Paul Calvert spoke with Bassam

Bassam: There used to be times where I used to sleep two hours a night and I would be involved in very physical activity. I think that was the closest time I was to the Lord in my life. I have seen it very clearly in my life, if I go to sleep without praying and I don't start the morning reading a Psalm or something of the word of God, I've seen how it changes the way I behave on that day. I've seen days when I was upside down and days where I was walking with God. I've seen a total difference in my life.

I used to go to missions and I used to have my Bible with me, it's a big King James Bible in Hebrew and English so it's a pretty heavy one. You don't always want life to be comfortable spiritually. It's not a comfortable Bible to take, but I took it everywhere and every chance I had. I remember I would stop in my Jeep with my soldiers and open the Bible and start giving them a Bible study and they would be shocked because I am a Druze and I know the Bible better than them. I had religious soldiers that I knew the Bible better than. I would be actually sitting and asking them questions about the Bible and answering. It just opened up so many conversations. For me it was really living my faith. In the army you both keep your mouth shut about your faith and don't say anything or you talk about it and your gonna get asked a lot of questions and your faith is going to be tested.

Paul: Is there a lot of persecution in the army?

Bassam: One of the good things in the army in Israel is that it brings people together. That was Ben Gurion's vision. He said the army will take the rich and the poor and it will take the different cultures and they will all come together. They all strip their clothes and wear the same uniforms in the army, which I really like.

I found it hard in civilian life. In the army you are being checked by who you are; if you're a good guy people will see that. If you're a lazy guy people will see that and it's the same thing for believers. Believers are becoming the best soldiers we know in the army, they are getting to good places and are really being appreciated because they don't lie. I had four believers with me in the same company and everybody saw there's something special about this group. They don't lie, they don't cheat, they come to shifts on time and they always volunteer. It was no longer me, a good guy who was doing these things, suddenly it was this guy and this guy. It was a big testimony. Some people might not like you. It's easy not to like something you don't know. When they get to know you and see you're human, they see that you're a friend; they see that you love Israel and most of the world hate Israel, they see that you're with them in the same boat here, so actually there is hardly any persecution about faith.

Paul: We are here in beautiful Eilat and Eilat borders Egypt and also Jordan and there are many Sudanese people coming in to Eilat. What is happening?

Bassam: At the moment there is no peace in Sudan. Sudan has been having a genocide. Many people don't like to call it a genocide because then the world will have to act on it. There is a big war going on there and a big number of casualties. Some Sudanese came and said enough, we've got to run from here because the world is not helping. Everyone is talking about peace but our families are being killed.

Many of the Sudanese you see here in Israel, if you ask them they will tell you that they're the only survivor from their village, or things like that. One of the kids outside right now, a grenade was thrown onto the bus killing his Dad and chopping his leg off. We helped him with doctors and fixed him a leg. Now he can run.

This is a reality. What happened is, these Sudanese said one day, enough. They took themselves and went to nearby countries. The behaviour of those countries was pretty much the same. You ask them and they will tell you that in Egypt it was pretty much the same as the Sudanese government. They were getting killed in the street.

One day a few of them said, if there is one hope, maybe we can go to a country that had the same thing, the Holocaust.

They collected money and worked really hard, five different jobs sometimes. They were saving and hiding the money in the ground and when they had enough money they paid smugglers. They would be praying to God that the smuggler wouldn't give them to the police and share the money half and half. If that would happen they would go to prison and maybe die or disappear. If he was blessed enough to not have this fate then he will pay most of his money to a smuggler who will smuggle him and his family to the Sinai. The rest of the money would go to the Bedouin's. Bedouin's that would smuggle drugs and other stuff into Israel. They know the routes really well. They will bring them closer to the border, but many times they saw soldiers at the border and they said you didn't pay us enough and just left them in the desert with a bottle of water.

There's a family right now, one of my youth and he was left in the desert with one bottle of water for about 20 people. Many times they will see the border and they know they can't go back, so they will just start running. According to testimonial we have heard and saw here in Israel, the Egyptian soldiers start shooting at them or just shooting in the air to scare them. Some came here with bullet holes in them. They got their legs wounded and some died. They said we will come and jump over the fence, even tearing their skin to jump to the Israeli side. The Israeli side is also the army, which will also be telling them that they cannot enter because they come from an enemy country. You can't just come to Israel like this, you're an illegal passenger.

A Sudanese friend of mine said he looked into the soldier's eyes and said 'If I go back I am dead, I've been to prison two times already, I've been tortured, my friends have been killed. I'm not going back. If you want you can shoot me now, I'm walking into Israel'. He walked into Israel and the soldiers just took him and put him in the Jeep. They gave him water and took him to doctors. He was brought into Israel.

Many of the Sudanese share the same fate. They come here illegally and they enter, but Israel we cannot allow ourselves to treat them inhuman, because we have a government system that won't allow it. The people will know and it's not a dictatorship here where you can do whatever you want. I think also the Israelis have a heart for that because they've been through the same situation.