is contradicted by its actions. It solves this problem by framing the subject people in negative and derogatory terms – dangerous, irrational, fanatical, and dishonest – the classic portrait of the colonised Oriental (Said, 1978, Jabr & Berger, 2017). Every Palestinian citizen is narrated as a potential terrorist. What Shalhoub-Kevorkian (2015) calls “Security as T eology” is a self-fulfi lling doctrine. Once security is evoked to justify action, it cannot be challenged. T is doctrine is applied to the youngest and most vulnerable as well as adult and able- bodied citizens. T is is one facet of the way a population experiences the occupying state’s unilateral control. Although violent deaths of Palestinians at Israel’s hands vastly


outnumber the reverse, the right to feel safe is reserved only for the occupying power and its citizens. Palestinians are portrayed as the bearers of insecurity for Israelis and not as people living in fear. Gazan citizens are taken to represent danger rather than people desperately trying to survive in intolerably degraded circumstances. ‘Othering’, in contexts of gross power imbalance, undermines


self ood by imposing narrow discourses, even when these are rejected. “We are not terrorists” declared a 16-year-old girl at the recent ‘Palestinian Childhoods’ conference. Systemic therapists working with processes of ‘othering’ usually seek to bring forth alternative identities and narratives but addressing the political dimension also means exploring the ways that ‘othering’ is used to serve the interests of those with power.


Shame, humiliation, and silencing Shame and humiliation are embedded in the lives of


Palestinians, facing daily subjugation. T ese emotions vary for men, women and children and in their impact on relationships. Powerlessness to protect children from arrest, incarceration or set ler violence profoundly undermines parents’ self- esteem and erodes children’s confi dence in being protected. Humiliation is frequently used as a deliberate tactic by soldiers


to enforce domination and to punish even those small acts of resistance that keep a sense of dignity alive. Palestinians travelling to work in Israel must arrive at checkpoints before dawn, trooping through metal gates controlled by soldiers surveying every move. Disembodied voices issue orders. Refusal to comply is impossible if you want to work. Mild expressions of protest thus have to be stifl ed. Prolonged experiences of impotence and humiliation impact profoundly on mental and physical health (Jabr & Berger, 2017). As well as individual impacts, humiliation resides at community levels, inextricably linked to the loss of dignity and justice as Palestinians witness the destruction of their social world, the fragmentation, shrinkage and despoliation of their physical environment.


Undermining connections In Palestine, family bonds, the bedrock of social support, are


undermined by policies, including prolonged military detention, physical barriers to movement, arbitrary residency permits. Virtually every life transition or life crisis involves navigating physical and administrative barriers intruding into family life and undermining connection. T e permit system creates massive additional stress at times


of crisis. Someone in Ramallah or Bethlehem requiring hospital treatment in Jerusalem – under ten miles away – generally has to apply for a permit which is oſt en refused. If they receive it, close relatives may not accompany them. T us, unwell people, including children, may be separated from family at their most


Context 164, August 2019


vulnerable moments. A child may have to undergo kidney dialysis or chemotherapy without the comfort of a parent’s presence. Control over physical movement has further ramifi cations.


Children cannot safely compensate for overcrowded housing by occupying public space. Palestinian families are routinely evicted from their homes and land to make way for Jewish neighbourhoods in Jerusalem or set lements on the West Bank. T ey are usually denied permission to extend homes when families expand, leading to building without a permit; these homes are liable to demolition. Families gamble on evading demolition, resulting in uncertainty about when a demolition order might be enforced. T e insecurity of ‘living on borrowed time’ in this way is a main cause of depression in adults and a serious trauma experienced by children, whose home cannot be a place of safety. Children suff er fear, anxiety and depression, but they are


also active citizens, oſt en taking upon themselves the imperative to resist. As well as arrest and imprisonment, they risk death or catastrophic injury, as the latest protests in Gaza demonstrated. Young people took enormous risks in approaching the fence, frequently picked off by Israeli snipers. T is determination to resist whatever the cost supports fi ndings of links between adolescent resilience and their engagement in local political action (Punamaki et al., 2001). Young Gazan citizens thus oſt en fi nd themselves striving for psychological health at the expense of life itself, since they already live in a context saturated with death, destruction, poverty and the absence of hope. Professionals speak both of their own despair and their determination to help people maintain their humanity amid unbearable suff ering. Interventions include projects aimed at providing some brief moments of creativity, joy or play such as the ‘Fridays of Joy’ run by the Palestine Trauma Centre. Despite policies designed to crush hope and dignity,


Palestinians are resourceful; experience of living with fear and uncertainty oſt en leads to improvising creative solutions to daily obstacles. A young woman related how, during the invasion of Nablus, she and her friends created a phone network to call each other at night if the soldiers were near their homes. Refusing to give in to despair or to the crushing of human decency is fundamental to resistance, encapsulated in the concept of Sumud (steadfastness). It is important to bear in mind, however, just how exhausting is the constant need to fi nd ways around arbitrary barriers to normal life. Arbitrariness, an intrinsic component of power imbalance, profoundly aff ects psychological wellbeing because it undermines a sense of agency and leads to despair that there is any accountability. Although human-rights abuses are meticulously documented


by Israeli, Palestinian and international organisations, action rarely follows and these organisations too have come under threat. Communities thus feel abandoned by the outside world; in the words of a child during the Gaza protests and Israel’s lethal responses: “Tell the world that we exist”.


Trauma and social suff ering Describing the eff ects of oppression and violence on


Palestinians inevitably involves employing the language of trauma. However, conventional trauma models are problematic. When trauma is relentlessly ongoing, there is simply no safe place for individuals to heal. Understanding trauma in terms of whole communities in trauma, with collective problems requiring justice, is more relevant and this requires intervention at political rather than individual levels.


49


“The strong do what they can and the weak suff er what they must”: Palestinian families under occupation


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