The Israeli occupation of Palestine
Demotix/Alvaro Minguito. All rights reserved.In a time of global turmoil surrounding refugee crises in many areas, it is easy to lose sight of the fact that the Palestinians compose one of the largest refugee populations as well as the most longstanding refugee population in the world. Of the 11.6 million Palestinians dispersed worldwide, 4.5 million individuals live today in stateless insecurity within the Israeli-dominated Occupied Palestinian Territory, a geographically discontinuous, increasingly fragmented, and ever-shrinking area including the West Bank, East Jerusalem, and Gaza. The displacement of the Palestinians from their homes by Israeli forces, beginning in 1948 and continuing through the present moment, is fundamentally a consequence of a single factor: the Israeli ambition to clear the land for its exclusive use by Jewish/Israeli people. The catastrophic impact of this ambition has been endured by generations of Palestinians who have suffered the devastating ongoing military, political, economic, social, and ideological assault necessary to secure this land. The historical and current conditions for Palestinians, involving nearly 70 years of systematic ethnic cleansing and apartheid control in the name of political Zionism, thus pose an enormous moral challenge.
The list of human rights abuses perpetrated by the government of Israel in its present occupation of Palestine forms a catalogue of terror: the killing and breaking the bones of defenseless demonstrators, arming Israeli settlers to commit acts of violence against Palestinians, bombing of hospitals and schools, home incursion and demolition, the use of toxic gas, mass arrests, detention, and torture—including the torture of children. It is estimated that since 1967, one third of all Palestinian men have been held in detention by Israeli forces, often without charges being brought against them and not infrequently for decades. Almost all of such detainees are mistreated and torture is so common that the physical and psychological consequences of torture by the Israelis form an important public health problem in Palestine. More insidious forms of community reprisal imposed by the Israelis involve the deliberate, systematic, and massive destruction of the economic, agricultural, educational, and legal systems in Palestine as well as the maintenance of total control over its road-ways, water, air space, human movement, and natural resources. The deliberate effort to decimate the leadership of Palestinian society through specific targeting of Palestinian journalists, attorneys, human rights advocates, community organisers, and legislators—including prominent mental health professionals and their families—has been an especially malignant aspect of Israeli policy.
The mental health community is in a unique position to properly assess the gravity of the immense psychological and social damage being inflicted by the occupation.
