❶ Netanyahu distorts a Palestinian’s helpless reaction to occupying soldiers to dehumanize Palestinian parents

Background from International Journal Of Applied Psychoanalytic Studies

❷ 41 Palestinian women, including 12 minors, currently held in Israel’s HaSharon prison
❸ Hundreds of Israeli settlers raid Nablus-area village
❹ Poetry by Lahab Assef Al-Jundi
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❶ NETANYAHU  DISTORTS  A  PALESTINIAN’S  HELPLESS  REACTION  TO  OCCUPYING  SOLDIERS  TO DEHUMANIZE  PALESTINIAN  PARENTS
Mondoweiss
Philip Weiss
August 4, 2016
Two days ago, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu posted outraged commentary on a video of an encounter last Friday between a Palestinian father and son and Israeli occupying forces in Nil’in, Palestine.
___The video showed Ayoub Sroor daring Israeli soldiers to shoot his three-year-old child, Mohammad.
___Netanyahu said:  “I’ve just watched a video that shook me to the core of my being. In just a few seconds, it shows why our conflict persists… What did this child do to deserve this? The answer is nothing. He’s innocent . . .”
___PLO General Secretary Saeb Erekat issued a statement that Ayoub Sroor had suffered numerous “physical and psychological attacks” from occupying Israeli soldiers, which led him to seek psychiatric treatment given to torture victims. Here is a portion of Erekat’s response:      MORE . . .

Cohen, Shuki J. “Breakable And Unbreakable Silences: Implicit Dehumanization And Anti-Arab Prejudice In Israeli Soldiers’ Narratives Concerning Palestinian Women.” International Journal Of Applied Psychoanalytic Studies 12.3 (2015): 245-277.

The dehumanization of Palestinians . . .  is a complex defense, whose borderline-level of functioning may be a result of the multiplicity and intensity of the conflict between the motives that it aims to reconcile: The need to identify with one’s comrades, the need to service and obey the state, the need to contain and handle denigrated and potentially dangerous inhabitants who are devoid of legal status or recourse, and the need to maintain a sense of self as a moral and humane individual . . . to name but a few components of this individual – and arguably societal – conflict.
___Such complex conflicts are not unusual in clinical settings, and common psychoanalytic praxis usually advocates for an empathic acknowledgment of the defenses that the patient mounts in an effort to mitigate them. . .  However, in the case of political conflict, gauging the “adaptability” of a defense is complicated by the moral relativism that nationalistic sentiments (and agenda) command.
[. . . .]
As with most defenses, the testimonies [of “Breaking the Silence” members] suggest that the use of dehumanization increases with perceived anxiety. Here, too, the question where on the neurotic borderline-psychotic spectrum of reality perception does the anxiety actually reside and who is the arbiter of the reality when it comes to gauging said anxiety is an added layer of complexity. This is particularly true when – as is often the case in the trauma-ridden discourse in Israel – the political apparatus often actively amplifies the sense of perceived threat posed by the Palestinians. Once again, whether this induction of anxiety is motivated by an anti-Arab prejudice or by a survivalist sense that inducing (hyper)vigilance in the troops will protect them is anybody’s guess.  SOURCE.

❷ 41  PALESTINIAN  WOMEN,  INCLUDING  12  MINORS,  CURRENTLY  HELD  IN  ISRAEL’S  HASHARON  PRISON
Ma’an News Agency
Aug. 5, 2016
Several dozen Palestinian women, including 12 minors, are currently being held in Israel’s HaSharon prison, according to a statement released Thursday by the Palestinian Committee of Prisoners’ Affairs.
___The committee said in the statement that 41 Palestinian women and girls are being held in the prison, with some suffering from deteriorating health conditions, adding that Israel’s treatment of women prisoners is against international law, and requires “international institutions to end their silence” and to stop Israel’s “perpetual crimes.”
___The committee also called upon all Palestinians to unite behind the prisoners’ cause, highlighting the recent escalation of raids and assaults by Israel Prison Service (IPS) officials in recent weeks in response to a mass hunger strike under way inside Israel’s prisons in protest of the arbitrary detention of Palestinians without charge or trial. More than 300 Palestinian prisoners have joined the strikes.   MORE . . . 

❸  HUNDREDS  OF  ISRAELI  SETTLERS  RAID  NABLUS-AREA  VILLAGE
Ma’an News Agency
Aug. 5, 2016
Some 400 Israeli settlers entered the village of Awarta in the northern occupied West Bank district of Nablus in the early morning on Friday and performed religious rituals in the area, according to Israeli sources.
___Israel’s Channel 7 reported that the Israeli settlers raided the village as they were escorted by Israeli forces, prompting clashes to erupt between Palestinian youths, Israeli settlers, and soldiers.
___Israeli forces reportedly detained seven Palestinians from the village for allegedly throwing rocks at the settlers.    MORE . . .      

“COLLATERAL  SAVAGE,”  BY  LAHAB  ASSEF  AL-JUNDI

Survivors of The Holocaust please
Talk to me. Help me understand―
So you sanction what’s being done
In your names?

I thought your spirits
grew more gentle
having lived through the unspeakable.

Bomb are not less lethal or evil―
Stop being so deathly afraid of the other.

A thousand eyes for an eye?
Children of the Holocaust
please do not lash out
as if you lost your sight.

Lahab Assef Al-Jundi
Lahab Assef Al-Jundi was born of Palestinian refugee parents and grew up in Damascus, Syria. He graduated from the University of Texas in Austin with a degree in Electrical Engineering. Not long after graduation, he discovered his passion for writing. He published his first poetry collection, A Long Way, in 1985. His poetry has appeared in numerous literary publications, and many anthologies including Inclined to Speak, An Anthology of Contemporary Arab American Poetry, edited by Hayan Charara, and Between Heaven and Texas, edited by Naomi Shihab Nye.
From BEFORE  THERE  IS  NOWHERE  TO  STAND:  PALESTINE  ISRAEL  POETS  RESPOND  TO  THE  STRUGGLE.  Ed. By Joan Dobbie and Grace Beeler. Sandpoint ID: Lost Horse Press, 2012. Available from Barnes & Noble.