Israel v Palestine: Terror and Unresolved Collective Trauma?

Introduction: A historical clinical case

At one point during my London training as a psychiatrist, psychotherapist and group analyst, in the late 1980s and early 1990s, I had to treat a severely traumatised and highly vulnerable Holocaust survivor, whom I will call Margaret. She had given me permission to write about her; thus, in her own words:

future generations can learn.

Tragically, Margaret’s entire family had perished in the Nazi death camps. Whilst still a young child, she miraculously survived and was sent to England. But she remained suspicious of the world around her, rejected her adoptive family and had to be raised in foster care. As an adult, she lived alone.

Thanks to the support of the, then, relatively reliable British welfare state, she managed reasonably to cope, in spite of her chronic depression and her usual suspiciousness, which sometimes amounted to paranoid ideas. Unfortunately, she repeatedly rejected the possibility of psychotherapeutic treatment.

With the hormonal imbalances of menopause, Margaret’s mental health deteriorated and she took a lethal overdose. Providentially, by one of those inexplicable coincidences of fate, the lady who periodically went to her flat, to help her keep it clean and tidy, arrived sooner than expected, found her lying on the ground and screamed in despair. Without waiting for an ambulance, one of the neighbours took Margaret to the nearest hospital. They arrived just on time!

Little by little, Margaret’s body recovered. But her mind continued to be crippled by a state of profound depression and she was referred to a psychiatric hospital. After several weeks on antidepressant medication, she was still unable to talk to anyone and her mood was at rock bottom. In the circumstances, the consultant-in-charge prescribed for her a course of electroconvulsive therapy, a type of euphemism that in more colloquial terms is known as electroshock.

On learning this, my boss at the time, the son of Jewish emigrants fortunate enough to escape from Germany, before being taken to the gas chambers, surprised me with a request that I should visit Margaret at the hospital. I did not know how to respond and, when he noticed that my face was invaded by a rictus of anxious perplexity, he formulated a question in a firm tone:

Arturo, are you ready to take the bull by the horns?

I never found out why he asked me to intervene. I can recall that my clinical boss occasionally teased me because, as he put it, my rather unpredictable and exuberant Spanishness fell out of the well-organised, empirical British tradition. But, this time, he was deadly serious.

In order to mitigate my anxiety, before visiting the patient, I consulted with my mentor, John Bowlby (the father of attachment theory). He told me not to try to cure Margaret because, according to her troubled background, she surely was vulnerable to perceiving any incisive therapeutic efforts as a threatening intrusion.

Instead, Bowlby advised me to be warm and respectful and to accompany her through a dark journey, in such a way that she could eventually trust me and, also, perceive me as a secure-enough base from which to explore her horrible, unspeakable trauma. In addition, he gave me the gift of a beautiful surgical analogy:

The human psyche, like human bones, is strongly inclined towards self-healing. The psychotherapist’s job, like that of the orthopaedic surgeon’s, is to provide the conditions in which self-healing can best take place(Bowlby, 1988).

Through the journey upon which Margaret and I embarked together there was pain, resentment, anger, doubts, affection and hope. With perseverance, she managed to develop enough resilience and self-confidence to come to terms with the ghosts of the past, overcome her depression and establish satisfactory social relationships.

On one occasion, she did confess to me that, if she could, she would like to bomb the cities where the children and grandchildren of the Nazis lived. Then, she added, she felt guilty and wanted to kill herself.

I was unsure about what I might say to be of help and keep her safe. But I really tried to handle the situation with care.

Eventually, I decided to tell her that her difficult feelings were understandable and that I felt privileged that she trusted me with them.

A turning point came when Margaret agreed to join one of the psychotherapy groups that I was conducting on a weekly basis. This experience of group attachment helped her reconcile with an environment that she had perceived as frightening and hostile, since she was a small child.

Feeling accepted and loved by her fellow group members, whilst she was able to accept them too, came to be a decisive factor in the process of belonging in, working through her trauma, and identifying a healthy developmental path in her life.

Ongoing crimes against humanity

Over the last few months, I have often remembered Margaret and I have felt overwhelmed and deeply saddened by the Dantesque scenarios that come from the Middle East.

From John Bowlby I had learned that unresolved trauma can be transmitted from generation to generation, and become a fuel that ignites violence, revenge and destruction.

I unequivocally condemn the inhuman, barbaric and criminal attack perpetrated by Hamas on Israel, on 7 October 2023, which violated international law. This terror could well be an expression of both past and ongoing trauma experienced by the oppressed Palestinian people, from whom land and hope have been insidiously taken away since 1948. However, the terror perpetrated by Hamas cannot be justified.

Having said that, I also condemn, unambiguously, the ongoing response of the Israeli government with its inhuman, barbaric and criminal attacks on Gaza, in one of the most unequal battles on the planet, which has violated international law. The terror revenge perpetrated by the Israeli army (one of the world’s military superpowers) cannot be justified. The massacre of civilians and children must stop at once!

It is important to take into account that the current Israeli-Palestinian conflict, in the foreground, is taking place against a convoluted background – which includes the illegal occupation by the State of Israel of significant parts of Palestine, completely disregarding a large number of UN resolutions.

There is an Arabic term, Nakba, which refers to the violent displacement and dispossession of Palestinians, alongside the destruction of many components of their society, political rights and national aspirations. This gradual erasing of Palestinian people from their homeland has been happening in flagrant contravention of international law.

Surely, there is international law for a reason or is there not? It is wrong to condemn one group for violating it and then allow a larger and more powerful group to violate it, over and above.

As a socially conscious mental health professional and group analyst, I cannot accept that atrocities and crimes by one side be used to justify crimes and atrocities by another, in a never-ending vicious circle of perverse revenge and apocalyptic carnage.

The purpose, or otherwise, of international law

At least since the Code of Hammurabi, the sixth Amorite king of the Old Babylonian Empire, reigning from 1792 to 1750 BCE, some governments have insisted that if wars are unavoidable, there should rules to be followed, particularly to prevent the strong from oppressing the weak.

From the outset, international humanitarian laws have been enforced by (but not against) the dominant powers. However, this realpolitik fact neither renders such laws worthless nor suggests that we should not speak out with a view to holding powerful governments to account.

My heart broke for all the victims and families affected by the abominable terror attack perpetrated by Hamas murdering civilians and engaging in hostage taking, in violation of article 13 of the Second Protocol of the Geneva Conventions and further desecrating articles 3, 27, 32 and 33 of the Fourth Convention.

Of course, the Geneva Conventions are international humanitarian laws consisting of four treaties and three additional protocols that establish international legal standards for humanitarian treatment in war. But who cares?

I am deeply concerned by the disproportionate reaction of the Israeli government, which immediately dictated the continuous bombardment and the siege of the whole of Gaza, as per the statement pronounced, on 9 October 2023, by its defence minister Yoav Gallant.

He literally said:

I ordered a full siege on the Gaza Strip. No power, no food, no gas. Everything is closed.

I am horrified by this ongoing collective punishment, cruel and infernal, which breaches articles 55, 56 and 59 of the Fourth Geneva Convention and article 14 of the Second Protocol, which speaks of an obligation to protect goods and objects that are:

indispensable to the survival of the civilian population.

In addition, whilst the Israeli government has argued that instructing the population of Gaza to leave their cities, towns and villages is an attempt to “protect” them from bombardment, such an order constitutes a violation of article 17 of the Second Protocol, which outlaws the forced movement of civilians, and of article 49 of the Fourth Convention on deportations and evacuations.

I wish this painful-to-write article can be read by members of governments across the world, particularly the big powers. It seems a few of them need to be reminded of their obligation to follow international law, and to honour the fundamental right of giving all human beings what they need to survive.

I am aware that, on 12 December 2023, at the United Nations General Assembly, 153 countries voted for an immediate humanitarian ceasefire in Gaza (with only ten countries against it). Yet, at the time of writing this, I still feel like a lonely voice in the desert, in the dark. I can hardly hear a tenuous voice inside, that of the Jewish historian and philosopher Hannah Arendt:

The death of human empathy is one of the first and more revealing signs that a culture is on the verge of falling into barbarity.

Attachment gone wrong

My work, like that of many colleagues within the International Attachment Network (IAN), is informed by an attachment-based ethos (Ezquerro and Cañete, 2023) – which is grounded on the clinical work, research and teachings of the British psychiatrist, psychologist and psychoanalyst John Bowlby.

Human attachment is a basic and universal need (with which we are all born) for meaningful connections with other human beings and with groups for protection, care and affection to maximise survival and promote healthy development, from the cradle to the grave. We also become attached to the places where we grow, work and love.

Gross disruptions and ruptures in our interpersonal and group attachments, as they occur in situations of terror and war, can cause severe trauma and may irreparably damage individual and society development.

Unresolved and cumulative collective trauma can be transmitted from generation to generation, and become a fuel that ignites hatred, violence and destruction (Zulueta, 1993). We must break this vicious circle.

As a member of IAN, and of the Group-Analytic Society International, I am fully committed to promoting healthy personal and group development throughout the life cycle, for which it is necessary to repair the ruptures and damage caused by trauma, as well as to prevent further trauma.

With regard to the never-ending conflict in the Middle East, I think the best possible solution would be to agree an immediate ceasefire and to resume peace talks; optimally, extending these to the other 32 war conflicts in today’s world?

Yes, deeply inside me, I wish peace processes can be restored. The promising Oslo talks were destroyed by the assassination of Israel’s Prime Minister, Yitzhak Rabin, by a fanatic Israelite who hated the Palestinian people and, also, the defenders of peace within his own country.

It was the 4^th of November, 1995. Rabin had just given a brave and honest speech, full of hope:

I was a man at arms for 27 years [the same number of years that Nelson Mandela was in jail]. Whilst there was no chance for peace, multiple wars broke out.

Today, I am convinced that we have an opportunity to achieve peace, a great opportunity. In order to be achieved, peace involves intrinsic pain and difficulties. There is no peace without those pains (Rabin, 1995).

Isaac Rabin got off the stand, with a calm, firm step. Tragically, his compatriot Yigal Amir (and whoever else might have been monitoring the situation behind closed doors) shot him in the back …

Conclusion

How on earth might it be possible to write a conclusion under such tragic circumstances? I shall try briefly:

First, Israel has a right to continue existing as an independent State in peace, and its citizens have a right to be safe and enjoy life and their attachment relationships.

Second, Palestine has a right to exist as an independent State in peace, and its citizens have a right to be safe and enjoy life and their attachment relationships.

Third, if you want peace, work for peace.

References

Bowlby J (1998) A Secure Base: Clinical Applications of Attachment Theory. London and New York: Routledge.

Ezquerro A and Cañete M (2023) Group Analysis throughout the Life Cycle: Foulkes Revisited from a Group Attachment and Developmental Perspective. London and New York: Routledge.

Zulueta F (1993) From Pain to Violence: The Traumatic Roots of Destructiveness.  London, UK: Whurr Publishers.

Dr Arturo Ezquerro (a London-based consultant psychiatrist, psychoanalytic psychotherapist and group analyst) is a senior assessor and trainer at the Institute of Group Analysis, honorary member of the International Attachment Network, of the Spanish Society for the Development of Groups, Psychotherapy and Psychoanalysis, and of the World Association of International Studies. He is former Head of NHS Medical Psychotherapy Services for Brent, London, regularly collaborates with the media and has over 100 publications in six languages, including Encounters with John Bowlby (Routledge), Relatos de apego (Psimática), Group analysis throughout the Life Cycle (Routledge), Apego y development a lo largo de la vida (Editorial Sentir), The Power of Group Attachment (Routledge, in-press). John Bowlby was his supervisor and his mentor at the Tavistock Clinic during the last six years of his life (1984-1990).

ORCID iD: Arturo Ezquerro https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9910-4576

Address for correspondence: 57 Hamlet Square, London NW2 1SR. Email: arturo.ezquerro@ntlworld.com