How do American mental health associations justify the Israeli genocidal attack on Gaza!

This week, the American Psychiatric Association (APA) issued a statement on “terrorist attacks in Israel” and the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry (AACAP) followed suit with a similar statement. These are disappointingly one-eyed condemnations, as they make no reference to the 75-year-old Israeli occupation of Palestine. years and many atrocities committed against Palestinians throughout this period.

While the American Psychiatric Association portrays Palestinian resistance as “anti-Semitism and terrorism,” the right of the occupied people to resist is legal under international law and, like mental health itself, a fundamental human right.

The horrific imbalance in the declared positions of the two associations reflects a serious lack of awareness or willful neglect of the physical and psychological health effects of the occupation, especially the impact of the prolonged siege of Gaza, on Palestinians.

By failing to address the long-term suffering of Palestinians and standing unequivocally with the Israeli occupier, the two associations violated their principles of neutrality and revealed their lack of commitment to meeting the mental health needs of all people equally.

The statements of the most prominent psychiatric associations in the world ignore the historical context, the besieged population of Gaza, half of which is children, and do not mention the horrific bombing of the small Strip or what many rights groups now call genocide against the Palestinians.

In the same vein, the statements completely ignore the psychological impact and trauma even though human rights organizations have documented inhumane conditions for many years, including reports by Physicians for Human Rights, Amnesty International, Save the Children, and others.

In its brutal campaign of collective punishment, Israel has cut off food, fuel, electricity, water and medical supplies, displacing hundreds of thousands of Palestinians who have been forced to flee their homes.

A third of the more than 2,400 Palestinians killed and nearly 12,000 injured so far in Gaza are children, yet their lives are apparently not worthy of being mentioned by the Society for Children and Adolescents.

Even in its tepid statement on the current “crisis” in Gaza, the association cannot express “mourning” for the children who were killed, and only faint concern about the traumatic “images” to which children may be exposed, despite the young teenagers being forced to It endures five Israeli wars on Gaza, which resulted in huge numbers of civilian deaths, during the past decade and a half.

Aside from the horrific violence, Gaza has been exhausted by the crippling 16-year blockade, which has turned Gaza into an open-air prison with the highest population density. In the past few days, Israel has ordered more than a million people to evacuate without providing them anywhere to go.

The concerns of mental health professionals must include all people equally. Who better than mental health professionals to understand the importance of freedom for all human beings? Otherwise, the only explanation for such apparent double standards is that the American Psychiatric Association and the American Child and Adolescent Psychiatric Association have fully embraced the official Israeli narrative and cannot see Palestinians as human beings.

These statements further dehumanize Palestinians by ignoring the ongoing mental health challenges and collective trauma resulting from decades of oppression, ongoing violence, humiliation, and injustice imposed by the occupation. The bombing of Palestinian schools, ambulances and hospitals – including Gaza’s only psychiatric hospital – which took place on Friday morning, as I learned from its director and colleague Dr Abdullah Al-Jamal, is just one example of these recurring harms.

Such statements by medical organizations - which are allegedly not a political lobby - further inflame public sentiment and promote dangerous propaganda supporting Israel's acts of genocide against Palestinians in Gaza. Instead, the two associations could have done better in the face of the vicious lies spread by the US government and the media, including the vicious slander of “headless children” that has since been debunked. If these organizations were truly concerned with the well-being of civilians or children, they could have objected to the massive arsenal of US military aid to Israel, which helps Israel implement its genocidal plans against the Palestinians.

The American Psychiatric Association and the American Child and Adolescent Psychiatric Association could have served the people of Israel better by helping them to make sense of what happened, internalizing it in their experience as occupiers, and helping them to shed their arrogant attitudes and sense of entitlement. They can also help stop future violence by recognizing the legitimate struggle of Palestinians to live in freedom and dignity and recognizing that where there is oppression, there will be resistance.

A more balanced and compassionate approach is necessary – one that acknowledges mental health struggles on both sides and calls for a fair solution for both people. Initial decisions must be based on human rights and international law.

Mental health as a basic human right was the theme of the recent World Mental Health Day on October 10. Working for global mental health requires a holistic, inclusive perspective that truly supports all those affected by this long and ongoing crisis.

Palestinian psychiatrists and mental health workers call on all colleagues and health organizations, both physical and mental, around the world, to adhere to the ethics of our professional role and not to corrupt it with political ideology.

We must resist the two associations and any other professional organizations that contribute to the hateful and negative portrayal of the Palestinian people. Such dangerous statements make them complicit in the bleeding of Palestinians.