In war-torn countries or areas of conflict, violence and
aggression, unfortunately, take their toll on the civilian
population. The gravity of the ensuing trauma depends on the level
of exposure and the age of the person. Children in their formative
years are the most fundamentally affected as the traumas of life
situations are internalized and incorporated within their psyche.
Children cannot avoid the negative psychological consequences of
harassment, humiliations, and injuries to self or relatives to
which they are constantly exposed.
Although this is true of the population of the West Bank and the
Gaza Strip at large, this article will be confined to the
psychological effects suffered by children as a result of the
revocation of residency rights of Palestinian Jerusalemites.1 The
existence of causality here is not immediately clear, yet the
repercussions of this policy are quite dramatic as they represent a
disruption in the children's basic sense of security. However, the
policy of revocation of residency rights cannot be considered in
isolation, but should be placed within the context of Israel's
systematic policies and practices aimed at uprooting the
population, causing them continuous stress, such as restrictions on
building, demolition of houses, expropriation of land, and building
of settlements.
It is the youngest and the seriously injured who are the most
vulnerable. Israeli aggression has led to the manifestation of a
number of anxiety-related problems and disorders in children, like
bed-wetting, separation anxiety and lack of concentration, leading
to poor school performance. These problems are caused by such
factors as uprooting and threat to one's existence; absence of
stability and security; continuous threat of separation and
disruption of children's normal development.
The following two cases excerpted from the report Living in
Jerusalem (Committee for the Defense of Jerusalem) illustrate some
of the aspects of this policy and its effect on children.
Denial of Family Reunification
Ribhi Abu Al-Hummous is a resident of Issawiyah in Jerusalem. In
1990, he married Hijar, a resident of Qatanna in the West Bank. Six
months after their marriage Ribhi applied for family reunification
for his wife so that she would be able to reside legally in
Jerusalem. His application was rejected. Upon inquiry, Ribhi was
informed that the reason for the rejection was on security grounds,
as Ribhi had been a political prisoner at some point in the past.
In the meantime the couple had two sons: Ghassan (three years) and
Ihsan (one year) and they continue to live in Issawiyah.
Since the imposition of the closure on Jerusalem in 1993, Hijar has
not been able to obtain a permit allowing her to be in Jerusalem.
She is often afraid to leave the house and she rarely visits her
parents for fear of not being allowed back into Jerusalem. Hijar is
a professional nurse for the handicapped, but she cannot find work
because most institutions in Jerusalem hesitate to employ people
with West Bank IDs. As a result, the family's economic situation
has deteriorated since they are obliged to rely on one income
only.
This case highlights some of the effects mentioned earlier: the
lack of a sense of security and the fear of separation. The
children are constantly worried that soldiers might come and arrest
their mother or force her back to Qatanna, thus separating them
from their father. The family cannot move around freely and the
children are not able to wander about and explore their
surroundings. Furthermore, the anxiety and tension the parents are
suffering are reflected in their relationship with their
children.
Poor Housing Conditions
Rabah Mohammad Bseiso, aged 85, is a widower who lives with his
three children and several grandchildren (in total 15 people) in a
two-room house in the Sa'diyeh neighborhood in the Old City of
Jerusalem. Rabah has been living there since 1965. Although he pays
his municipal tax (arnona) regularly, he does not receive any
services from the municipality. The home is poorly ventilated and
does not receive sunlight, and he was forced to convert the water
well into a septic tank. The municipality has asked the family to
move out, under the pretext that it was unable to extend services
to them. The family refuses to leave. Why? Because they remember
the families who were driven out by the Israeli authorities from
the Magharbah Quarter (in 1967) and relocated in Al-Ezariyyah. This
town, which used to be part of the Jerusalem district, is now in
the West Bank and those living there risk losing their residency
rights in Jerusalem. The Bseiso family prefers living in impossible
conditions to being denied residency in Jerusalem. Otherwise, they
will either be compelled to move to the West Bank or to rent an
apartment outside the city walls where the rent has soared over the
past years, and which the majority of Palestinian Jerusalemites can
ill-afford.
However, the fact that the Bseiso family has opted to stay in their
house has impacted negatively on the children. In the absence of
municipal services (to which the family is legally entitled), the
children are forced to live in squalid, cramped quarters where they
are denied the freedom to play or to develop healthily, both
physically and socially.
By all standards, the conditions described above are violations of
people's basic rights and an attack on their dignity and integrity.
The victims are not individuals, but entire households who are
forced to live under continuous stress, the effects of which can
manifest themselves in both physiological and psychological
forms.
Research and scientific data have shown that, indeed, children
living and growing up with violence are at risk of pathological
development. Learning to trust is the infant's primary task during
the first year of life. It provides the foundation for further
development and forms the basis for self-confidence and
self-esteem. The parent's ability to provide consistent care and
respond to the infant's need for love and stimulation is crucial at
this stage. This is compromised when the family lives in a
situation characterized by insecurity and fear for its safety. How
can parents give the child proper care when their energy is sapped
by efforts to keep safe?
When infants reach toddlerhood and have an inner push to play and
jump, they need to be outside and to have enough room to move
around and explore their surroundings. Restrictions by adults
disrupt the normal course of development. When they reach school,
these children are at an age when they need to establish
relationships, to socialize and romp in playgrounds with other
kids. Instead, they are anxious about whom they meet and where they
go. When children's energies are drained because they are defending
themselves or warding off fears, they have learning difficulties,
distorted memories and their cognitive functions can be
compromised. To control their fears, children who are exposed to a
continuous threat on their existence and security may repress
feelings. This defensive maneuver takes its toll in their immediate
lives and can lead to further pathological development in the
future, such as their ability to relate to others in a meaningful
way and to feel empathy. Children who cannot empathize with others
are less likely to curb their own aggression, and more likely to
become insensitive to brutality in general, leading to carelessness
about their own lives and that of others.
Consequences of Trauma
Research conducted on victims of the Holocaust have shown that
survivors of very different traumas share many acute and long-term
sequelae. The term PTSD (post-traumatic stress disorder) was
developed to describe the sequelae related to a wide variety of
traumas, including both single and repeated events associated with
a spectrum of such events as war, disaster, crime and accidents.
The unifying theme is that the traumatic experience be "outside the
range of usual human experience" (American Psychiatric Association,
1987). The experience of Palestinian children who are forced to
separate from their parents or are forced to live in inhuman
conditions or are in continuous threat of uprooting, are definitely
going through an experience outside of "usual human
experience."
A lot of Jerusalemite children are suffering from these problems.
It is reflected in their low self-esteem, their pathological
identification with the enemy, poor school performance and the
spread of child labor. A survey conducted by the Society of
Austro-Arab Relations (SAAR) in 1995/1996 on 210 households in the
Old City of Jerusalem (The Socio-Economic and Health Profile of the
Palestinian Arab Inhabitants of the Old City of Jerusalem), reveals
that 35 percent of children drop out of school before the tenth
grade and end up working inside Israel as unskilled workers. These
constitute illegal child labor, without any rights.
It should be emphasized that all children do not react in the same
manner to stressful or violent situations. Factors like resilience,
age and family temperament might affect their response to stress.
It is unfortunate that, while Israel recognizes the effects of
trauma in other places and situations, it is quite oblivious to the
impact its policies of aggression and humiliation can have on the
psyche of Palestinians in the occupied territories, especially on
children.
Endnote
1. The violations of residency rights of Palestinians in Jerusalem
include: lack of protection of residency status, denial of family
reunification, exclusion from the 1967 census, denial of
registration of children and revocation of residency rights.