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<a href="http://www.counterpunch.org/fernandez01072009.html" eudora="autourl">
http://www.counterpunch.org/fernandez01072009.html<br><br>
</a></font><font face="Verdana" size=2 color="#990000">January 7,
2009<br><br>
</font><h1><font face="Times New Roman, Times" size=4><b>Israel's
Monopoly on Psychological Suffering <br><br>
<br>
</i></font><font face="Times New Roman, Times" size=5 color="#990000">The
Trauma Vortex
</b></font></h1><font face="Times New Roman, Times" size=4>By BELÉN
FERNÁNDEZ <br><br>
</font><font face="Verdana" size=6 color="#990000">B</font>
<font face="Verdana" size=2>ased on the tallies currently being produced
by Israeli towns located in the haphazard line of Qassam rocket fire, it
appears that the bulk of Israel's civilian casualties in its war on Gaza
will once again be shock related.<br><br>
This was the case in the July 2006 war on Lebanon, during which the
Israeli Health Ministry reported that 4,262 wounded Israeli civilians
were treated in hospitals; this total was broken down into 33 seriously
wounded patients, 68 moderately wounded, and 1,388 lightly wounded, with
the remaining 2,773 treated for "shock and anxiety." The UN
Commission of Inquiry on Lebanon, meanwhile, cited the Lebanese
authorities' claim of 4,409 wounded Lebanese civiliansthe only attempt
at classification of casualties being a chart listing 56 different
"collective massacres" conducted by Israeli forces during the
war, with identifying labels such as: "Air raids struck heavily on
the funeral procession of the victims of the previous day['s] air
raids."<br><br>
BBC News reported different figures in its August 2006 civilian casualty
scorecard for the war, according to which there were 32 seriously wounded
Israelis, 44 moderately wounded Israelis, 614 lightly wounded Israelis,
1,985 Israelis treated for shock, and 3,697 wounded Lebanese. Israeli
casualties were thus still overwhelmingly shock related, while the
Lebanese were still:
<ol>
<li>a lump sum.</font><font size=3> </font>
<li><font face="Verdana" size=2>not affected by acute stress
disorders.</font><font size=3>
</ol><br>
</font><font face="Verdana" size=2>The same trend will most likely hold
for Gazaand not only because it is difficult for hospitals to
accommodate people with heightened norepinephrine levels when they cannot
accommodate people with missing limbs.<br><br>
I awoke this past Sunday morning to find that 1 Israeli in Sderot had
been lightly wounded, 4 Israelis had been treated for shock, and 23
Palestinians had been killed in Gaza since midnight. After performing a
Google search of the terms "Palestinians treated for
shock"which mainly produced articles about Israelis being treated
for shock due to Palestinian behaviorI phoned a Palestinian friend in
Lebanon in an attempt to determine why enemies of Israel did not enjoy
the luxury of psychological conditions. The investigation was conducted
in modified English, the idiomatic form on which Hassan and I relied for
all of our communications:<br><br>
ME: Do Arabs ever go to hospital for problem with head?<br>
HASSAN: Arab he don't have head.<br><br>
This hypothesis would undoubtedly have been endorsed by ex-Israeli
premier Golda Meir, who might have used it to back up her argument that
Palestinians were not real people. Other possible excuses for the
traditional embargo on Palestinian shock included the following:
<ol>
<li>The Palestinians were used to having bombs fall on their
heads.</font><font size=3> </font>
<li><font face="Verdana" size=2>It was the Palestinians' own fault that
bombs were falling on their heads.</font><font size=3> </font>
<li><font face="Verdana" size=2>Shock had become the exclusive property
of Israel's international sympathy campaign, as had the words
"hail," "shower," and
"barrage."</font><font size=3>
</ol><br>
</font><font face="Verdana" size=2>The Health section of Sunday's online
edition of the <i>Jerusalem Post </i>offered some insight into the unique
phenomenon of Israeli shock. The main article was entitled "Escaping
the trauma vortex," whichalthough it sounded more like instructions
for breaking down the Rafah border crossingturned out to be the goal of
Somatic Experiencing (SE), a self-healing philosophy that had recently
been advertised in Sderot.<br><br>
The article begins on a Friday morning at the "bomb-proofed Sderot
Resiliency Center," where visiting SE guru Gina Ross of Los Angeles
is presiding in front of a rapt audience of health care professionals and
social workers. According to the author of the article, the meeting has
been auspiciously timed given the fragility currently felt by Israelis in
the vicinity of the Gaza Strip, most of whom are nonetheless described as
"sleeping in on the first day of the weekend." A corresponding
estimate of how many Gazans sleep in on Friday mornings is not
provided.<br><br>
The "upbeat" Ms. Ross describes the purpose of SE as replacing
the "trauma vortex" with a "healing vortex." The
trauma vortex is the result of "an uncompleted biological response
to threat, which leaves the system in an excessively high level of
arousal, with thwarted movements of defense frozen in time"; the
healing vortex occurs when victims learn how to "thaw the freeze and
release the sensory motor expressions of trauma-based emotions."
Ross enthusiastically contends that the replacement process is sometimes
possible in only a few sessions, even with years of buildup.<br><br>
The SE method was developed by Dr. Peter Levine, who is described in the
article as being the author of the book <i>Taming the Tiger</i>; it turns
out that the book is in fact called <i>Waking the Tiger</i>, which is
perhaps more appropriate in the Israeli context given apparent
preferences for unleashing beasts rather than deterring them. In addition
to a host of other titles, Ross is the Middle East senior trainer for
Levine's Foundation for Human Enrichment, as well as a self-proclaimed
expert in overcoming "the insecurity and difficulties of
exile"her family having fled their home in Syria and later their
home in Lebanon. Familiarity with exile might prove useful in the event
that Gaza is one day deemed to be deserving of human enrichment, or
somatic experience in general.<br><br>
Ms. Ross has determined that Israelis, Palestinians, and Israeli-Arabs
all suffer from collective trauma vorticesespecially the second group,
whose vortex "has been spiraling out of control for a while."
Thus, although the Gazans are permitted in this case to suffer
psychologically, they are doomed to fail even at their own suffering, as
it is not possible to implement a collective healing vortex while an army
financed by the global superpower is overhead and underfoot.<br><br>
The SE method does, however, provide innovative opportunities for such
international notables as:
<ol>
<li>Barack Obama, who is in danger of developing a trauma vortex due to
repeated reliance on the "flight" option in fight or flight
situationsnamely AIPAC addresses and opinions on the war on
Gaza.</font><font size=3> </font>
<li><font face="Verdana" size=2>MK Shai Hermesh, resident of a kibbutz
close to the Gazan border, whoTzipi Livni explained to a meeting of
foreign diplomats in Sderot on 28 December"has had to almost live
in a shelter for weeks now." Livni declared the situation
"unbearable," although this description most likely did not
apply to the situation of Palestinian MPs held indefinitely in Israeli
administrative detention.</font><font size=3>
</ol><br>
</font><font face="Verdana" size=2>Gina Ross' assertion that "peace
can only come from balanced collective nervous systems" might also
prove revelatory for other members of the international community, such
as those under the impression that peace can only come from preventing
Israel's disassembly of Palestine into noncontiguous enclaves. Instead of
fretting over what percentage of remaining Palestinian territories should
be permitted on the Israeli side of soaring cement walls, Middle East
envoy Tony Blair might thus focus on more concrete issues like building
emotional resilience into the roadmap for peace. Blair has already
demonstrated a strong commitment to resilience, by choking back tears
while discussing letters received from parents whose sons have died in
Iraq but who nonetheless retain their conviction in the rightness of
war.<br><br>
(In keeping with the global distribution of power, Iraqislike
Gazanshave been judged unworthy of psychological victimhood, which is
reserved for coalition troops, their families, and people who duct tape
their windows to guard against WMD attack. Incidentally, the fourth item
in the list of results returned by a Google search of the terms
"Iraqis treated for shock" was a Haaretz article from 2007,
entitled "Qassam fired from Gaza hits Sderot; man treated for
shock.")<br><br>
Near the end of the <i>Jerusalem Post </i>article on escaping the trauma
vortex, an Israeli SE practitioner at the Sderot meeting declares her
intention to host an emotional first-aid workshop for citizens of
Jerusalem experiencing secondaryi.e. vicarioustrauma.<br><br>
Moving on to the second headline in the Health section of JPost.com, I
was informed that: "Emotional hot lines see sharp rise in callers
from the South," most of whom were experiencing repercussions of the
imbalance of the Gazan collective nervous system. According to the
spokeswoman for the hotline run by NatalIsrael's Trauma Center for
Victims of Terror and Wara number of parents were concerned that their
children were not eating or drinking; such behavior would have been less
of a concern in Gaza, given the lack of food and drink.<br><br>
Natal's advice to those battling the trauma vortex included:
<ol>
<li>moderately abstaining from news reports.</font><font size=3> </font>
<li><font face="Verdana" size=2>finding "light entertainment to ease
them through the stress." (The word "entertainment" was
underlined; when I clicked on it I was transported to a website in
Spanish where I was invited to download popular tunes to my cellular
phone.)</font><font size=3> </font>
<li><font face="Verdana" size=2>encouraging small children to spend time
in their bomb shelters even when there were not air raid sirens, such
that the shelters would become associated with things other than fear of
death.</font><font size=3>
</ol><br>
</font><font face="Verdana" size=2>A visit to the Natal website itself
revealed that many of the hotline callers were from northern Israel and
were "experiencing flashbacks from the Second Lebanon War."
Condoleezza Rice, meanwhile, was also experiencing flashbacks to this
particular war, and repeated that a ceasefire should never allow a return
to the status quo ante, i.e. Gaza.<br><br>
The Natal website describes the residents of southern Israel as
"living in an abnormal reality" and provides them with coping
tools, including a list of exercises entitled "Muscle Relaxation For
Children." In one of the exercises listed, parents are advised to
have their children pretend that: "A little elephant is coming
closer; in a moment it's going to step on your stomach! Tighten your
stomach; make your muscles as tight as you can. The elephant is gone; now
your stomach can relax again."<br><br>
Alternate therapeutic activities are explored on SderotMedia.com, which
features a video of a small boy in a black yarmulke intently decorating a
Qassam rocket he has fashioned out of a plastic bottle, paper, and
masking tape. A more complex juxtaposition of innocence and war can of
course be found in the photos of Israeli children decorating missiles en
route to Lebanon in 2006, but the director of the SderotMedia video does
cover additional symbolic ground in the final scene, in which the
decorated Qassam is placed in the middle of the floor with a baby in a
purple sweater seated a short distance away. The baby eyes the Qassam for
a few seconds, then crawls over to it and knocks the rocket
over.<br><br>
Further navigation of the website produced an article to accompany the
video, entitled "Environmental Friendly Kassams." In the
article, the mother of the Qassam decorator explains that "the
encounter with threat through creation" provides a sense of security
to the children of Sderot (or at least to the 70-94% of them that
SderotMedia diagnoses with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder). The author of
the piece supplies more relevant background information, such as that the
"Color Red" alert is as familiar a concept to these children as
the word "Dad," and that the kids "don't really care if
the IDF is the one who began with the response"an example that the
rest of the world might follow. <br><br>
After viewing another video of Sderotthis one starring a woman in a
nightgown trembling in her houseI returned one last time to the Health
section of the <i>Jerusalem Post</i>'s website to find an article
entitled "Psychologically Speaking: Feeling sad." This piece
explored other potential reasons aside from rocket hail that Israelis
might feel down, such as seasonal affective disorder (SAD), brought on by
winter, and reverse seasonal affective disorder, brought on by
summer.<br><br>
Most Palestinians in Gaza at the moment presumably do not have enough
spare time to be affected by seasonal changes, nor are the melatonin
supplements recommended to combat SAD likely to be available on
humanitarian aid trucks. Regular explosions, however, might offer Gazans
access to some of the other suggested treatments, such as bright light
therapy. The Israeli government, meanwhile, might consider ceasing the
exploitation of its citizens' genuine psychological torment in order to
justify existential battles against its neighbors.<br><br>
<b>Belén Fernández</b> is currently completing a book entitled <i>Coffee
with Hezbollah</i>, which chronicles the 2-month hitchhiking journey
through Lebanon that she and Amelia Opali?ska conducted in the aftermath
of the July 2006 war. She can be reached at
<a href="mailto:belengarciabernal@gmail.com">
belengarciabernal@gmail.com</a>.<br><br>
<br><br>
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