Reflections on the 2023 GASi Symposium Workshop – Can We Talk About Palestine?
BACKGROUND
I am Jewish but an atheist and have not been an active member of GASi for some time. I was brought up a Zionist but became an anti-Zionist when I began to understand the motivations of the British Empire pre the first world war and the replacement of the British Empire by the USA after the second world war. I could see that it was in their geo-political interests to have a compliant pro-western state in the Middle East not only to control oil flow but also to have a military base against any potential Arab uprisings, and in the case of the British, safe access to the Suez Canal on a sea route to their Indian possessions.
Without the support of a great power, it would have been impossible for a Zionist state to exist in Palestine. I was horrified by the racism expressed towards Arabs, specifically the indigenous Palestinians, by the Zionist leaders. I felt that as a Jew I had a particular responsibility to combat all racism because of the Holocaust and the persecution of Jews in Eastern Europe. Arthur Balfour, who signed the Balfour declaration declaring support for a Jewish state, had already shown his true antisemitic attitude by passing the Aliens Act in 1905, which made Jewish immigration from Eastern Europe more difficult. By contrast, the Jewish populations in the Arab world, for example in Iraq, were well integrated. In Baghdad, Jews were approximately one third of the population. I recommend Avi Schlaim’s new memoir of his life as an Arab Iraqi Jew, ‘Three Worlds: Memoir of an Arab Jew.’ On being told that ‘the bride had already been taken’, meaning that the area was already populated, the Zionist leaders still proceeded to expel over 750,000 Palestinians from their towns and villages.
THE WORKSHOPS
On hearing from psychoanalyst, Martin Kemp, one of the founders of the UK-Palestine Mental Health Network, (https://ukpalmn.com), that some GASi members were taking leaflets advertising the Network, I volunteered to help distribute them at Belgrade. I then attended the three workshops, “Can we talk About Palestine?” a first time event at GASi. My first thoughts were wondering whether anyone would turn up. I was very pleased that so many attended including some brave Israelis.
The first film showed the conditions in which Palestinian prisoners are held in detention in Israeli jails. Caroline Rooney, the film’s director, was present and gave the background information about how children are kept in appalling conditions and frequently used to become informers on their communities on their return to their families. This creates distrust of them and makes it hard to re-integrate back into society. The second film was a fictional account of a family in the Occupied West Bank called ‘The Present’. It vividly showed the cruel sadistic humiliation heaped upon a Palestinian man and his little daughter who had to go through the check points of the West bank in order to buy a present for his wife. The third and last session included poetry and other creative forms of expression from Palestinians. Interestingly, there was an argument in the 2nd session, but not between Jews and Israelis but between two Jews about who was the most politically effective.
I was most impressed with the group of GASi members, all women, who put the workshop together. As group analysts and psychotherapists we are all constantly learning how to work with difference and division, the theme of this Symposium, and these workshops were a brave initiative.
