Open Letter by Psychoanalysts Opposing the Palestinian Genocide

From:

Psychoanalysts Talk Back
To: 
All psychoanalysts, psychoanalytic clinicians, anyone interested in psychoanalysis

Follow this link for Arabic translation.
Follow this link to see the letter in different languages and to see who has signed it

December 23, 2024

Today marks the 444th day of the genocide in Palestine. We are appalled that for over 15 months our psychoanalytic institutions, societies, and professional bodies have refused to take an ethical stance against the genocide and the varied crimes against humanity committed by Israel and its occupying forces. 

Even as organizations such as Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, Médecins Sans Frontières, B’tselem, the International Court of Justice (ICJ), the European Center for Constitutional and Human Rights (ECCHR), and Francesca Albenese, the United Nations Special Rapporteur on the Occupied Palestinian Territories are reaching a consensus that the violence in Palestine is genocidal and that Israel is practicing apartheid in the Occupied Territories, we are not aware of a single psychoanalytic organization that has issued a statement condemning the violence and barbarity of Israel's expansionist project, undertaken with the United States', the UK's, and Germany's unabashed support; its vicious murderousness of Palestinian life, which has wiped out entire generational lines; its purposeful targeting of children; its brazen disregard of international law; its hateful and deliberate destruction of infrastructure, which makes survival in the land of Palestine untenable; its targeted killing of medical staff, mental health professionals including psychologists and psychiatrists, and of journalists; and the horrific acceleration of climate change due to the tons of emissions caused by the bombardments and ground invasion. 

Despite the fact that this barbarity is being live-streamed, making this the most documented-in-real-time genocide in human history, our professional organizations have failed us by not naming what's occurring -naming being one of the utmost values of psychoanalysis. Not only have they proceeded with business as usual, betraying some of the most important ethical principles of bearing witness, they have used psychoanalytic concepts (such as "splitting") to actively deter - and even pathologize - psychoanalysts from using analytic ideas to understand this unfettered violence.

If no one else will do it, Psychoanalysts Talk Back will.

We invite psychoanalysts, psychoanalytic candidates, psychoanalytic therapists, and anyone interested in psychoanalysis to sign this letter in order to: express how heartbroken and outraged we are by the ongoing and horrific conditions of death and land theft in Gaza and by our institutions' lack of outspoken opposition; stand in solidarity with our Palestinian, Lebanese, Syrian, and Yemeni colleagues, who have been made to watch their organizations mount events that justify Israeli violence, abandoning ethical commitments to human rights; and recognize the pain experienced by many of our anti-Zionist Jewish colleagues.

DEI initiatives that address gender, sexuality, and racism within psychoanalysis mean nothing as long as the field remains silent regarding Israel's genocide. Never has psychoanalysis felt and acted more white: this is the time to distance the field from imperialist, racist, colonial, and ethnonationalist projects. We demand that:

  • Formal psychoanalytic bodies issue statements condemning the genocide of the Palestinian people and demanding an end to the genocide now.

  • Psychoanalytic organizations urge their members to be attentive to anti-Palestinian hatred in the clinic and in our institutional environments. It is not enough to issue broad and generic calls for civility on both sides. We want to see phrasing that uses the words "Palestine" and "Palestinian" - words rarely uttered in psychoanalytic spaces -and which acknowledges the uneven harm.

  • The IPA as the formal analytic body and individual and Psychoanalytic Societies Institutions pledge to uphold the principles of Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) as outlined by USACBI or PACBI and as called for by Palestinian civil society and cultural organizations.

  • A formal apology be issued by the IPA to Palestinian, Lebanese, Yemeni, Iranian, and Syrian colleagues acknowledging the deafening silence that has isolated and pathologized them and their acts of resistance.

  • Psychoanalytic training sites actively consider the particular needs of Southwest Asian and North African (SWANA) candidates, graduates, and faculty at this historical moment, and materially address harms institutional silence has caused them.

  • Professional listservs stop censoring speech about Palestine and the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians, and that expectations be set for a professional and respectful attitude being extended to those concerned about anti-Palestinian violence in the region.

Signed,

A Cry from Gaza’s Ruins: The Genocide Will Continue if Israel’s Impunity Persists

The Palestine Mental Health Networks call out in anguish and outrage at the obliteration of the Kamal Adwan Hospital as part of the ongoing genocide. This space, meant to shelter and to heal, has been consumed by flames, its wards reduced to ashes by the calculated destruction of the Israeli military forces.

The Wreckage of Hope

The assault on the Kamal Adwan Hospital is not merely a tragedy--it is an atrocity. Patients, many of them children, were torn from their beds as fire and violence consumed the hospital. Dozens of staff, including its Director Dr. Hussam Abu Safiya, were taken by force. Their fate remains shrouded in uncertainty, as fear and despair grip their families and the shattered remnants of the hospital’s community.

These are not isolated incidents. Since October 2023, Gaza has become a graveyard for hope, a collective graveyard for Palestinians. Over 45,000 Palestinians have been killed. Nearly the entire population of Gaza has been displaced. The blockade tightens like a noose, and Gaza’s healthcare system—a basic human right—has been reduced to ruins. The World Health Organization’s stark words haunt us: Gaza’s health system is being systematically dismantled, a “death sentence for tens of thousands.”

A Cry from the Abyss

What remains when hospitals burn? When doctors are incarcerated, tortured, and silenced? When children gasp for air because oxygen tanks cannot cross blockades? This is not war. It is annihilation. It is the slow, deliberate suffocation of a people. It is genocide.

Every demolished hospital, every patient left to die in rubble, every child’s lifeless body pulled from the wreckage—these are not accidents. They are not “collateral damage.” These are crimes against humanity, calculated acts of genocide, carried out in full view of a world that watches in silence.

Where is justice? Where is humanity? What will it take to awaken the world from its indifference?

A Plea to the World

We can no longer accept impunity. We require:

  1. Immediately Stop the Genocide: Overkilling in Gaza cannot continue. The blockade is a death sentence. Its continuation is a stain on the conscience of humanity.

  2. Open Humanitarian Corridors: Let ambulances pass. Let medicine flow. Let Gaza breathe.

  3. Protect Healthcare Facilities: Enforce the laws that bind us all as human beings. Protect what remains of Gaza’s hospitals and clinics.

Impunity that Kills

Neutrality in the face of genocide is complicity. Every moment of silence and failure to hold Israel accountable feeds the fire that consumes Gaza. Every moment of inaction allows another hospital to fall, another child to die, another family to be torn apart.

This is a cry from the ruins of the Kamal Adwan Hospital. This is the scream of Gaza’s mothers burying their children. This is the wail of doctors forced to turn away the dying. The world is watching. Will you act, or will you look away again?

Join the Struggle for Justice

Here’s how you can help:

  1. Sign the Petition No Child A Target.

  2. For US residents— please sign the Petition: “Not Another Hospital”.

  3. Share this Article: Amplify Gaza’s cry by sharing it with your networks.

  4. Demand Action: Protect Gazans NOW. Hold Israel accountable NOW. Contact your governmental representatives and demand that they protect Gaza’s people and its healthcare.

  5. Call on world leaders to impose an arms embargo on Israel NOW.

  6. Heed the call of Palestinian civil society for the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions movement—abide by its guidelines and encourage your network to do the same. 

We Can’t Wait Any Longer

Failing to respond to the ongoing catastrophe is not an option.

This is not just Gaza’s cry. It is humanity’s scream for justice. The destruction of the Kamal Adwan Hospital is an assault on every principle we hold dear. It is a call for all of us to rise, to speak, and to act.

Let this cry not fade into silence. Let it echo until justice is served.

Do not look away. Do not stay silent. Humanity must act.

ACT NOW.

THIS IS OUR MOMENT TO CREATE CHANGE AND TO STOP THE GENOCIDE.

Letter from Dr. Jessica Benjamin to Palestinians Living on the Stolen Land of 1948

Received on
June 14, 2024

Dear Friends and Colleagues of the Arab Israeli community:                    
In the past two weeks I’ve had several talks with Roney Seour about the webinar that had been planned from Blindness to Insight but as you know in respecting the call for boycott I did withdraw from participation in the webinar. I wrote a letter to the Jewish Israeli participants but I wanted to communicate to you in a different vein. After all, of course the matter for you isn’t being blind to what is being perpetrated in Gaza —rather it is having to carry the knowledge while still interacting with the majority of people, Jewish colleagues neighbors others,  who do not see or acknowledge, who deny the reality  or even support the violence  . We do hear about how painful and frightening this is in alternate media—how much repression there is right now, the new McCarthyism we see all over,  as well as how much aggression you see everywhere and is often directed at you.                  
Witnessing the horrific violence and destruction visited upon your people in Gaza must be a daily agony, multiple times more than for us who wake up every day facing more of the same news images and stories. And of course here in the US Palestinian voices have been silenced, people have been fired for refusing to sign statements against BDS or  for criticizing Israel. In fact the vortex created by those who defend the war against the Gazan people  grows more intense as our progressive leaders in Congress are under vicious attack,  those of color but also Jews who defend Palestinian rights. The rightwing forces in America, in Europe as well as Israel have gathered up Palestine as another weapon in their armament against equality and justice, affecting all of us, but your own specific oppression and the splits you must deal with in daily life shouldn’t get overlooked or minimized. It is traumatic. I hope when at least some of us  have a chance to talk together under other auspices that we can talk about your situation and the solidarity that we all need to give to you and provide for each other. I know this is only the least we can do but I wanted to make sure that we find find ways for your experience to be honored and shared.                      
 With my warmest regards and solidarity,  

Jessica Benjamin.

Letter from Dr. Jessica Benjamin to the Palestine-Global Mental Health Network

Received on
June 3, 2024

Dear Palestine Global Sisters and Brothers,

I am deeply apologetic that I did not find out about this appeal until today. I believe it must have escaped my attention because there are so many "urgent appeals" for funds in my Inbox, but whatever the reason be assured I would not have delayed my response. I am very surprised that no one wrote to me or called me among all my friends and political associates. Whatever the case, I only found out about it this week.

After serious thinking and consulting with my trusted friends I have concluded that I must, indeed, withdraw from participating in the seminar. Were the seminar sponsored only by my colleagues in Psychoactive whom I know, and whom I know to be opposed and actively against the genocidal actions of the Israeli state, perhaps there might be a different conclusion. But I fully agree I cannot participate in an event with any official institution that has not condemned the ongoing crimes against humanity occurring now in Gaza and the West Bank.

In fact, I have declined to speak or contribute to any Israeli institution for many years, at least since the Cast Lead attack on Gaza, that does not take a position on the Occupation and these violent assaults on civilian populations in Gaza, and of course none of these have even approached the scale of destruction and horror of the current attacks.

Be assured that every day since October 7th I have struggled with the horrific pain of witnessing the horror that is being visited upon Gaza; it has been hard to think of anything else.

I should explain that my impulse to make an exception in this case was due to the fact that there is so little international support for the small but not irrelevant Israeli Left opposition to their government’s horrific actions. I felt a pull to show them some solidarity, in the hope that they could become a stronger force for resistance. Some of these individuals have spent a considerable part of their adult lives in working for justice for Palestinians, also in providing care and teaching wherever possible. But in this case they will have to do their best to convey my regret, and the reasons why I cannot give any credibility or legitimacy to the institutions in our field that deny the transgressive, immoral, and illegal acts of violence perpetrated by their government and avoid confronting the acceptance or(more likely) approval of these acts by their own people.

My work, especially on the idea of acknowledging oppression and harming, has been and I hope will continue to be connected with nonviolence, with universal respect for human rights, equality and justice for all, as well as with international law. I understand the importance of your support for the nonviolent efforts of the Palestinian people to struggle for their freedom and dignity against the oppressive Israeli occupation and its transgressive violence. Especially at this moment, I believe these principles are necessary to keep the world from descending into chaos and despair, and I recognize that the violations of law and human rights by my own United States government have contributed greatly to this descent. For this too, I wish to take responsibility and encourage my colleagues to do the same. Indeed, it is all the more important to stand up for these principles in the awareness of how often reference to law and rights have been abused and mouthed by hypocrites such as the officials in my government who have helped to perpetrate the genocide in Gaza. Each of us must do our best to fight against those mystifications as well as the despair and helplessness that afflicts us as we witness this.

Since I was a young adolescent in the civil rights movement in the US I have witnessed the difficulties of holding on to our beliefs and principles in the face of the concerted effort of those in power to discredit, repress and in many cases harm those who resist oppression. Part of their strategy, of course, involves masking and denying the reality of harming. Now, as a therapist involved in personal and collective trauma, I have learned how essential it is for us to break that denial and acknowledge harming; also, how vital it is for people who have been oppressed and violated to receive full acknowledgment and affirmation of their injuries and their demand for redress. These ideas were confirmed and clarified most powerfully by learning from the practice of my late friend Dr. Eyad el Sarraj, who, as you know, was a great proponent of nonviolent resistance and psychology in Gaza. It was also my privilege to support the nonviolent psychosocial organizing of my late friend Ahmed Abu Tawahina.

So today I also want to give you as best I can my acknowledgment for the terrible, almost inconceivable suffering and injustice your people are going through. I know it is not enough. I also want to express my appreciation for your commitment to supporting the boycott as part of the nonviolent movement of the Palestinian people.

Please accept my apology again for my delay in responding and convey my solidarity to all who support the people of Palestine in this moment of great need.

In Solidarity, for Peace and Justice,

Jessica


Urgent Appeal

Support our Non-Violent Resistance
Divest from Zionist Academic institutions

Letter sent on
May 8, 2024

Dear Drs. Jessica Benjamin and Roni Srour:

We represent the Palestine-Global Mental Health Network, composed of Palestinian mental health professionals and scholars from historic Palestine and the Diaspora, alongside our partner Networks in Australia, Canada, France, Ireland, Germany, the United Kingdom, and the United States. We write to express our urgent concern regarding your planned participation in an upcoming webinar in Tel Aviv on June 17 at 7:00 PM.

The event’s venue, the Contemporary Institute for Psychoanalysis in Tel Aviv, has not publicly addressed the ongoing war crimes against the Palestinian people, including what has been deemed by the International Court of Justice as a plausible case of genocide in Gaza and the rampant pogroms assisted by the Israeli Occupation Force throughout the rest of Palestine resulting in the killing of nearly 500 adults and nearly 100 children people since October.7th

Over the past six months in Gaza, 34,797 people have been killed by bombs, guns, or starvation, among them 13,800 children and 8,400 women. Twelve universities in Gaza have been destroyed while hundreds of university students, Deans, and scholars—including many colleagues in the field of mental health—have been killed by the Israeli attacks. No one can be blind to these well-documented facts.

The Institute’s silence on these matters contravenes the fundamental ethical principle of "Do no Harm," signaling its complicity in these atrocities.

Palestinian civil society has called for global support of non-violent resistance, notably through the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) movement. This initiative seeks to pressure Israeli academic and cultural institutions that are complicit in perpetuating war crimes and the destruction of the lives of Palestinians, who are denied rights recognized in international law.

The vague and generalized title of the meeting you plan to attend avoids irrefutable evidence of sustained violence and human rights abuses, and thus endorses the oppressive status quo.

By participating, you lend legitimacy to the narrative that has justified the oppression, dispossession, and killing of Palestinian men, women and children over the past seventy-five years.

In light of these issues, we urge you to support the BDS movement and realign with the principles of justice and ethical responsibility. We also encourage you to disengage from the Contemporary Institute for Psychoanalysis and refrain from normalizing ongoing conditions.

We ask you to stand with us on the right side of history. Your moral integrity and commitment to justice are crucial. Please do not lend credibility to a narrative that silences the oppressed. We trust in your principled stance and look forward to your supportive response.

Thank you for considering our call to action. 

Sincerely,

Palestine-Global Mental Health Network
Australia-Palestine Mental Health Network
Canada-Palestine Mental Health Network
France-Palestine Mental Health Network
Ireland-Palestine Mental Health Network
Germany-Palestine Mental Health Network
Netherlands-Palestine Mental Health Network
South Africa-Palestine Mental Health Network
Sweden-Palestine Mental Health Network
United Kingdom-Palestine Mental Health Network
United State-Palestine Mental Health Network 

Concerns Regarding the Content of Your Lecture on Anti-Semitism and Palestine

Dear Ladies and Gentlemen

A lecture will be given at your annual conference: "Thoughts for the Times on Anti-Semitism: Hatred and Destruction, the Past in the Present” by Shmuel Erlich and Mira Erlich-Ginor, the abstract of which can be read on the program. There it is stated that, “Anti-Semitism has been part of Judeo-Christian-Islamic culture for centuries, taking various forms and expressions. After its most horrendous and destructive outburst in the 20th century Holocaust, it gave rise to the collective determination: “Never Again!” Yet recent and current genocidal outcries against Israel and the Jews testify to the enduring power and relentlessness of anti-semitism.“

These statements are presented here as facts requiring no empirical findings: Phenomena which then are to be subsequently researched and interpreted under a psychoanalytical magnifying glass supported through the perspective of group dynamics.Anti-Semitism is a European-Christian phenomenon whose roots are to be found in Christian anti-Judaism. Only later and much less frequently can it be found in Muslim societies. In its most destructive form, it was only present in Europe and culminated in the German genocide of the Jews. While German Christians were enslaving, deporting and murdering millions of Jews, many Jews (and also non-Jews, such as Ernst Reuter, the former mayor of Berlin, where this conference is being held) were able to flee to Turkey and survive. In Albania, a Muslim state, Jews were protected from the Nazi horror by the government. Jews from Libya and Morocco were sent to concentration camps only after these countries were occupied by the Germans. To claim that anti-Semitism has been a part of Islamic culture "for centuries" is a tendentious rewriting of history that serves to relativize the German-European Christian's share of responsibility for the extermination of Jews by projecting its anti-Semitic motives onto the Muslim world. The DPG thus adopts the revisionist view held by far-right parties such as the AfD or Front National.

Further on in the abstract it is written: "recent and current genocidal outcries against Israel and the Jews". This statement is as well made without any empirical evidence to support it. While Israel is before the International Court of Justice in The Hague, where an overwhelming majority of judges speak of genocide against the Palestinians, here the opposite is claimed. The genocide of the Jews was committed by Germany and ended in 1945. The DPG was a participant in the ethnic cleansing of Jewish analysts during the National Socialist era. And today, even if Jews in different part of the world suffer from anti-Semitism and their lives are threatened, such as in Pittsburgh or Halle (both attacks were carried out by White Christians), they are nonetheless not currently suffering from genocide.

The Hamas attack on October 7 and its terrible consequences for the people living there are placed by the authors in the context of anti-Semitism. The fact, however, is that people living in Israel-Palestine were massacred, including Buddhists from Thailand, Muslims from Palestine, Bedouins, Jews - because they were in Israel. Even though the majority of those killed were innocent civilians, murdered in violation of international law, this was neither genocide nor an anti-semitically motivated act. Anti-Semitism is directed against the identity and existence of a Jew and not against his or her actions.

Jews in Israel-Palestine are killed and injured by Palestinian people in the context of displacement (numerous massacres of the Palestinian civilian population since 1948), occupation, oppression and the apartheid system. In South Africa, white people were killed in ANC terror attacks because they were part of the apartheid system. Their killing was not an "anti-white" action.

The fact that the DPG, as a German society, undertakes such a rewriting of history in its program is one aspect of the problematic nature of this lecture. In addition, the scientific standards that are necessary for psychoanalysis are ignored. In order to propagate a political agenda, an untrue assertion is made and this assertion, presented as fact, then becomes the subject of investigation. This analogous with the claim - and this is what psychoanalysis has done - that homosexuality is pathological and based on this assumption, this supposed pathology has been investigated.

Then we see the Past in the Present in action: Trans-generational traumas are not separate from current traumas. This has led to a distortion of history in which the past genocide of Jews is perpetuated as a permanently present threat and has thus led to a distorted perception of reality. This is being done while Israel is waging a war of extermination in the Gaza Strip. In this way, annihilating violence is denied through perpetrator-victim reversal.

Israel has "created" more than 19,000 orphans in the Gaza Strip because it has killed more than 6,000 Palestinian mothers in its genocidal actions. Palestinians live in a permanent state of traumatization. Many Israelis suffer from symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder as a result of their participation in this genocide. News reports and visual images of ongoing physical and psychological violence (including the murder of more than 14,000 children, destruction of more than 70% of homes, targeted execution of medical personnel in order to destroy the health system, disruption of all food supply deliveries, numerous mass graves....) can lead to the loss of the viewer's ability to mentalize, so that the crimes of ethnic cleansing are broadcast live viansocial media without subsequent action.

We are extremely concerned about the development of the psychoanalytical discourse, which risks failing to recognize the immeasurable suffering caused by the current genocide of the Palestinian people, trivializing the devastating violence to which Palestinians are exposed and at the same time relativizing German anti-Semitism. Many people in Germany are directly or indirectly affected and traumatized by this genocide.

We expect that you, as a German psychoanalytical society, to fulfill your historical obligation and immediately end your intellectual and emotional support for the genocide of Palestinians and instead promote a differentiated view of the political situation. We therefore urge you to fundamentally rethink this and future programs and political positions. As a psychoanalytical society, it is your duty to call for an immediate end to the genocide!

Signed by

the Steering Committees of:

Palestine-Global Mental Health Network
Australia-Palestine Mental Health Network
Canada-Palestine Mental Health Network
France-Palestine Mental Health Network
Ireland-Palestine Mental Health Network
Germany-Palestine Mental Health Network
Netherlands-Palestine Mental Health Network
South-Africa-Palestine Mental Health Network
United Kingdom-Palestine Mental Health Network
United States-Palestine Mental Health Network.

نداء من أجل الحياة: أوقفوا الإبادة الجماعية في غزة

نحث مؤيدينا وحلفاءَنا على

استهلاك ما ينتشر في وسائل الإعلام بشكل نقديّ، ورفض تجريد الشعب الفلسطيني من إنسانيته

استخدام منصات التواصل الاجتماعي الخاصة بكم واخبار العالم عن الوضع في فلسطين المحتلة

الاتصال بممثلي حكوماتكم وحثهم على الوقوف في الجانب الصحيح من التاريخ (لمزيد من المعلومات يرجى زيارة بيانات الشبكة البريطانية الفلسطينية للصحة النفسية )

التبرع للمنظمات والجهات التي تدعم غزة.  ومنها (مركز غزة للصحة النفسية),  ولكن هناك العديد من الاقتراحات الأخرى

 

A Call for Life

Stop the Genocide on Gaza

The Palestinian people who are resisting colonial violence and occupation to attain liberation and dignity are being massacred, terrorized and annihilated by the Israeli occupation military with the blessing and funding of the so-called Western civilized governments. We, the Palestine-Global Mental Health Network unequivocally condemn the intentional loss of lives, and assert our ethical commitment to upholding humanity and standing against ongoing violence and the ongoing erasure of our people.

We the Palestine-Global Mental Health Network are appalled by the complicity of the international community in the ongoing atrocity.

As of Friday, October 13th, 2023 the encouragement and collusion of these powers with Israel have supported:

● The 17-year siege on the Gaza Strip and all its 2.4 million civilian inhabitants who have been living in an open-air prison, and are 24/7 unmercifully attacked and bombarded by air, sea and land.

● Continuing, for the seventh time, the use of our people in Gaza as human targets, who are killed, maimed and displaced indiscriminately. All occurring under the gaze of the international community who selectively uphold international law.

● Since October 7th, 2023, the Israeli military admitted to targeting the people of Gaza with over 4000 tons of ammunition.

● 1600 men, women and children were killed and more than 6000 maimed by Israel’s continuous raids. Seventy-one families with all its members have been completely annihilated and erased from the human registry.

● More than 3000 buildings have been destroyed, 360,000 people internally displaced (with numbers growing) as Israel with Western governments’ complicity have “called” an estimated 1.1 million people to leave their homes or face annihilation.

● No electricity, water, food, or fuel, has been allowed to enter Gaza, leaving our people to starve and die.

● No medical supplies are available to attend to the increasing needs of the injured and the sick, and the Red Cross warned that as Gaza loses power, hospitals lose power, and “without power, hospitals risk turning into morgues.”

● In October 2023 Israeli politicians are calling to “send Gaza to the stone ages”, for “carpet bombing”, and throwing our people out of Gaza.

The bombardment and massacres in Gaza against 2.4 million, is a continuation of the 1948 pogroms committed against Palestinians, which continue to occur against Palestinians across all parts of historic Palestine. We the Palestine-Global Mental Health Network (PGMHN) attest that incarcerating millions, subjecting them to unending daily violence, trapping them in violent spatialities within an apartheid regime, and constructing them as “human animals” results in the physical, psychological, and spiritual terrorizing atmosphere that can not go without resistance.

Siege is not only a material and economic reality, it also carries a heavy psychological toll, perpetrating emotional hardships, devastation, anxieties, terrorization, and desperation, leaving our people with no possibilities for life. Confining and condemning Palestinians in animalistic terms relegates them into psychologically imagined realms of sub-humanity, an age-old and intolerable racist logic that animates colonialism and its attendant machinery of violence. When international discourse upholds these racist logics and blames Palestinians for the oppression they face, this further creates the conditions ripe for genocide to unfold. We must all speak loudly against these discourses, practices, and legitimizations that are circulating widely and consequently shaping international policies supporting Zionist violence, rather than supporting Palestinian access to the right to life, to liberation and access to well-being and dignity.

We, the Palestine-Global Mental Health Network, condemn international complicity and violence, that grants Israel the moral authority to commit crimes against humanity with impunity. We call on international actors to stop the widespread hyper-dehumanization and the unconditional racialized endorsement across international politics, from the Nakba period of 1948 to present-day October 2023.

 This is a critical moment, an opportunity for all to take a moral, conscientious, and informed stand. You can intervene to immediately STOP the killing, starvation, ongoing brutalities, the siege, the power cut, and the ongoing traumatic uprooting of Palestinians.

Speak out, refuse, reject settler colonialism, and call for life. As the assassinated Palestinian author and thinker Ghassan Kanafani reminds us, “We will not be brought down by guns, but by our silence.”

We the Palestine-Global Mental Health Network (PGMHN) call for an IMMEDIATE END to the genocide in Gaza.

We urge our supporters and allies to:

● Become critical consumers of media and actively challenge the media’s portrayal and dehumanization of the Palestinian people.

● Use your social media platforms to tell the world about the situation in Palestine.

● Contact your government representatives and demand that they stand on the right side of history (for further guidance, please visit the statements of the UK-Palestine Mental Health Network and the Jewish Voice for Peace)

● Donate to organizations and entities that support Gaza. Here is one suggestion (Gaza Mental Health Foundation) but there are many others.


Letter of Support for Dr. Lara Sheehi by Jewish Colleagues

To President Marc S. Wrighton and The George Washington University Community,

We, the undersigned Jewish clinical psychologists, psychoanalysts, social workers, psychiatrists, and psychoanalytic scholar allies of Lara Sheehi, PsyD are writing both a statement of solidarity and writing to condemn the specious attacks against Dr.Sheehi, particularly charges of antisemitism, and the harassment against her and her family.


On January 12, 2023, StandWithUs, a right-wing pro-Israel advocacy group, filed a Title VI complaint with the US Department of Education against The George Washington University. Despite the fact that the complaint alleges antisemitism against GWU, all names are redacted save Dr. Sheehi's in order to target, isolate and slander her. As early as 2015, Jewish Voice for Peace specifically criticized StandWithUs, especially highlighting their methods for silencing dissent, which they name as “…filing complaints with the federal government that campuses are ‘hostile environments’ for Jewish students; conflating some Jewish students’ emotional discomfort with targeted harassment; contacting administrators in an effort to have events canceled and speakers disinvited; blacklisting professors; and launching public campaigns around faculty hires.” As Jewish clinicians, we condemn the tactics and very definitions of antisemitism that groups like StandWithUs rely on to slander those who stand up for the rights of Palestinians and other oppressed peoples. It is noteworthy that the US Department of Education—along with many, many Jewish people in the U.S.--has rejected the broad definitions of antisemitism that groups like StandWithUs use to attack anyone who stands up for the humanity of the Palestinian people.


Dr. Sheehi, a faculty member at the George Washington University Professional Psychology Program, is an internationally recognized clinician, scholar, activist, writer and beloved teacher. Her work is on decolonial struggles as well as power, race, class and gender constructs and dynamics within psychoanalysis. Last year saw the release of her award-winning co-authored book with Stephen Sheehi, Psychoanalysis Under Occupation: Theory and Practice in Palestine (Routledge). We cannot overstate how important this groundbreaking book is to our field, both because of how it gives voice to those whose voices have been suppressed and because of its contribution to the expansion of psychoanalytic thinking itself. And we are saying this as Jewish clinicians and scholars who have experienced many times the way our profession silences these voices.


Furthermore, and to attest to how highly she is regarded in the field at large, Dr. Sheehi holds important positions in two of the major psychoanalytic psychology organizations in the U.S. She is President and former Secretary of the Society for Psychoanalysis and Psychoanalytic Psychology (Division 39 of the American Psychological Association) and she is the Chair of the American Psychoanalytic Association's Teachers' Academy. She is on the editorial board of Psychoanalysis, Culture and Society (PCS), a co-editor of Studies in Gender & Sexuality, a contributing editor at Parapraxis, and is on the advisory board to the USA-Palestine Mental Health Network and Psychoanalysis for Pride. 


Dr. Sheehi is just the latest of far too many professors and clinicians to become the victim of these tactics, which dovetail with a wider, programmatic attempt by pro-Israeli lobbies to influence the activities of the Department of Education. Dr. Sheehi has been singled out in this complaint as creating an environment hostile for her Jewish students precisely because she stands in solidarity with Palestine–even though there were no explicitly pro-Palestinian materials on the syllabus in question. As Jewish clinicians, many of whom know Dr. Sheehi’s work well (and some of whom have known her personally for many years), we know that the allegations are entirely specious and intended to harm Dr. Sheehi, both personally and professionally.


 Indeed, this complaint is not about any single instance in Dr. Sheehi’s teaching, nor her syllabus in Fall 2022. Dr. Sheehi has been targeted because of her racial, ethnic, and political identities as well as her positions as a leader in our field. As an Arab woman who writes about Israeli and Palestinian politics and is unapologetically in solidarity with Palestine, Dr. Sheehi has now come under attack. She is not the first clinician or academic in recent years to attract the ire of the right.


 It is important for those who might be unaware to know that these attacks are coordinated, not just by lobbyist groups at the level of government, but also online. This is important to stress: these attacks are organized by a small handful of the most right-wing Zionist organizations that are connected to the Israeli state directly or indirectly. They are then fed to low-level right wing news organizations (like The Washington Free Beacon, which broke this story), and those stories are then disseminated on social media, where they are interacted with largely by fake accounts, fanning flames further. In Dr. Sheehi’s case, this coordinated campaign appears to be following a now all-too familiar playbook, as participants have “doxxed” her, making public her personal information. She and her family members have now received death threats, and her colleagues have been subjected to Islamophobic harassment. We unequivocally condemn threats of violence and any forms of harassment against Dr. Sheehi, her family, or her colleagues. Those of us who are Jewish practitioners in the field of mental health feel a particular obligation to stand up and speak out forcefully in solidarity with Dr. Sheehi and other colleagues who have been so viciously and unfairly attacked.

Criticism of Israel in the name of justice should not be conflated with antisemitism, a practice that hurts everyone. We refuse to allow anyone to use our ethnicity or our values as a blanket political shield to carry out these attacks on Dr. Sheehi. This attack, unfortunately, follows a playbook. We must fight back against these attacks that are designed to malign and harm one of our most beloved and powerful educators and clinicians. 

 We stand with Dr. Sheehi, and urge you to do the same.


Hannah Zeavin, PhD
Judith Butler, PhD
Jacqueline Rose, FBA
Lynne Layton, PhD
Elizabeth Berger, M.D.
Nancy Hollander, PhD
Stephen Portuges, PhD
Jessica Benjamin, PhD
Irwin Z. Hoffman, PhD
Rhonda Factor, PhD
Lynne Zeavin, PsyD 
Donald Moss, MD 
Barbara Eisold, PhD
Susan Gutwill, LICSW
Todd Essig, PhD
Jane Robinwitz, LICSW
Judith Deutsch, MSW
Steven Knoblauch, PhD
Chaim Rochester, MA, PhD Candidate, Pacifica Graduate Institute
Maureen Katz, M.D.
Sophie Mendelsohn, PsyD
Andrew Samuels, DHL
Joseph Gorin, PsyD
Eta Demby, MSW
Lori Helene Rudolph, PhD, LPCC
Rita Karuna Cahn, LCSW
Marjorie Sheer, MSW, LCSW
Stephen Hartman, PhD
David M. Goodman, PhD
Lauren Levine, PhD
Amy Schwartz-Cooney, PhD
Melanie Suchet, PhD
Esther Rapoport, PsyD
Judy Blumenfeld, MA, MFT
Laura Kogel, LCSW
Susan Phillips, PhD
Deborah Hellerstein, PhD
Lisa Master, LCSW
Jade McGleughlin, LICSW
Charla Ruby Malamed, LICSW
Alice Shaw, PhD
Matthew Steinfeld, PhD
Sarah Scheckter, PhD
Erica Burman, Group Analyst
Sharon Greenfield, PsyD
Tania Coiner, PhD
Leah Kramnick, LCSW-R
Carter J. Carter, PhD, LICSW
Bonnie Gitlin, LCSW
Barbara E Schwartz, LMHC
Luise Eichenbaum, LCSW
Danielle Frank, LCSW
Thomas S. Greenspon, PhD
Susie Orbach, PhD
Cheryl Pearlman, LCSW
Amy Edminster, LCSW
Elizabeth Goren, PhD
Sue Grand, PhD
Muriel L Frischer, PhD
Sophia Frydman, PhD
Deborah M Waxenberg, PhD
Donna Bassin, PhD
Emily Schlesinger, LCSW, FIPA
Tony Hellman, LCSW
Sue Einhorn, M.Inst.GA
Isaac Slone, MA
Claire Bacha, PhD
Jack Drescher, MD
Cynthia Colvin, PhD
Nikki N. Sachs, LCSW
Vivian Lubell, LCSW, LMFT
Barbara Kane, PhD
Beckett Warzer, MA
Ezra Feinberg, PsyD
Betsy W Spanbock, LICSW, FIPA
Julie Hyman, LCSW
Rachel Kozlowski, PsyD 
Hannah Schmitt, MA, PsyD candidate 
Daniel Polyak, LP
Hannah Schmitt, MA, PsyD Candidate, Yeshiva University
Jordan Dunn, MA
Scott Pytluk, PhD, ABPP
Hattie Myers, PhD
Brenda Solomon, PhD
Denni Liebowitz, LCSW, FIPA
Emily Seidel, Psy.D.
Janie Riley, MFT
Bruce Weitzman, PsyD, MFT
Roberta Stern, LCSW
Julie Gerhardt, PhD
Herbert Schreier, M.D.
Jonathan House, M.D.
Karra Bikson, PhD, MSW, MA
Marcia G. Black, PhD
Dana J. Schwartz, MFT
Michael W. Roffe, Ph.D.
Allan Pleaner, MFT
Jesse Walker, PsyD
Matt Aibel, LCSW
Jay Frankel, PhD
Moshe Brownstein, LCSW
Seth Brodsky, PhD
Kim Rosenfeld, LCSW
Lawrence Jacobson, PhD
Carol Munter, Licensed Psychoanalyst
Jack Beinashowitz, PhD
James Traub, LCSW
Penny Rubenfine, DSW, LCSW
Adam Weg
Laura Reid, PsyD
Stephen Soldz, PhD
Alina Fox, MSW, LCSW
Sula Malina, LMSW
Mark Mellinger, PhD
Hannah Mittenberg, LCSW 
Daniel Rosengart, PsyD
Antonia Frydman, PhD
Masha Borovikova Armyn, PhD
Ali Shames-Dawson, MTS, PhD
Bonnie Bernstein, PhD
Nitzan Cohen, PhD
Rebecca Stahl, LCSW
Lynne Rubin, PhD
Andy Eig, PhD, ABPP
Janine A. Tiago de Melo, Ph.D, ABBP
Dana Charatan, PsyD
Ania Baumritter, LCSW
Susan Stern, LCSW
Miriam Habib, MSW
Tina Weishaus, CNS, APN
Mary Neznek, M.Ed
Leslie M Goldstein, LCSW-R
Carli Gurholt, PsyD
Lawrence Wetzler, PhD
Jodie Fink, LCSW
Samantha Sarvet, LCSW
Madeline Taylor, PhD, LMFT
Adam Weg, LCSW
Justin Shubert, PhD
Steven Luz-Alterman, PhD
Liem Berman, LICSW
Elizabeth Zoob, LICSW
Carol Bloom, LCSW
Susan Kerman, MD
Alina Sternberg Viola, PsyD
Jules Kerman, MD, PhD
Orna Shachar PsyD, PhD
Victoria Malkin, PhD, LP
Diane Ehrensaft, PhD
Rochelle Towers, MSW
Christina Halsey, PhD
Nancy Feinstein, PhD
Ghislaine Boulanger, PhD
Elliot L. Jurist, PhD
Jamie Daniels, MSW, LICSW, PhD Candidate
Alexa Marrach, PhD 
Joanna Levine, MSW
Natasha Stovall, PhD
Amie Benusen, MA clinical student, New School for Social Research
Stephen Friedman, LCSW
Chloe H. Rovitz, LCSW, LMSW
Amy Joelson, LCSW
Judith Aronson, PhD
Jane Kenner, PhD
Adele Yaron, Psychotherapist, UKCP
Ruth Migler, MA, MSW
Eilon Shomron-Atar, PhD
Amanda Zayde, PsyD
Linda R. Rosenberg, LCSW
Judith Rustin, LCSW
Elizabeth Bernstein, PhD
Liat Tsuman, PhD
Amy Eldridge, PhD
Alan Bass, PhD
Hanna Berleth, PsyD
Robin Cooper, MD
Diane Selinger, PhD
Shuki Cohen, M.Sc., PhD
Robert Cohen PhD
Tina Dobsevage, MD
Nina Thomas, PhD
Madeleine Lourie, LICSW
Tamar Ben-Shaul, PhD
Sonia Kahn, Psy.D., CGP
James Deutsch, MD, PhD 
Tova A. Green, LCSW
Lian Malki-Schubert, MA
Lily Blank, PhD
Rozita Alaluf, MA 
Doris Brothers, PhD
Steven Reisner, PhD
Wendy S Kaiser, LCSW
Linda J Arkin, LCSW
Jane Hirschmann, MSW
Linda Arbus, LCSW
Olivia Mandelbaum, PhD
Ronnie Lesser, PhD
Erica Schoenberg, PhD
David Mark, PhD
Mike Strupp-Levitsky, PhD
Sally Moskowitz, PhD
Alina Fox, MSW, LCSW
Anna Sofen, PsyD
Olivia Carosello, MA, MSW, LCSW
Andrea Peyser, LCSW
Ruby Branson LMSW
Joel Whitebook PhD
Hannah Young, MPsy
Milo Giovannneillo, MSW Candidate, Smith College School for Social Work
Kiyo Kohchi, MSW Candidate, Smith College School for Social WorkAmara Leipzig, MSW Candidate, Smith College School for Social WorkCarolyn Flaster, PsyD
Laura D. Miller, LCSW
Florie Lehrburger, LCSW, BCDCSW
Gillian Goldberg, MSW
Noga Ariel Galor, PhD
Arnona Zahavi, Tel Aviv Institute of Contemporary  Psychoanalysis
Ruchama Marton, MD
Elana Lakh
Joseph Bobrow PhD
Rachel Steindler, MSW
Faryn Hart, MSW ASW
Pam Rosen, MSW
Tova Selene Lipkin Sularz, MSW
Mica Agate-Mays, MSW
Regan Adair, MSW
Helen K. Gediman, PhD
William Gottdiener, PhD, ABPP, FIPA
Claire Basescu, PhD
Judy Roth, PhD
Judith Hanlon, PhD
Kori Bennett, PsyD
Judith Kuppersmith, PhD
Marina Kantarovich Rodriguez, MSW, LICSW
Carla Massey, PhD
Sandra Silverman, LCSW
Julie Bindeman, PsyD
Ofra Bloch, LCSW-R

Myra M. Lawrence, PsyD

Julia L. Pressman, LCSW

Marsha Levy-Warren, PhDPC



Doctoral Students and Alumni Letter in Support of Dr. Lara Sheehi

A Letter To President Mark S. Wrighton and The George Washington University Community

We are writing to you as deeply concerned doctoral students and alumni of The George Washington University Professional Psychology Program. We are horrified by the recent harmful attacks on our professor, advisor, supervisor, and mentor, Dr. Lara Sheehi, championed by StandWithUs, an Israeli advocacy group with a documented record of harassing professors (see Jewish Voice for Peace report for their account of how these groups operate). These attacks appear to have originated from a voluntary brown bag organized by Dr. Sheehi as the inaugural event for the department’s new Psychoanalysis in the Arab World Lab. The event featured an Israeli-Palestinian speaker who is a chaired professor at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem. Since this event, Dr. Sheehi has been accused by a couple of individuals of being antisemitic, of teaching antisemitic rhetoric within her Diversity curriculum, and her character has come into question. The resulting allegations of her creating a hostile learning environment for Jewish students and of retaliating against them could not be further than the truth. We are concerned that as an Arab woman, she is the only individual whose name was not redacted from the Title VI complaint filed by StandWithUs, underscoring the extent to which both her scholarly focus and her identity are motivators for this attack. 

Those of us present for the brown bag and especially those of us who took part in the class documented in the Title VI complaint particularly condemn the blatant misrepresentations of her treatment of our Jewish colleagues. Those of us present in her class in question, those of us who have taken classes with her in the past, and those of us who know her both inside and outside the classroom, can attest to her deep empathy and fierce dedication to addressing all forms of injustice, including antisemitism. It is her dedication and relationships with us across a decade that compels us to address these accusations and offer our support for her during this time.


We believe that any form of harmful rhetoric, including antisemitism, has no place within our learning and clinical environments. Because we take these accusations seriously, we want to attest that in our experiences in her courses and in our professional interactions with her, Dr. Sheehi has approached issues of antisemitism with careful attendance to nuance and with respect for their current and historic complexities. The collapse of her scholarship on Palestine as being inherently reflective of antisemitic beliefs is reductionist and works to silence dissenting Jewish voices by presenting a monolithic Jewish voice as dominant. One of the most crucial skills that Dr. Sheehi and our program have worked to hone in our clinical thinking and practice, is the ability to reject dichotomy and rigidity; rather than splitting when we encounter information that may feel contradictory, we work to integrate different perspectives and attend to the way that multiple truths can be valid simultaneously. Dr. Sheehi, like many others, can support the self-determination of Palestinians while also fighting antisemitism. To believe that it is impossible for someone to attend to both issues runs counter to everything that psychology, and especially psychoanalysis, has taught and trained us to do. 

Dr. Sheehi’s dedication to holding this precise complexity is central to her body of work and is well-documented in her teaching, professional presentations, and myriad publications, including her recent award-winning book. It is due to her presence on the Profession Psychology Program faculty and the opportunity to learn from her that many of the undersigned students and alumni chose to study at The George Washington University. She has similarly helped many of us go on to highly regarded internships, postdocs and career positions after graduation. Dr. Sheehi is an invaluable asset to the Professional Psychology Program, and we are concerned that this mischaracterization of her character, her teaching, and her beliefs is intended to, and will, cause her irreparable harm. 

We feel these accusations are deeply harmful precisely because of what Dr. Sheehi has modeled for us. She has consistently demonstrated her commitment to taking up social justice issues, in line with the high ethical standards of our field. Her Diversity syllabus, especially, is one of the few in our entire course load that prioritizes literature from scholars and clinicians of color and other minority identities. Her careful selection of articles provides an invaluable opportunity for students to hear voices otherwise rarely given a platform in academic settings, especially in psychoanalysis and clinical psychology. Those of us who have taken her classes, including last semester, have witnessed how she provides a fair, safe, and containing environment in which students can discuss complex and difficult issues. Importantly, she models how one sensitively and thoughtfully “calls in” students without shaming them, especially when biases and inadvertent prejudices may be expressed. As current and past students and alumni, we have also witnessed Dr. Sheehi’s sensitivity and attention to matters of implicit and explicit antisemitism as a part of her commitment to locating ourselves as clinicians within all structures of oppression. Our direct experience of her runs exactly counter to the deeply troubling accusations that are being disseminated about her.

The enriching environment that Dr. Sheehi fosters in her Diversity course and her dedication to students’ sense of support within the Professional Psychology Program extends into the other courses she teaches throughout the year and to her outreach to students during times of socio-political unrest and violence. In light of the current allegations, it is particularly important to note that Dr. Sheehi was among the first to call students’ attention to antisemitic violence, such as the 2019 Poway Synagogue shooting. With this in mind, the current smear campaign against her by right-wing activist groups appears to be among the many targeted campaigns against academics who support Palestine, trans rights, reproductive rights, and racial and economic justice.

Our intention in this letter is both to attest as witnesses to her character and professionalism, and also to protest and expose the fabrications and misrepresentation that have brought harm, not only directly to Dr. Sheehi, her family, and colleagues, but also to her students, our Program, and the patients we serve at the GW Center Clinic and elsewhere. We hope that The George Washington University will offer the full weight of its resources and support to Dr. Sheehi at this time, ensure her safety, and refute the allegations against her so that she can continue her own work of teaching and supporting the students and graduates of the Professional Psychology Program and fighting oppression in all of its forms.

Sincerely,


Class of 2026

Alexis Morgan
Elizabeth Watts
Emma Mugford
Geoffrey Hervey
Manon Pesme
Moataz Salim
Rachel Contri
Serene Kaggal
Youyang Wang
Zahraa Akhwand
Cara Judkins
Talya Beford
Ellette Mendelowitz

Class of 2025
Anthony Marino
Ariel Beckerman
Carmella Asparrin
Han Yu
Hannah Goldstein
Harsh Taneja
Jenee Edgerton
John Stitt
Jung In Park
Katie Lukas
Magnus Dalier
Nahima Vargas
Nguyen Mai Phuong Bach
Tracy Zimmerman


Class of 2024

Alexandra Robelo
Alicia Solorio
Armahn Rassuli
Bryan Becerra
Claudia Downey
Emily Stephen
Feng Xing
Hannah Young
Jayoti Soor
Kara Adams
Lauren Horton
Matilda Bintu Zana Koroma
Michelle Morel
Miral Malik
Razzan Quran
Rohma Hassan
Wafae Driwech
Xinwei Dong
Yewon Kim


Class of 2023

Adriana Abadi
Aida Gruden
Alya Gaspard
Andolyn Medina
Divya Babbar
Ehsan Falasiri 
Gabriella Iskin
Guinnevere Parise
Jane Howitt
Julianna Dubendorff
Kristen Joseph
Lingyue Lu
Maleeha Naqvi
Maryam Saleem
Megan Graves
Mengpin Zhang
Muska Anwar
Pavani Khera
Reston N. Bell


Alumni
Aditi Joshi, PsyD
Pamela Blackwell, PsyD, MSW
Amy Sproul, PsyD
Serena Anand, PsyD
Shereen Ayoubi, PsyD
Victoria Todd, PsyD
Joanna Diab, PsyD
Aiyanna Archer, PsyD 
Aislinn Moss, PsyD
Kelly Banks, PsyD
Sanjana Kumar, PsyD
Cristel Bel, PsyD
Roshan Javadian, PsyD
Jesse Walker, PsyD
Camille Hawkins, PsyD
Chiara Abbatelli, PsyD
Xi Bi, PsyD
Jordan Watson Galligan, PsyD
Rupa Kaahasthi, MA, PsyD
Marlene Villegas, PsyD
William Max Hurley-Welljams-Dorof, PsyD
Kevin Isserman, PsyD
Olivia Kleinman Dockser, PsyD
Natalia Báez-Powell, PsyD
Nicole Moore, PsyD
Shelley Marfori, PsyD
Celeste Kelly, PsyD
Leisa Small, PsyD
Erik Santacruz, PsyD 
Laura Bowles, PsyD
Marianna Leavy-Sperounis, PsyD
Brooke Stroud, PsyD
Hanna Berleth, PsyD
Gergely Foldesi, PsyD
Kasia Garland, PsyD
Claudia Amendola, PsyD
Noura Khayat, PsyD
Christina Ortega, PsyD
Kathleen Saul, PsyD 
Nina Hamas, PsyD
Juhayna Ajami, PsyD
Anne Su, PsyD
Kiera Boyle-Toledo, PsyD
Zeyad Layous, PsyD
Jane E. Keat, DPhil, PsyD
Sangeeta Prasad, PsyD
Rukhsana Chaudhry, PsyD
Max Nwigwe, PsyD
Sania Khan, PsyD
Julie Bindeman, PsyD
Mona Abuhamda, PsyD 
Timothy Ellsworth, PsyD
Alison McGrath Howard, PsyD
Jordan Ohannasian, PsyD
Jasmine Kaleka, PsyD


Position Paper

Concerning the Recent Acts of Zionist Aggression, Brutal Siege and Killing Taking Place Across Palestinian Cities, Villages and Refugee Camps

To our fellow mental health professionals around the world,

A dignified greeting of freedom and justice to our people and to all the peoples struggling for their liberation and protection of their rights.

The Palestine-Global Mental Health Network strongly denounces the brutal actions carried out by the Israeli occupation’s apparatus of soldiers and settlers, against the Palestinian people. Since the start of 2022, the occupation has killed over 100 Palestinians. This settler colonial system  has destroyed property and displaced families and imposed a siege on our cities and villages, the last of which culminated in the Israeli siege of Shuafat refugee camp and the village of Annata.

Today, dear colleagues, we direct our appeal to you, in alignment with the beliefs and ideals of our profession. Beliefs in the strength which lies in liberating the human from dire structural circumstances that implicate growth and sustenance. We are aligned with the restoration of people’s agency, sense of control and over their lives. We raise our appeal today considering the recent and ongoing political conditions in Palestine. Our role as mental health practitioners moves from therapists treating the damage and harm of past events and the historical burden of asylum, displacement, detention and dismissal, to witnessing the daily harm and damage practiced on the Palestinian psyche around us, and to which we belong. These forms of settler colonial violence attempt to strip us of our sense of ability, effectiveness and efficacy in shaping and creating our own reality. We are committed towards collective liberation, and in this particular example, Palestinian liberation. We appeal to your solidarity in joining us in our refusal to surrender or resign to violence, and our perseverance in defending our right to justice and dignity.

Over and above the aforementioned abuses, Zionists continue to violate our human rights to life, to dignity, and access to vital services. This settler colony violates and restricts our freedom of movement, exemplified in the over 15 years of their siege on Gaza. These brutal forces attempt to obliterate the Palestinian people. In recent months, we have witnessed an escalation in personal and military aggression and an intensification of the fragmentation of our people through the enforcement of additional sieges. The Israeli arrests of our people across Nablus, Jenin and Jerusalem have increased; whereby concentrating their raids on Palestinians living in refugee camps.

The Shuafat refugee camp, which is surrounded by the separation wall and military barriers, is known to belong to the Jerusalem municipality, whereby its residents carry a Jerusalem residency. In spite of this, Shuafat refugee camp and the adjacent town of Annata have been besieged since last Saturday (October 8th 2022). The residents, comprising 18,000 registered refugees and 130,000 Palestinian people, are prevented from leaving the area. These residents include workers, students, and children who need to leave the refugee camp to go about their daily lives. Additionally, patients have also been restricted access to necessary health services and treatment. This suffocating siege, which has lasted for 5 days, was opposed by the refugee camp's residents. Palestinians, despite their severe suffering, declared civil disobedience to these punitive and brutal Zionist practices.

In addition to the sieges on Shuafat refugee camp, Nablus, Jenin and other Palestinian areas, the occupation forces continue to brutally storm schools with children inside, storming homes at night and before dawn. They have been drowning them with tear gas bombs, resulting in the suffocation of children and the elderly (including a 7-day-old baby). Throughout these events, access to medical aid was prevented. Additionally, the Israeli forces intensified their arrests of children under the age of 10.

The amplified acts of terror, killing and suffocation; the abuse of people at checkpoints; and the lack of safety in any Palestinian area; threatens the decent, stable and balanced life of Palestinian people today and in the future, and jeopardizes their physical and mental health. These horrific acts also violate children and people’s basic human rights for living in a safe environment, which allows for healthy growth and development.

Through this escalation, there was a systematic targeting of civilians by the occupation, including journalists, health workers, doctors and teachers, even while they were performing their jobs. These are not random acts of violence. Rather, these acts are intentionally meant to debilitate and target the humanity of the Palestinians in an attempt to kill one’s vitality and refusal of oppression. The intended outcome is to inhibit the capacity to enact Palestinian rights, instate their dignity and social role in society. Intensification serves to intimidate, annihilate and transform the Palestinian into an apathetic soul, easily subjected to occupation and unable to resist its oppression. According to the settler colony, the only way a Palestinian is allowed to exist is by consuming the occupation’s content and products. Stripping the soul of its natural inclination to act and react is something that we, as health workers in Palestine, reject and refuse to adopt, and we will oppose it from happening to any Palestinian or any person in the world.

The longstanding struggle has proven that our Palestinian people, wherever they are, are active and vibrant people, who will not be complacent, and refuse to become helpless. Palestinian people continue to fight against injustice with their voices, deeds and position. Succumbing to oppression is a means of annihilation, while vitality and mobility are features of mental health and the desire to live the life that we all deserve.

We, as mental health professionals, are aware that the political reality is influential in shaping the human psyche. It is impossible for us, in line with the ethics of our profession, to remain silent about this harm and thus express our condemnation and refusal to accept it. We stress that we cannot help a soul liberate itself from its burdens while we are shackled by the dominance of the occupation’s lethal system. A system that silences the voice of the weak and prevents it from being heard. Taking a position against neutrality is a form of refusing the state of impotence imposed by the Israeli regime. In order to align with truth, justice and professionalism, we take a stand to express our position toward justice as professionals and members of the human society. We deplore and condemn the claim of professionalism by fellow practitioners as they carry out a blatant attack on justice and align themselves with injustice. This was most visible in the recent storming of the Al-Aqsa Mosque by Israeli settlers, who were accompanied by the Canadian psychologist Jordan Peterson. Jordan Peterson was an active participant in the prevention of Palestinian worshipers from entering and practicing their religious rituals in Al-Aqsa mosque.

In light of this policy to misuse the concept of neutrality, we call on the support of professionals in all our locations across historical Palestine, to be aware of and resist this nefarious policy in all its forms.

We stand with our colleagues in places under attack and siege across Palestine, as well as our colleagues around the world, who are confronting the forces of colonial oppression and attempts to destroy liberatory mental health.

Your colleagues

Palestine-Global Mental Health Network

ورقة موقف

من الشبكة الفلسطينية العالميّة للصحة النفسيّة
حول ما يجري من عدوان و حصار و قتل في مدن و قرى و مخيمات الوطن

زملائنا المهنيّين\ات العاملين\ات في مجال الصحة النفسيّة حول العالم،
تحيّة الكرامة والحريّة والعدالة لشعبنا و لكل الشعوب المناضلة من أجل تحررها و نيل حقوقها

   تستنكر الشبكة الفلسطينية العالمية للصحة النفسية وبشدة الممارسات الوحشيّة التي يقوم بها الاستعمار الإحتلالي الإسرائيلي بأذرعه ومستوطنيه، على أبناء الشعب الفلسطيني. والتي قد قتلت منذ بداية العام 2022 وحتى الآن أكثر من 100 فلسطيني، وقامت بتدمير لممتلكات وتشريد لعائلات، و فرض حصار على مدننا و قرانا و كان آخرها حصار مخيم شعفاط و قرية عناتا.

  نوجّه إليكم\ن زميلاتنا و زملائنا اليوم نداءَنا هذا، إيمانًا منّا بأهميّة مهنتنا وبأن عظمتها تكمن في تحريرِ النفس البشريّة من أعباء ظروف أثّرت على تكوينها ونموّها، وبالأساس بإرجاع السيطرة والاقتدار والوكالة (agency) على النفس لصاحبها؛ نرفع نداءنا اليوم في ظل الظروف السيّاسيّة الحاصلة في فلسطين مؤخرًا والتي نرى بأنها تُحيل عملنا كعاملين\ات في مجال الصحة النفسيّة من مُعالجين\ات لأضرار وأذية أحداث الماضي والعبء التاريخي للجوء والتشريد والاحتجاز والفصل، إلى شاهدين\ات على أذىً وأضرار تُصنع وتمارس على النفس الفلسطينية من حولنا يوميًا، في محاولة لتجريدنا نحن من الشعور بالقدرة والفاعليّة والتأثير في واقعنا. ويأتي توجّهنا هذا لكم كانعكاسِ لتمسكنا بدورنا وباقتدارنا وكمحاولة لرفض التنازل عنها، ولإيماننا بتضامنكم وتلاحمكم معنا في دفاعنا عن حقنا في العدل والكرامة.

  مُضافةً إلى الممارسات القهرية السابقة التي مسّت وتمس حقوقنا كاملة و أهمها حقنا بالحياة، والعيش بكرامة ، وحقنا بالوصول الى الخدمات الحيوية وتكبيل حرية الحركة والتنقل، والحصار الذي تُكابد غزّة تحمله منذ أكثر من 15 عامًا، وتقطيع أوصال الهوية الجمعية للشعب الفلسطيني؛ نشهد خلال الأشهر الأخيرة تصعيدًا وتكثيفًا للحصار والعدوان الفعليّ والعسكريّ والاعتقالات في كل من نابلس وجنين والقدس وتحديدًا في مخيمات اللاجئين الفلسطينيين منها.
وقد وصلت هذه الممارسات مداها السبت الماضي لدى بدء الحصار على مخيم شعفاط المحاط بجدار الفصل والضم وبحاجز عسكريّ بالرغم من وجوده ضمن ما يسمى بـ"منطقة تابعة لبلدية القدس" ومن حَمْل قاطنيه للإقامة المقدسيّة. ووقع الحصار على سكّان المخيم وبلدة عناتا المُتاخمة له ومُنِع أهالي و قاطني المنطقة الذين يصل عددهم إلى 18,000 لاجئ مُسجّل و130,000 إنسان فلسطيني، من مغادرة المنطقة و منهم العمّال والطلّاب والأطفال والمرضى الذين يحتاجون إلى الخروج من المخيم لتلقي الخدمات الصحيّة والعلاجات ولممارسة حياتهم اليومية. هذا الحصار الخانق و الذي استمر لمدّة 5 أيام متواصلة جابهه أهالي المخيم رغم معاناتهم الشديدة بإعلان العصيان المدنيّ.
وقد رافق هذه الحصارات في مخيم شعفاط ونابلس وجنين وفي مناطق فلسطينية أخرى، تكثيف لاقتحامات قوّات وجنودِ الاحتلال المدارسَ في وقت تواجد الأطفال فيها، واقتحام البيوت ليلًا وقبيل الفجر، وإغراق كليها بالقنابل المسيلة للدموع والتي أدت إلى إصابة الأطفال والمسنين بالاختناق (بينهم رضيعة بعمر 7 أيّامٍ)، كما وتم منع وصول الإسعافات للمناطق المحاصرة، وتكثيف الاعتقالات التي قد طالت أطفال ما دون سن ال10 سنوات.
إن ممارسات الرعب والقتل والخنق المكثّفَين والتنكيل بالناس على الحواجز وإنعدام مساحات الأمان في أي حيّز فلسطيني تشكّل تهديدًا لإمكانية عيش الإنسان الفلسطيني اليوم والأجيال القادمة حياةً كريمة ومستقرة ومتوازنة صحيًا ونفسيًا. بالإضافة للمس بحقّ الأطفال والبشر عمومًا للعيش في بيئة آمنة تتيح النمّو والتطوّر السليمين. 

ومن بين ما برز خلال هذا التصعيد، كان استهداف الاستعمار الإحلالي بشكل ممنهج للمدنيين ومنهم الصحافيين وعاملي الصحة والأطباء والمعلمين حتى خلال تأديتهم واجبهم المهني، الأمر الذي لا نراه نحن كاعتباطيّ، بل هو استهدافٌ لإنسانية الفلسطينيّ في محاولةٍ لقتل النفس الفاعلة والمُقتدرة والرافضة للقمع والتي تتفاعل مع واقعها وتحاول أن تأخذ دورها الإنساني والاجتماعي. ويأتي ذلك من خلال تكثيف للترويع وصولًا إلى التصفية، بهدف تحويل الفلسطينيّ إلى ذاتٍ خاملة، خاضعة للاستعمار، لا تقوى على مقاومة قهره، مستهلكة لمضامينه ومنتجاته، وهي الطريقة الوحيدة التي يُسمح لها فيها بالوجود. إنّ هذا التجريد للنفس من نزعتها الطبيعيّة على الفعل والتفاعل هو أمرٌ نرفضه نحن كعاملين في مجال الصحة في فلسطين ونرفض تبنّيه وسنناهض حدوثه مع أي فلسطيني أو أي إنسان في العالم.
وقد أثبتت سنوات النضال الطويلة أن شعبنا الفلسطيني في كافة أماكن تواجده، هو شعب حيٌّ لن يستكين ويرفض أن يكون عاجزًا وسيبقى مشتبكًا مع الظلم صوتًا وفعلًا وموقفًا. وما الإستكانة أمام القهر إلا من سمات الفناء، أما الحيويّة والحراك فهي دوالٌ للصحة النفسية وللرغبة بالحياة كما نستحق.

ونحن كمهنيين عاملين في مجال الصحة النفسية واعين أن الواقع السياسيّ هو واقع مؤثر على تشكيل النفس البشرية، يستحيل علينا، بحكم أخلاقيّات مهنتنا، السكوت عن هذا الضرر ونعبّر بهذا عن رفضنا له. ونشدّد أنه لا يمكننا مساعدة نفس على التحرر من أعبائها ونحن مكبّلين بتأثير هيمنة نظام الإماتة الاستعماري وحيلولتها دون سماع وإسماع صوت المستضعفين. فإن الخروج من الحياديّة هو خروج من حالة العجز من أجل الاصطفاف إلى جانب الحق والعدل والمهنيّة، ونحن باتخاذنا موقفًا نعبر عن انحيازنا للعدالة كمهنيين وكفاعلين بالمجتمع الإنساني. ونستهجن وندين ادّعاء المهنيّة من زملاء مزاولين للمهنة فيما تنفيذهم لاعتداءٍ صارخ على العدالة واصطفافهم بجانب الظلم كاقتحام الأخصائي النفسي الكنديّ جوردان بيترسون Jordan Peterson المسجد الأقصى إلى جانب المستوطنين المقتحمين في ظلّ منع المصلين الفلسطينيين من دخوله وممارسة شعائرهم الدينيّة.

وفي ظل إساءة الاستخدام هذه لمفهوم الحيّادية، ندعو لتعضادنا كمهنيين في كافة أماكن تواجدنا في فلسطين التاريخية وأن نكون واعين و مقاومين لهذه السياسة بأشكالها المختلفة
نآزر زملاءنا في الأماكن التي تتعرض للهجوم والحصار في فلسطين، كما ونآزر زملاءنا حول العالم ممن يواجهون قوى القمع الاستعمارية ومحاولات تدمير الصحة النفسية

زملاؤكم
الشبكة الفلسطينيّة العالميّة للصحة النفسيّة


Medical Letter Regarding Ahmad Manasra

To the Honourable Members of the Court:                                                    

We the undersigned psychiatrists formally request on urgent medical grounds that the young prisoner Ahmad Manasra be released immediately to his family.

As of this date, permission has been denied for appropriate evaluation to update Ahmad’s clinical status. We base our request therefore upon the 213-page file documenting Ahmad’s previous medical history and upon the April 11 and 12, 2022 interview of Ahmad’s parents, who are allowed to visit him in prison, conducted by one of us (Samah Jabr MD).

Ahmad was born in 2002, enjoying an unremarkable happy childhood. He did well in school and was described as a kind and thoughtful youngster. On October 12, 2015, when Ahmad was 13 and in the 8th grade, Ahmad was involved in violent events. His 15 year old cousin was killed and Ahmad was struck by an automobile and attacked by a hostile crowd.  Ahmad was then hospitalized, undergoing surgery for the fracture of the skull with subdural cerebral hemorrhage; photos demonstrate Ahmad handcuffed to his hospital bed. Videos of the subsequent interrogation indicate verbal mistreatment by the authorities.

Since that time, Ahmad has been imprisoned and frequently held in solitary confinement. In 2020, he began to show increasingly disturbed behavior, agitation, fearfulness, and trouble thinking clearly; he assaulted another prisoner and was admitted to a hospital psychiatrically for approximately six weeks. More recently, Ahmad was evaluated on October 24, 2021 by the Israeli psychiatrist Dr. Bar-Haim. following her examination, Ahmad was hospitalized for about ten days; the attending psychiatrist corroborated Dr. Bar-Haim’s view that Ahmad was experiencing a very serious mental disturbance.

Although Ahmad has taken various psychiatric medications, it is not apparent that there has been appropriately timely or consistent follow-up by a treating psychiatrist in the six-month period following the hospitalization in the Fall of 2021—follow-up that might assess the rationale, benefits, side-effects, and long-term risks of his medication regimen; we also note the lack of regular ongoing clinical care by a practitioner who can speak with Ahmad in his native Arabic language with the appropriate cultural background. His current solitary confinement is of four months duration.

Parents report currently that Ahmad talks about death, has no motivation to do anything, and spends his time sleeping and crying. Parents describe that Ahmad’s psychological functioning appears to have undergone a total collapse and that they and fear for his life.

We would highlight that Dr. Bar-Haim’s report includes the following medical judgment:  Continued incarceration will inevitably lead to a deterioration in his illness and the creation of an unavoidable evolution towards disability…. A therapeutic framework must be provided, which will include psychiatric support, and a therapeutic system of rehabilitation tailored to his needs and the personal circumstances of his life (translated by the undersigned).

In full agreement with Dr. Bar-Haim, we wish to express grave concerns that Ahmad is suffering from a very serious and perhaps life-threatening condition. The potential contributing factors are complex: both traumatic brain injury and prolonged solitary confinement may lead to severe disturbances of memory, judgment, thinking, mood, and capacity to evaluate reality. We note too, the complete loss of parental, family, social, communal, and educational supports that Ahmad has endured since the age of 13, as well as the many terrifying traumas that he has experienced. Our review of Ahmad’s reported condition and his lengthy medical chart impress upon us the lack of appropriate medical, neurological, neuropsychological, and psychiatric evaluation and follow up.

 

In view of these many factors, we respectfully appeal to this Court to release Ahmad Manasra

immediately to the care of his family. Only when released from prison, in our view, can ongoing harms to his mental condition be halted and further damage prevented; only when released from prison can he receive the appropriate comprehensive medical, neurological, and psychiatric evaluation that is clearly indicated and indispensable, as well as the subsequent development of a humane treatment plan consistent with its diagnostic findings.

 

Samah Jabr MD, Psychiatrist; trauma expert

Head of the Mental Health Unit at the Ministry of Health in Ramallah

Assistant Clinical Professor, George Washington University

Graduate of the Israeli Institute of Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy, Jerusalem

 

Brooke Maddux MD, M. Phil., licensed Physician and Psychiatrist in France

Consulting psychiatrist at the Centre de Reeducation Fonctionnelle of St Blancard in France (specialized in the treatment of the brain-damaged), ex-trainee with Dr. Yehuda Ben-Yishay at New York’s Brain Injury Day Treatment Centre

 

Elizabeth Berger MD, MPhil., licensed Physician in New York

Child Psychiatrist

Diplomate, American Board of Psychiatry and Neurology

Diplomate, American Board of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry and Neurology

Associate Clinical Professor, George Washington University

 

May 17, 2022

Freedom for Ahmad Manasra

The Palestinian-Global Mental Health Network condemns the Israeli occupation authorities' structural psychological war, ongoing systematic torture, and racism against Ahmad Manasra for more than six years, which has resulted in his deteriorating mental health. We evoke our ethical duty and call on clinicians globally and locally to stand with us in our demand that the Israeli state immediately release Ahmad Manasra to his family.


Israel has deployed countless tactics against Ahmad Manasra including strategies in which the racial state regularly engages. This includes, but is not limited to: the intimidation and terrorization of arrested Palestinian children, discriminatory and racialized application of law against them, exploitation and violation of their fragility, psychological and physical torture, the invocation of extended periods of psychological warfare prior to, during, and following their arrest and imprisonment, and the employment of ongoing machineries of surveillance and militarized persecution.


Ahmad Manasra was only a 13-years-old school-boy when he was accused of accompanying his relative and participating in what was called an "attempted stabbing". On October 12th, 2015, we all watched Ahmad, a mere child, being cursed at, wounded and bleeding while thrown onto occupied Jerusalem's railway tracks (see video). Ahmad suffered severe injuries, including a fractured skull and internal bleeding in the head, and he was kept in intensive care unit with artificial respirators and induced coma while handcuffed (see photos). The leaked interrogation video was broadcast by local and international media and revealed Ahmad’s pleading voice saying, "I do not remember, by God Almighty, I do not remember. Get a doctor, let him open my head and see how I do not remember.", while the interrogator screamed, insulted, and tortured him with the electronic bracelet pressing on his hands for hours on end.


Ahmad urged the world to listen and help in that interrogation room, but the world has yet to answer.

The details of Ahmad’s case shape the demands we are making for his immediate release.

Ahmad had not reached the legal age of conviction when he was illegally detained, Israeli authorities delayed their judicial procedures for almost a year during which he was detained in an institution away from his family and denied the bare necessities of care. Ahmad was placed in solitary confinement for 13 days before being convicted under the so-called "Counter-Terrorism Law," which legally should not apply to minors. Ahmad was initially sentenced to twelve years in prison (later reduced to nine and a half years) in a legal precedent that evinces a legal system with double standards toward Palestinian children and their Israeli counterparts; a system governed by apartheid policies, as indicated in the most recent Amnesty report. Ahmad Manasra's family was also fined hundreds of thousands of shekels for expenses incurred during his detention and captivity.

We want to be clear: in portraying Ahmad Manasra as a criminal and a terrorist other, Israeli authorities violated Ahmad's rights as a child and as a human being.


Ahmad Manasra was imprisoned in conditions unbefitting of a child and alongside him, truth, justice, and humanity, were foreclosed as well. We want to attest to the fact that Ahmad has been subjected to continuous punishment and abuse, multiple physical, psychological, and social torture, including deprivation from family connectivity, visits and communication with his parents and brothers, and recent solitary confinement for up to four months.

According to International Law on Solitary Confinements, any confinement in excess of 15 days constitutes torture.

Israeli colonial policies not only violated Ahmad's human rights as a child, but also robbed him of his freedom as they systematically and continuously abused and humiliated him, inflicted mental torture, and caused him to lose his psychological grounding and balance. After legal attempts, and the tireless efforts of Palestinian mental health professionals, and with the help of Physicians for Human Rights, on October 2021, a psychiatrist was allowed to visit Ahmed only once, after which she issued a report stating: "...Ahmad's captivity at a very young age forced him as a child to deal with severe physical and psychological pressures without the care of parents or his home environment, and in the absence of the basic natural support systems for his psychological development ... Staying in prison was an intolerable burden on Ahmad's young psyche in the crucial years of adolescence, and caused a psychological crisis that developed into a disorder he is currently suffering from... It's been a long period with extensive damage for more than ten months.”

Not surprisingly, and highlighting our dire concerns as mental health clinicians: the psychiatrist’s report was not considered by the Israeli judiciary.

Another year has passed since Ahmad Manasra's mental health began to deteriorate, and despite serving two-thirds of his sentence, the judicial courts have rejected all pleas to shorten his sentence. They also have refused to allow him to be treated in a health institution outside of the prison in which he is incarcerated.Ahmad's case is an integral part of a vengeful and retaliatory colonial system that every year detains “approximately 500-700 Palestinian children, some as young as 12 years old, who are detained and prosecuted in the Israeli military court system. The most common charge is stone-throwing.” (See DCI report)

We, Palestinian mental health professionals, hold tight to the ethics of our profession and reach for our scientific and human compass, especially as we witness the complicit and abhorrent silence of the international community that watches Palestinian unchilding at the hands of the Israeli racial state which routinely assaults the soul, spirit, and psyche of our children, aiming at erasing any glimmer of hope for our future generations.

We join our voice with Ahmad's father screaming: "My son is not a murderer, they took him as a child... He was tried as an adult. For a false accusation and an unfair sentence", as well as his mother's voice full of pain: "I will never forget that morning when he asked me to help him tie his shoes before he went out, and he never came back. Because they stole all his mornings..."His younger brothers Abed, and Izzidin, who visited him on 28 February 2022, said: "... We are very sad for him... He wanted to see my father, but the prison authorities deprived him from seeing Dad... He told us that he was on a hunger strike... And his fate is either to burned [by the authorities], buried in prison, or killed...he was just staring at us..."

  • We call on the immediate release of Ahmad, and insist that the Israeli government return Ahmad to his natural surroundings, and to his family and community where he will be able to get long-denied medical care, support, and aid.

  • We refuse to allow the executioner (prison officials) to treat him, when the basic conditions of treatment such as trust, safety, and consideration for the victim's best interests have never been met.

  • We call on fellow mental health clinicians, and all honorable people in the homeland and around the world to break their neutrality and align with truth and justice, putting pressure on their governments, institutions, and various professional and academic networks to release Ahmad and all Palestinian child prisoners from Israeli occupation prisons.

  • We urge you to work on initiating global campaigns to free Ahmad from psychological warfare, all forms of torture, abuse, unending racism, exploitation, and psychological intimidation in the homeland.