The Psychological and Mental Effects of Systematic Humiliation by Israel Against the Palestinians

By: Rana Nashashibi, Director

Palestinian Counseling Center

(October 2003)

Hypothesis

Parallel to its conventional military offensive and atrocities against the Palestinians, Israel is adopting a systematic policy of psychological warfare against the Palestinian people. The weaponry of this warfare is not machine guns, tanks, and apache helicopters but methodical humiliation and demoralization which targets the Palestinian people’s psyche , emotionally and cognitively. Its repercussions is intended to transcend the political and economic damage to that of long term debilitation of the individuals and collective abilities to resist and rise as a proud nation.

What is Israel doing?

It is affecting the two spectrums, which constitute the mental well being of the people, thereby distorting people’s psyche and behavior. Levine says that behavior is the fit or misfit between the person and environment, i.e. B (p&e).

Let us examine the two aspects of the equation:

One end of the spectrum; the Surrounding Environment

Occupation: The Palestinian people are the only remaining nation under military occupation in the world today. This was the fact until the American occupation of Iraq (Miftah, website 2003). The Palestinian people’s right to freedom and self-determination are recognized by the international community through a number of resolutions passed by the United Nations. In our view, it is the failure of the international community to force Israel to comply with these resolutions that is the major cause of the ongoing conflict in Palestine today.

Israeli Occupation Practices

Direct Violence and terrorization

For the past 36 years, and intensively since September 2000 (Al Quds, 2002), Palestinians have been living as though in a large prison with a continuous threat and fear for their lives. Basic human rights are being violated on a daily basis. The following are updated statistics (PCBS, 2003) of the casualties of the recent Intifada (September, 2000).

q Total number of Palestinians killed by Israeli security forces and Jewish settlers are: 2,229 (children 433, females 129, medical personnel 18, journalist 8, internationals 6).

q People assassinated by Israeli death squads: 309 of those, bystanders killed during Israeli assassination operations: 114

q Total disabilities (both partial and permanent) in the West Bank and Gaza Strip: 2500.

q Physical injuries: 41,089.

q Houses demolished during Israeli incursion: West Bank: 2700,

q Houses demolished during Israeli incursion: Gaza Strip: 2315 before the latest incursion to Rafah and Gaza.

q Demolition due to no license 635

q Damage to Public buildings: 118.

q People directly affected to home demolition in Gaza alone: over 30,000 people

This is in addition to closure of schools, damage to school buildings, people dying from lack of access to medical care and infants dying at Israeli military checkpoints because of inaccessibility to clinics for immunization.

Indirect Violence and Terrorization:

People are living under siege, terrorized, subjected to daily systematic humiliation at army checkpoints and within their neighborhoods. The West Bank and the Gaza Strip today look very much like a huge over-crowded prison, whose inmates are kept in check by heavily armed guards at the gates who are under orders, from their commanders, to maintain a tight grip on the prisoners. If this prison were to be called anything, it would be a “ghetto.” It is ironic that it is the Jewish people, as it is well known, are the most prolific in writing about and describing life in the “ghetto,” and its impact on a person’s mental health.

In community psychology there are three main factors that constitute the highest stressors, which affect people psychologically, these are:

q Lack of social support system

q There are limited social relations as people are confined to their homes: every town and village is cut off from the other and completely isolated. There is disintegration of family and social relationships.

q Unemployment and poverty

A large section of the population is starving and in need of basic needs for their livelihood. The economic situation is dire, and therefore people are barely surviving. According to the World Bank’s recent report, the National Domestic Product declined by 40%, unemployment reached 50% in the Gaza Strip and 63.3% in the West Bank, and thus people living under the poverty line increased by 65% since September 2000. The poverty line defined by the World Bank is an income of $2.00 per person per day (in third world countries). The inability of workers to reach their place of work because of the closure of all the towns and many villages in the West Bank and Gaza Strip (Al Quds, April 2002) the difficulties associated with the marketing of products, and the inability to obtain raw materials have resulted in the dwindling of the economy.

Physical Environment

Arbitrary measures of closing areas, shooting at people sporadically as they cross checkpoints, invading towns and arresting people in the middle of the night leaves the subjugated people confused and not knowing what to expect and therefore living in continuous fear.

The Israeli military practices do not end at the military, psychological, and economic siege imposed on the Palestinian people, but include the humiliation of individuals and groups of Palestinians. (http://www.miftah.org/)

The individual the other end of the spectrum

Continuous traumatization due to more than fifty years of occupation and devastation. Israel is inflicting long term damage on the Palestinians because it systematically expose them to tacit consistent threat to their being, thereby traumatizing them.

It is known throughout the world that there exists a high correlation between life stressors and a prevalence of psychological problems in society (Sebastian, 2002). For Palestinians, the increase in life threatening situations and the fear of losing one's life have caused grief and trauma and have affected all sectors of the community. Worldwide it is known that 25% of any community directly living in a conflict area or war zone is affected psychologically on a long-term basis. It is estimated that the number in the OPT (Occupied Palestinian Territories) has reached 30-35% that will be affected on a long-term basis (Halileh, 2002). This is primarily due to the sporadic military actions against civilian population like bombing, shelling, mass killings, demolition of houses that leads to unpredictability - not knowing when one will die or be injured. It is widely known that bombing and shelling is more traumatizing than other measures of force because they are more sporadic and constitute a drastic threat to people's sense of existence and security. For Palestinians, the lack of control over one's environment is the main cause of psychological problems.

Trauma Caused by the Wall

The Apartheid Wall that the Israeli government is allegedly building for security reason stands at 8 meters (25feet) high. This wall will approximately affect 875,000 Palestinians. Palestinians directly harmed by the wall are 263,000. Palestinians imprisoned in enclaves include 11500 between the barrier and the green line.

In the Qalqiliya area 41,000 Palestinian residents will be isolated, and 3,750 dumums confiscated, (937.5 acres) and will destroy another 2,200 dumums (550acres) of land. Land, which is the economic lifeline of this area, is being taken away while its’ people watch helplessly. Basically, the people within the wall are being put in a huge prison, which has completely affected their lives. Health care and health care services are working at a minimal level. School, work, and basic daily living is interrupted due to closure and curfew since the Apartheid Wall has been built. The horrible condition imposed on the Palestinian people and its psychological effects has gone unnoticed by the world, making this horrific situation even harder to tolerate. What is happening to the residents of places like Qalqiliya for example, can only be described as the ghettoization, oppression, and displacement of a people. The ghetto is described as a location designed to house, contain, and thin out entire groups of people deemed unwanted and parasitic by the powers that be, by isolating the people and giving them no jobs, education, and hope to move forward in life.

Ghettos have been systematically created in the past, and in other regions, marginalizing communities and establishing two tiers of society. The term ghetto is most commonly used to describe the areas where Jews were forced to live in pre WWII Germany. In 1915 American Society, the ghetto had taken shape in the form of a large, mostly poor, African-American enclave on the South Side of New York, with a similar offshoot on the West Side.

This ghetto-like life not only restricts psychological development, but also denies individuals the chance to reclaim the psychological and social advancements they had once achieved as people. Jewish and other psychologists (Glabach, D) have written a great deal about the Ghetto mentality, about how people who are put in a situation of captivity act, and how they respond physically, cognitively and emotionally.

Turning the Palestinian people’s attention away from what is necessary for their intellectual and psychological well being, and focusing it on how to guarantee their daily bread and their survival, only makes them ignorant, restricts their economic and social development, and pushes them back at least two decades on the development scale, making it easier for the occupying power to tighten its psychological control over the occupied Palestinian people, and for a longer period of time.

Repercussions:

Our preoccupation with putting food on our table, and the lack of security, put the “Maslow” Pyramid out of our reach, and prevent us from climbing its steps. If there is neither a sense of security, nor sufficient food, then the gap between the current status of a Palestinian and his/her potential will remain large. This ghetto-like life not only restricts our psychological development, but also denies us the chance to reclaim the psychological and social advancements we had once achieved.

The level of people energy is depleted and therefore will conserve their energy to survival rather than development.

People will operate on primary process thinking which means that they would want immediate gratification rather than ability to tolerate frustration in order to arrive to higher and more sophisticated means of thinking and emotional operation. This will also lead to people wanting to melt in the collective rather than stick out for their individual uniqueness. This is what Freud calls the herd effect.

The ability to organize and form systems will be compromised.

When the Palestinians are made a people with limited capabilities, it then becomes easier for both the Israeli military establishment and the western world to see them as inferior beings, easily led, beaten and kicked. This image is considered legitimate and prescriptive, and both Israel and the West justify their oppression of the Palestinians by convincing themselves that the Palestinians “are not advanced human beings like us, they have limited capabilities, they live outside the civilized world, and therefore oppressing them is legitimate.

Recommendations

The main issue here is to integrate the human factor in any discussion of effective and sustainable work in Palestine. To take into consideration that any viable project has to be worked out mainly with human resources, so understanding the psyche is critical.

1. It is crucial that developmental and humanitarian agencies and organizations adopt the human aspect into their work – into their long-term development plans. It has come to our attention that some European governments have dismissed any direct service provision from their agendas and focusing on ‘other developmental issues’. This will affect many organizations working in mental health care. To work towards development, one must begin with the empowerment of the individual and at the same time work with the collective – not allowing one to take precedence over the other. The philosophy behind it is that the society and community is also made up of its individuals, and any change to occur should also work on people's attitudes and behaviors so as to empower them to bring about the change needed. According to the humanistic theory, people who do not appreciate themselves are not able to develop and advance socially, psychologically and professionally, as self esteem is an important element to human growth and development.

2. Mental health should be integrated into all advocacy agendas world-wide. In saying this, weather it may be the Wall, closures, curfews, killings, injuries, home demolitions, lack of access to work or to school, the inability to freely move, inaccessibility to health care, imprisonment, torture, unemployment, poverty, etc., people are affected and need support even though the Palestinians are known for their resiliency, we cannot be affected by the inability to go on with our daily lives.