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Intifada : A
psychological Profile
Walid Sarhan,M.D.&
Jamal Al-Khatib,M.D.
Al-Rashid Psychiatric
Hospital
E-mail: sarhan@joinnet.com.jo |
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Intifada is a term used to describe
the Palestinian uprising against the Israeli occupation, was first used in
1987 when children threw stones on the Israeli soldiers, who fired back and
bombed the civilians. The first Intifada was
stopped by the Last September, after
several years of negotiations, Mr. Sharon the opposition Leukud leader walked
into Al-Aqssa mosque, guarded by the army and police, in a test of the
reaction of the Palestinian people, after the failure of The second Palestinian
Intifada (September 2001) is different from the first one (1987-1993) in many
aspects. But two very important aspects are 1- the extensive satellite
coverage of Intifada and 2- the presence of the leadership in the ground of
Israeli aggressive missions (battlefield). The medias' instant
broadcast has exerted great influence on public opinion everywhere. The scene
of the cold blooded murder of child Mohamad Al-Durrah by an Israeli soldier
who is still on the loose, and despite trial of wrapping up the event by some
TV channels, poses one example of this effect. The scenario of
'security', which the Israeli election campaigns had repeatedly emphasized,
had recently culminated in the election of a war criminal to lead the
political establishment in this military oriented state. Psychologically
speaking, security is the main worry of inflowing immigrants during the past
50 years, whereby many previous pacts have not ensured secure borders for
those who habitated the land of Palestine. In the current Intifada,
the Israelis imagine that every Palestinian Arab is a potential bomb, through
their own military mindedness perpetrated by continued drilling and training
of young and middle aged men and women in Israeli military camps, as a result
of which they harvest in their souls severe anxiety and fear through day and
night. Accordingly, a very high percentage of the Israeli population is on
Anxiolytics, not as treatment of anxiety disorders only, but also for the
treatment of ideological, existential and situational disturbances. Martyristic or suicidal
operations against Israeli targets has broken all security barriers and
challenged all bombings, armed insurgents from fortified Jewish settlements
and tank sweeps overrunning Palestinian lives, possessions, olive trees and
buildings. The dilemma that is facing the Israeli mentality revolves around
the question: "How could one face an 'enemy' who does not care about
death?". The question becomes burdensome when the Israeli hear about
young men rushing to enlist for such operations. All this continues despite
an existent great disparity between a high-tech Israeli armament and a
relatively armless Palestinian people. With regard to current
world affairs, as portrayed by communication media at large, we find that people
in general believe in the way they perceive facts rather than in the facts
themselves, spiting the truth if it ever appears later. This phenomenon is
highlighted by events in the current Intifada by the Palestinians. We observe how certain publicity
media manipulate events, censor words and montage scenarios with creation of
perverted accounts of what had happened in reality. Falsification of events
also involves an industry of packaging and marketing manipulated news and
views, for instance, turning and Israeli army with a highly sophisticated
weaponry, which maintains and unprecedented siege of a whole population in
their own cities, towns and villages for many months, into a picture of a
defense organ which is attempting to maintain security against the
'aggressor' Palestinians, who in turn do not even possess the equivalent or
even simple defensive tools. Moreover, while fully trained Jewish settlers
rave through towns and villages of Palestinians, haphazardly shooting,
killing and wrecking Palestinian property, those very people appear on some
information media as crying women and children at a set-back after any
retaliation event by the Palestinians. All the aforesaid efforts, toward
manipulation of facts, comes in the direction of the masses, and falls under
the blanket of what has been called psychological warfare. The latter is a
weapon which has been strongly used by the Israeli authorities ever since
this second Intifada began, albeit all times prior to that. Psychological
warfare aims at invading and affecting the mind rather anything else, under
the pretext that eventually, winning or losing is a mental state. This weapon
has been used in wars to convince the 'enemy' that whatever they will do
cannot work, with the hope of implanting fear in both fighters in the
battlefield and workers in diplomatic corps as much as in the targeted
population, the ultimate aim of which is surrender. The common method used in
psychological warfare is a direct attack on the mind with manipulation of input
in order to deceive senses and perception, thereby recruiting illusive
concepts and attitudes. For example, the term ' occupied territories' (to say
the least) is expressed by warring psychologists as 'disputed territories' ,
or even just 'the territories'. This very example highlight the allusiveness
and creation of vagueness about fairness and justice. On the one hand, when a
Palestinian infant like "Aya Hijjo" is murdered in her own cot by
Israeli rockets fired at civilian quarters, this is portrayed as accidental.
On the other hand, when a 42-year-old Israeli Moshe is killed, he is
portrayed as a farmer and a father of two children. But the killed
Palestinian, whoever is, remains a number. In a different tune, statement are
made such as: "The Palestinians launch a terrorist attack and the
Israelis retaliate or fire back". So, who started it all? How all this
started becomes a matter of public rhetoric rather than a matter of humanity,
discrimination and occupation. What is more illusive or
even delusional comes into light when the Israelis justify many months of a
tight siege with impoverishment of hundreds of thousands of people, including
children, adult and elderly, justify all this as an act of self defense. The
most important psychological mission of the Israelis and their allies and
corresponding media appears to concentrate on how to embrace facts,
manipulate and pack them, then insert them into the minds of many good people
with creation of delusional ideas about mutual violence and terrorism rather
than admit the Palestinian plight in their current Intifada as an attempt for
liberation against foreign occupation and colonialism in the form of Zionism. |
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So as to publish all pages in 3 languages Please participate
in the translation of this article in French and Arabic and send it to the Arabic
edition or the French edition |
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Document Code VP.0011 |
ÊÑãíÒ ÇáãÓÊäÏ VP.0011 |
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