UK and USA Palestine Mental Health Network Study Tour

The ten-day tour (March 25-April 4) with seven nights in Bethlehem and two in Nazareth was led by a woman who has been facilitating tours for internationals for nearly twenty years and this was the third study tour done in conjunction with the UK Palestine Mental Health Network and the first for USA Palestine Mental Health Network.  Participants included four from the UK and eight from the US.  Rebecca Fadil who is a member of the Steering Committee of the USA Palestine Mental Health Network was part of the American contingent.  The 2018 study tour’s special focus was on trauma within families and its impact on women and children.  

More than twenty encounters were arranged so that participants could meet with professional colleagues, primarily Palestinian but also Israeli, and to receive information and understanding about the political reality on the ground.      

It became clear that the situation continues to worsen as settlements grow including the Judaization of East Jerusalem, the fifty year old military occupation of East Jerusalem and the West Bank continues its draconian control and repression of Palestinians with adverse effects especially on children and women, and the two state solution is no longer viable as the extreme Right calls for the annexation of the West Bank. At the same time we heard from mental health practitioners of their hard ongoing work with Palestinians trapped both in a military occupation in the OPT and second class citizens within the State of Israel. 

Jeff Helper, Co-Founder of the Israeli Committee Against Home Demolitions, took us to the large Jewish settlement of Ma’ale Adummim, which with a population 35,000 and all the amenities of an American city, functions as a suburb of Jerusalem. One of the owners of the Educational Bookshop on Saladin Street, East Jerusalem described the levels of “membership” in Israel/Palestine with Israeli Palestinians living within the State of Israel having the most privileges, then East Jerusalem residents, followed by Palestinians living in the West Bank and Palestinians in Gaza. Gerard Horton and Salwa Duaibis gave a very moving presentation on the impact of the fifty year old occupation of the West Bank on the Palestinian population.  The Israeli military have been very successful in protecting the settlers in the West Bank now numbering 420,000 by dividing the West Bank into military districts each of which has extensive intelligence of any active resistance by the Palestinians.  The Israeli military has also been very successful in building a cadre of informants/collaborators to the extent that Palestinians no longer know who they can trust.  Child arrests in the middle of the night are part of a system of intimidation.  These arrests have a profound impact on families.  Fathers who cannot protect their child, sleep deprivation with health implications, mothers who become numb. “I am afraid of being afraid”.  They are afraid of a tomorrow with their child out of school while nearby settlers are happy and are sleeping at night.  The Director of the Arab Association of Human Rights in Nazareth gave an excellent presentation on how the State of Israel has and continues to treat its Palestinian citizens through over fifty laws that limit their rights.  For example Palestinians are not welcomed in 922 Israeli villages.  The goal is “pure Jewish”.  Palestinians do not fit “culturally” for they are not Jewish.  

At the same time we heard the amazing work being done by social workers and psychologists.  Palestine Counseling Centre emphasizes a “positive direction” as staff work with Palestinians in East Jerusalem, for whom no aspect of their lives is predictable. The staff supports each other in part by sharing in cooking lunch. The work of Physicians for Human Rights -Israel with a staff of 27 and volunteers numbering 3000 includes Palestinian political prisoners and refugees.  Doctors are sent to Gaza monthly.  We learned of the bureaucratic system a patient in Gaza seeking treatment for cancer in an Israeli hospital must endure and of the role PHR plays as a key advocate for these patients.  Faculty at Birzeit University emphasized the need to contextualize mental health practices for excluded people who live in the domain of suffering, violence and uncertainty.  While adhering to high academic standards, the Institute of Community and Public Health works with local Palestinian communities with interventions.  Staff walks with the community, including mothers, and helps kids get to school.  Tomorrow’s Youth Organization in Nablus, founded nineteen years, ago serves children and mothers from the refugee camps in and around Nablus.  Families must apply.   There is a long waiting list.  TYO has classes for children ages 9 to 15, 15-18 and for mothers.  Work also includes parent teacher meetings.  Kids are suffering and some are suicidal.  Kids experience violent soldiers as they pass through checkpoints.  The occupation has become normal. So TYO is a form of resistance.   The Director of TYO had to tell her son how to behave at the checkpoints when he went to Ramallah to have fun.  She added that until we have equality and have equal rights, we will not talk with Israeli Jews as equals.

On the first day of this study tour we met with Professor Nadera Shalhoub-Kevorkian, from the Hebrew University, in the Armenian Quarter of the Old City.  In addition to being a prolific scholar, Nadera is also an advocate for children in East Jerusalem.  Many an early morning she is on the streets observing children who are on their way to school.   She told us of her encounter with a young boy who one morning simply left his apartment to play with his skateboard only to encounter Israeli soldiers on patrol.  The soldiers quickly surrounded him to the dismay of his mother.  Nadera slipped the boy a small piece of wrapped chocolate.  The boy who was sitting on the ground defiantly unwrapped the chocolate and ate it in the present of the soldiers.   Participants in this study tour acknowledge the amazing work of the staff of mental health and human rights organizations with whom we met who cope with limited resources to give hope to a people, especially children and mothers who are living under frightful conditions.  Beginning on Friday, 30 March, we carried with us the news of the terrible indiscriminate shooting by the IDF at the Palestinian demonstrators participating in the Great March of Return.  As we ended our final session on the evening of April 3, our tour leader charged us to be faithful in the work of costly solidarity with the Palestinian people.