Un vécu devenu évasion: A Psychology of the Oppressed and the Oppressor

A Psychology of the Oppressed and the Oppressor

By Hwaa Irfan

The psychology of the oppressor and oppressed is a complex relationship spanning centuries of conflict around the world. In the Palestinian-Israeli conflict this psychological web is displayed in many ways. For the Israelis, some experts wonder if memories of an earlier holocaust are factors in the current conflict. Other experts point out that the psychological torture and manipulation employed by the Israeli government on its own people, as well as the Palestinians is even more harmful than guns that have been fired on the West Bank. Recent studies have shown that the psychological effects of war and conflict are more damaging and longer lasting to the society than casualties of war.

Many experts believe that Germany was the final blow to Ashkenazi Jews and inflicted a permanent wound. Unable to avenge their oppressors, they focused their energies elsewhere and through the United League were able to create and then obtain their dream of a homeland. Holding onto a false notion of nationality, patterns of behavior developed until some people were able to intellectualize everything and it reached the point of becoming obsessively competitive. Over a period of time for some, this has become ingrained into the psyche. Some Israelis even openly admit to massacres of the Palestinian people as if it were a common occurrence. Minister of Defense Benjamin ben Eliezar told the Israeli journal Ediot Ahronot, “It is a fact that we have killed Palestinians in Jenin, Qabatiyeh and Tammun with the world remaining absolutely silent. It’s a disaster for Arafat” (Amnesty #1, p.1).

For other Israelis, however, it is the psychological manipulation of their government that keeps them fighting and not their own convictions. To prevent resistance among Israeli youth, Israeli soldiers and reservists are imprisoned for refusing to perform military duties in the Occupied Territories. In September 2001, 62 Israeli students approaching the age of conscription stated, “We strongly resist Israel’s pounding of human rights, land expropriation, arrests, executions without trial, house demolition, closure, torture and the prevention of healthcare are only some of the crimes the state of Israel carries-out, in blunt violation international conventions it has ratified.” They were subsequently arrested and humiliated in front of their peers. In a letter dated this January, 460 reservists stated, “We shall not fight beyond the 1967 borders in order to dominate, expel, starve and humiliate an entire people” (Amnesty #2, p.2). Many people signing this letter were either imprisoned or mistreated in some way.

Other Israelis have been called to public humiliation and psychological trauma for their part in exposing Israeli massacres of the past. Ilan Pappe, Israeli professor of political science at Haifa University along with other revisionist historians have been dedicated to unearthing Israel’s true past of 1948’s ethnic cleansing. Pappe criticized Haifa’s University conduct over the Teddy Katz case – an MA student who was expelled last year for unearthing evidence of massacres committed by Israeli forces in the coastal village of Tantura in 1948. For this activity, Ilan Pappe was called-up for trial by the Dean of Humanities using the Israeli courts legal authority to do so (Sakr, p.1, 2).

However, the Israeli government applies even more intense psychological manipulation to the Palestinian people. Muhammad al-Naqari, an expert in “akhlaq” (ethics), calls this diffidence. Diffidence, explains Muhammad al-Naraqi “is when one fails to reach the heights of perfection…being content with the lower rudimentary attainments (al-Naraqi, p.51). Diffidence is what heads of state have succumbed to, killing the human soul, which seems unable to rise to the growing injustices. “…Well I grant for you your Ummah that it would not be dominated by an enemy who would not take their lives and destroy them root and branch, even if all the people from the different parts of the world join hands together, but it would be from amongst them, your Ummah, that some people would kill the other or imprison the other” (Muslim, 041, #6932).

Certainly, in modern Palestine it seems there are more dead souls than dead bodies. Fear, in fact, prevails over death in Palestine today. Many people contemplate recent events but even more people contemplate the future. “Maybe by this time next year there will be no Palestinians on the West Bank,” says one West Bank resident. “You might be watching T.V and seeing what everybody else is seeing. The two main scenes on the screen are either our children who are full of life, anger and blood or the politicians who are defending their political purposes and preparing for the coming season. I feel so angry when I watch those flowers, our children. We carried them in our wombs; we fed them with our blood and tears. We laughed with them, at them and for them. We built our small houses, dreaming that they would be made bigger by their laughter and noise. We dreamt that our children would look after us in our old age, knowing that there would be no welfare state to ensure our well-being” (Alexander p.1, 2).

Muhammad Nassar is another victim of the psychology of the oppressed. He watched his whole family disintegrate. “Do you know what it means for a person to suffocate, to drown and not be able to scream,” he says, “…that is me. I have been out of work for five months. I cannot even put food on the table for my family. My wife’s death at the checkpoint has only made things worse. Who will take care of the children? I don’t even know why they allow us to live. Are we supposed to stand-by with our hands tied while our loved ones are killed? Our children made homeless and our dignity and humanity stripped from us?” (Wahdan, p.2).

Psychological torture is also common among prisoners taken by Israeli troops. Su’ad Ghazal was arrested at 15 for allegedly killing an illegal Israeli settler. After two years of imprisonment she cried out, “…but it is not just international law that has been violated. It is not just my body that bears the scars of the cruelest kind of physical torture or my mind that has been traumatically changed because of brutal psychological torture, but the fact that any person could be as cruel as to try to take away the child in me - to destroy me as a human being, to insult me, to try to take away my dignity and to erase my identity forever, in violation of all that is decent and right”. From the first day of her detention she was told: “Now you are all alone and no one can help you…We will make you regret the day you were born” (Yaghi, p.1, 2).

Despite harsh treatment by the Israeli government, Muslims in the West Bank say that they rely on Islam to help them through their difficulties. “Islam is our rudder in the ocean of madness, “ says Samia Nassar. “If they take this away the individual who is not anchored in God can offer no resistance on his own resources to the physical and moral blandishments of the world” (Jung, p.24).

Just as there are some Europeans who believe that the holocaust never took place many now declare the same for Jenin. However, for those Palestinians still alive in Jenin and other endangered cities in the West Bank, it is a matter of hiding in fear, the fear of sleep, mental distress, children urinating in fear, screaming, fevers, nightmares, constant headaches, unable to eat, uncontrollable diabetes and disruption in bodily functions (Giacaman, p.2).

Source:

Alexander, Roger. “Women in Gaza.” Society and Culture of Palestine. 12/12/01.

Al – Naraqi, Muhammad. M. “Textbook of Ethics.” Pakistan: Islamic Seminary Publications. 1985.

Amnesty.org. “The Backlash – Human Rights at Risk Throughout the World.” Amnesty International. 10/16/01.