Post by Salem6 on Feb 19, 2004 11:45:39 GMT
Report, Palestinian Counseling Center, 18 February 2004
Israeli 'shoot to kill'-style warning sign on part of the separation barrier. As expected, the Hebrew word for the barrier is gader ("fence" ). However, the Arabic word used is jidar, which -- while related at its root to the Hebrew word gader actually means "wall" in Arabic. (ISM)
The Separation Wall that the Israeli government is said to be building for security reasons stands at 8 meters (25feet) high. This wall will approximately affect 90,700 Palestinian residents of 32 villages in the Qalqilya area and will isolate and thus effectively confiscate 47,020 dunums of land (11,755 acres) and will destroy another 7,750 dunums (1,937 acres). Six of the villages, with approximately 1,000 residents, will be completely trapped between the Wall and the 1967 Green Line; isolating them from the West Bank and effectively annexing them to Israel without being granted citizenship or legal rights. Land, which is the base of the economic lifeline of this area, is being taken away as it's people watch helplessly.
In community psychology there are three main factors that constitute the highest stressors which affect people psychologically. These are:
Lack of social support systems
Limited social relations as people are confined to their homes – every town and village is cut off from the other and completely isolated. There is disintegration of family and social relationships
Unemployment and poverty
In the village of Ras al-Tira, Palestinian Counseling Center (PCC) staff and fieldworkers spoke with many residents who left their homes in the Qalqiliya area to come back to this village. This village in particular is completely cut off from the rest of the surrounding area. Originally, most left this area because work was scarce but now they are forced to come back in order to show claim to the land. In some cases if the residents are not physically on the land, the Israeli forces can claim there is no one living there and occupying apparatus then takes control.
There is an electric fence that has encircled this community with one military checkpoint/gate for entrance and exists. The gate is opened at scheduled times throughout the day. There is a school on the other side of the fence, which most of the children in Ras al-Tira attend. So, if a child is late and misses the scheduled time of the gate opening she/he misses a full day of school. And if a child misses school that day and many other days due this interruption we can assume that academic achievement will be hindered. With a hindered education process, illiteracy rate increases and a feeling of helplessness will give way, which will make many stop attending school altogether. With children dropping out of schools and not feeling adequate enough to achieve, social problems arise, including difficulty in relating to others and the world. This was seen as the children in this village choose to stay indoors rather then go out and play with the other children. Some said that staying in helped them cope with the situation because they couldn’t see the electric fence that separated them from the world.
Israel's apartheid wall under construction (Photo: AEF, 2003)
According to PENGON, agricultural production accounted for 22% of the town of Qalqilya’s economy before the Intifada began in September 2000. This number has risen to 45% since residents have lost business with the closure of the commercial area and the inability to travel outside the city for employment; people have become more dependent on their land, which Israel in turn is increasing the difficulty of accessing through outright confiscation, or barriers leading to an eventual confiscation; many who have land on the other side of the Apartheid Wall are unable to gain entrance to it. Those who do have access, or who have moved back to their village as in Ras al-Tira, still have problems as harvesting and selling of goods is hampered. According to PENGON, 1,500 dunums of greenhouses will be separated from communities by the Wall. Prior to the Intifada, Qalqilya was the market center for over 85,000 Palestinians from the West Bank and Israel per week. The Wall and continual closure have caused the market to almost completely shut down; most merchants have relocated to nearby villages (In the past two years, 4500 Qalqilya residents have left the town for surrounding villages due the hardship.). In conducting the pilot phase of a study concerning psychological effects of the Wall on Qalqilya and surrounding village residents, PCC found that unemployment among study participants who were able to work is 72%.
What is happening to the residents of Qalqiliya can only be described as the ghettoization, oppression, and displacement of a people. In the next following paragraphs what is a ghetto, oppression, and displacement will explained. Then, we will discuss the troubling psychological affects associated with these traumas.
What is a ghetto? Ghettos have been systematically created in the past, and in other regions of the world, marginalizing communities and establishing two tiers of society. According to Allan Spear (1967) the term ghetto was most commonly used to describe the areas where Jews were forced to live in pre WWII Germany. In 1915 American Society, the ghetto had taken shape in the form of a large, mostly poor, African-American enclave on the South Side of New York, with a similar offshoot on the West Side.
The wall in Abu Dis cuts off thousands of residents from Jerusalem and dividing the village itself (Photo: Musa Al-Shaer, 2004)
The American ghetto is describe by Walter Thabit (2003) as a location designed to house, contain, and thin out entire groups of people deemed unwanted and parasitic by the powers that be, by isolating the people and giving them no jobs, education, and hope to move forward in life. Thabit also states “ghettos are created by the apartheid policies of white society.” By gaining a better comprehension of a ghetto we can better understand what is happening to the Palestinians in Qalqilya today. Qalqilya and the surrounding villages, which were once a very productive and economically established area, now have the characteristics of a ghetto (since the building of the Apartheid Wall).
Spear states “the development of a physical ghetto was not the result chiefly of poverty; nor did African-American cluster out of choice to these project housing but instead the ghetto was primarily the product of white hostility. What is a striking feature of these project housings in America are not the existence of slum condition, but the difficulty of escaping the slum. European immigrants needed only to prosper to be able to move to a more desirable neighborhood. African-Americans, on the other hand, suffered from economic deprivation, psychology warfare and systematic racial discrimination.” Making their struggle to move forward much more difficult.
Israeli 'shoot to kill'-style warning sign on part of the separation barrier. As expected, the Hebrew word for the barrier is gader ("fence" ). However, the Arabic word used is jidar, which -- while related at its root to the Hebrew word gader actually means "wall" in Arabic. (ISM)
The Separation Wall that the Israeli government is said to be building for security reasons stands at 8 meters (25feet) high. This wall will approximately affect 90,700 Palestinian residents of 32 villages in the Qalqilya area and will isolate and thus effectively confiscate 47,020 dunums of land (11,755 acres) and will destroy another 7,750 dunums (1,937 acres). Six of the villages, with approximately 1,000 residents, will be completely trapped between the Wall and the 1967 Green Line; isolating them from the West Bank and effectively annexing them to Israel without being granted citizenship or legal rights. Land, which is the base of the economic lifeline of this area, is being taken away as it's people watch helplessly.
In community psychology there are three main factors that constitute the highest stressors which affect people psychologically. These are:
Lack of social support systems
Limited social relations as people are confined to their homes – every town and village is cut off from the other and completely isolated. There is disintegration of family and social relationships
Unemployment and poverty
In the village of Ras al-Tira, Palestinian Counseling Center (PCC) staff and fieldworkers spoke with many residents who left their homes in the Qalqiliya area to come back to this village. This village in particular is completely cut off from the rest of the surrounding area. Originally, most left this area because work was scarce but now they are forced to come back in order to show claim to the land. In some cases if the residents are not physically on the land, the Israeli forces can claim there is no one living there and occupying apparatus then takes control.
There is an electric fence that has encircled this community with one military checkpoint/gate for entrance and exists. The gate is opened at scheduled times throughout the day. There is a school on the other side of the fence, which most of the children in Ras al-Tira attend. So, if a child is late and misses the scheduled time of the gate opening she/he misses a full day of school. And if a child misses school that day and many other days due this interruption we can assume that academic achievement will be hindered. With a hindered education process, illiteracy rate increases and a feeling of helplessness will give way, which will make many stop attending school altogether. With children dropping out of schools and not feeling adequate enough to achieve, social problems arise, including difficulty in relating to others and the world. This was seen as the children in this village choose to stay indoors rather then go out and play with the other children. Some said that staying in helped them cope with the situation because they couldn’t see the electric fence that separated them from the world.
Israel's apartheid wall under construction (Photo: AEF, 2003)
According to PENGON, agricultural production accounted for 22% of the town of Qalqilya’s economy before the Intifada began in September 2000. This number has risen to 45% since residents have lost business with the closure of the commercial area and the inability to travel outside the city for employment; people have become more dependent on their land, which Israel in turn is increasing the difficulty of accessing through outright confiscation, or barriers leading to an eventual confiscation; many who have land on the other side of the Apartheid Wall are unable to gain entrance to it. Those who do have access, or who have moved back to their village as in Ras al-Tira, still have problems as harvesting and selling of goods is hampered. According to PENGON, 1,500 dunums of greenhouses will be separated from communities by the Wall. Prior to the Intifada, Qalqilya was the market center for over 85,000 Palestinians from the West Bank and Israel per week. The Wall and continual closure have caused the market to almost completely shut down; most merchants have relocated to nearby villages (In the past two years, 4500 Qalqilya residents have left the town for surrounding villages due the hardship.). In conducting the pilot phase of a study concerning psychological effects of the Wall on Qalqilya and surrounding village residents, PCC found that unemployment among study participants who were able to work is 72%.
What is happening to the residents of Qalqiliya can only be described as the ghettoization, oppression, and displacement of a people. In the next following paragraphs what is a ghetto, oppression, and displacement will explained. Then, we will discuss the troubling psychological affects associated with these traumas.
What is a ghetto? Ghettos have been systematically created in the past, and in other regions of the world, marginalizing communities and establishing two tiers of society. According to Allan Spear (1967) the term ghetto was most commonly used to describe the areas where Jews were forced to live in pre WWII Germany. In 1915 American Society, the ghetto had taken shape in the form of a large, mostly poor, African-American enclave on the South Side of New York, with a similar offshoot on the West Side.
The wall in Abu Dis cuts off thousands of residents from Jerusalem and dividing the village itself (Photo: Musa Al-Shaer, 2004)
The American ghetto is describe by Walter Thabit (2003) as a location designed to house, contain, and thin out entire groups of people deemed unwanted and parasitic by the powers that be, by isolating the people and giving them no jobs, education, and hope to move forward in life. Thabit also states “ghettos are created by the apartheid policies of white society.” By gaining a better comprehension of a ghetto we can better understand what is happening to the Palestinians in Qalqilya today. Qalqilya and the surrounding villages, which were once a very productive and economically established area, now have the characteristics of a ghetto (since the building of the Apartheid Wall).
Spear states “the development of a physical ghetto was not the result chiefly of poverty; nor did African-American cluster out of choice to these project housing but instead the ghetto was primarily the product of white hostility. What is a striking feature of these project housings in America are not the existence of slum condition, but the difficulty of escaping the slum. European immigrants needed only to prosper to be able to move to a more desirable neighborhood. African-Americans, on the other hand, suffered from economic deprivation, psychology warfare and systematic racial discrimination.” Making their struggle to move forward much more difficult.
