the movie? Sanabel, at one point you ask two
of the Jewish boys in the film to come to the refugee camp. How was
that for you?"
Sanabel says, "We had heard there were two Jewish kids that supported
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."
Rusty asks, "Have your feelings changed about them, about these
Jewish boys, about the Jewish people, or your feelings for peace?"
Sanabel says, "I met them in Los Angeles at the Oscars. They actually
tried to contact us after the siege, but since the telephone lines were
cut off we didn't hear from them and for awhile I was afraid they had
changed their position and were not supporting us anymore. So I was
really happy to learn afterwards that they did indeed try to contact
us."
Rusty, "I know you had recently told an interviewer that you would
be happy to be a martyr for your homeland and that you agreed with the
suicide bombers. Do you still feel that way or have your feelings changed
about that?"
"At the time of the interview I was feeling a lot of anger. The
Israeli tanks were ten 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 loose their
life on a suicide bombing because of the despair they are living under.
At the same time, I cannot tell somebody not to do a suicide bombing."
Rusty Dornin asks, "I
know you've been calling your families; have you reached them?"
"I've talked to my mother and my siblings but our fathers and my
older brothers, we don't know anything about them. We don't know where
they are. They are not at home and I'm constantly worried, wondering
what has happened to them: If they're OK? If they still in hiding? If
they have been killed? If they they been injured?"
Rusty asks, "Once you do get home what kind of future do you see
for yourselves?"
"I think our future, we haven't a future."
Not if things stay the way they are, [these] feelings of despair from
teens who've yet to graduate from high school.
Additional Notes:
The teens spend their days
searching for information. Rusty asks them, "So how many hours
a day are you spending on the Internet?"
"24 hours! We check our email and many letters about the situation."
Both are still in school and members of a Palestinian dance troupe.
Promises was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Documentary
Feature in 2002 but did not win. It did win two Emmys in 2001 at the
23rd Annual News & Documentary Emmy Awards for Best Documentary
and Outstanding Background /Analysis of a Single Current Story.
For additional
information about the doucmentary Passions and the Israeli and
Palestinian conflict, look at these Web sites:
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