INTRODUCTION TO SPECIAL EDITION
By Lara Sheehi
I am honored to be the guest editor of this special edition of the Psychoanalyst Activist which commemorates the 70th Anniversary of the Nakba. Nakba, or “the Catastrophe” is the Arabic term that refers to the dispossession of more than 700,000 Palestinians in 1948 by Zionist forces.
Seventy years later, Trump’s White House contravened long standing international norms, UN Security Counsel Resolutions, and official US policy by moving the United States Embassy to Jerusalem. Finding kindred political visions with the ethno-nationalist Netanyahu regime, Trump’s administration punctuated the prejudice of this unilateral decision by announcing that the United States embassy in Jerusalem will be inaugurated on the anniversary date of the Nakba. Continue article
MODIFYING SOME SETTINGS ON THE SMART PHONE’S CAMERA
By Mustafa Qossoqsi
تعديلات على شرح بعض خصائص كاميرا الهاتف المحمول
Auto: وهو التصوير الذي سيقوم بتعديل كل شيء من تلقاء نفسه مع إمكانية التصوير بشكل سريع، خاصةّ في حالات الموت المباغت أو انهيار المباني والمعاني على رؤوس ساكنيها.
Beauty Face: يسمح بتصوير الوجه وتحسينه عند التصوير بمقطعٍ عامودي، مناسب لوجه يطلع من الركام ملطّخاً بالدم والغبار وبعيون مغمضة نهائياً عن تفاهة الشرّ وتكنو لجيّته البدائيّة الحديثة جداً.
BestPhoto: يتيح إمكانية اختيار أفضل صورة من مجموعة صور، لتسويق أفضل لموتٍ عنيف على شاشات تتجمّل مهرولة إلى موعدها القادم مع ضحايا أكثر ألقاً فوتوغرافيّاً وأقلّ شبقاً للحريّة.
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THE NAKBA IN BROOKLYN: HIDDEN IN PLAIN SIGHT
By Christine Schmidt
I knew that Mrs. Daoud was Palestinian Bedouin and her husband identified as a Jordanian. They were living in their Brooklyn house when I moved next door in 1984. They welcomed me as their new neighbor.
We practically raised our children together. Mrs. Daoud had eight and I had three. Our children ran between our houses, playing on the swings in my back yards or riding bikes on the sidewalks out front. They played, laughed, teased and generally really liked each other. In good weather, Mrs. Daoud always sat on the patio out front. She was the matron of our block. As soon as she saw me she would motion for me to come visit and watch our children together. For hours. Continue article
IT WAS A WARM APRIL DAY IN 1948 IN JERUSALEM
By Lama Z. Khouri
My mother is finally mustering the strength to tell me about the day she left the home of her birth.
“I am 12 years old. Nadia [her sister], our neighbor Lily, and I are playing hopscotch in front of the house. Your grandfather and grandmother are going in and out loading the car and getting ready to head to Amman. Our dog is strangely excited or agitated, I’m not sure which. Every time a suitcase is loaded in the car, she barks at the bag and her whole body shakes, as if the bag is a collaborator in some conspiracy. Maybe she knows what we do not anticipate.”
She pauses.
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SLOUCHING TOWARDS SALEM: REFLECTIONS ON ZIONISM AND THE “NEW ANTI-SEMITISM”
By Martin Kemp
My first public intervention regarding Israel/Palestine appeared in the International Journal of Psycho-Analysis in 2005. I wrote a letter challenging the IJPA’s dismissal of the academic boycott of Israel on the familiar grounds that politics should not be allowed to intrude into the realm of scientific endeavour[i]. The sacking of two Israeli academics from the editorial boards of international journals had been the precipitating cause of the ‘special editorial’[ii]. Its wording, published simultaneously in ten psychoanalytic journals, for me exemplified a determination not to engage with a tragic and enduring crisis for which the West had a particular responsibility. Rather than effectively reinforcing the status quo by denouncing the boycott, I urged that the profession ought to engage with the arguments for and against taking action[iii].
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SOUVENIRS
By Hala Alyan
I.
Wind churning a daub of Haifa seawater into my eye. Tomorrow,
a strip of sunburn,
skin peeling auburn.
II.
Word scuffing my throat at Qalandiya checkpoint
as a man nods and
click rotates metal bars. Word rasps at Ramallah windows facing
always
the burly settlements—No—even during autumn
weddings. Word nests like a sunflower seed between
teeth and only
later do I spit it out
beneath a harvest moon in Manhattan.
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70th Anniversary of the Nakba: Resistance as Conversation—the 2019 IARPP Conference in Israel and the Actions in Protest
By Elizabeth Berger, Rebecca Fadil, Samah Jabr and Christine Schmidt
The recent massacres in Gaza have only reinforced the legacy of the Nakba as an ongoing arc of atrocities rather than a single event of 70 years past, isolated in time. To resist the Nakba as a historical and current reality is thus a staggering challenge to us as mental health clinicians and as human beings. Nonetheless, we like to believe that our professional tool-kit prepares us especially for this work to some degree, as students of motivation who place a premium on truthful realities; and more, as healthcare professionals pledged to advocate for public well-being and to attempt to speak on behalf of the victimized, the silenced, and the oppressed.
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70th Anniversary of the Nakba: The Oasis City: A tale of profound loss and the struggle to persevere
By Hammam Farah
When I was eight years old I lived in a small oasis city in the desert, where the palm trees hung over a verdant landscape covered with date groves and natural springs, and enfolded by sand dunes of varying texture to the north and east of the city.
Farms of all sizes surrounded the city and produced a staggering amount of salad produce—tomatoes, lettuce, cucumbers, and even strawberries.
A limestone mountain with hot spring spa pools at its base overlooked the city from the southeast, shielding it like it was the world’s best-kept secret destinations.
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70th Anniversary of Nakba: Prisoners of Narcissism
أسرى النرجسيّة
بقلم: د. سيزر حكيم , أخصائي نفسي اكلينيكي
نتذكر نكبتنا في هذه الفترة من السنة ويتوحد الاسرائليون في هذا الوقت للتباهي بما قد انجزوه في غضون السبعون عام الأخيرة. سبعون عاماً من الانجازات وبناء الدولة “الأكثر ديموقراطية” في الشرق الاوسط وطبعا الجيش “الأكثر أخلاقيا”ً في العالم. عبارات ومعتقدات يرددها الاسرائليون في وسائل الاعلام. وفي الاحتفالات الرسمية للاستقلال السبعون، تجسد هذه الخطابات و الممارسة اليومية في السياسات إدارة الدولة تجاه مواطنيها الفلسطينيين و خاصة نحو الفلسطينيين تحت الاحتلال في الضفة الغربية وغزة المحتلة.
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70th Anniversary of Nakba: Watan
by Shadi Zaqtan
Translated by Stephen Sheehi
It was not a dream
Which climbed up through years
A dream which the body and place breathed
To remain with me, coming to me when tired.
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70th Anniversary of Nakba: Bint Nakba
By Jehan Bseiso
And don’t ever forget it, my grandfather warned me.
“Nakba daughter”, one among millions dispossessed.
This time last year I was a guest at home(land).
For hours,
Waiting, for permission and approval,
For the “private security company” to give me back my passport.
Wishing, I could walk through the metal gate, rip the barbed wire with two hands.
Beyond the entitled occupiers with their big guns and yellow smiles.
Something about May in Palestine is all waiting and loss.
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