Israel/Palestine
Related: About this forumIn the Gaza Strip, children bear psychological scars of conflict with Israel
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"Fatima still dreams about Ahmed. Sometimes theyre playing with toys as they used to do. But in other dreams, shes looking over the edge of the balcony at her brothers smashed and bloodied body, his pink brain spilling from his skull, her father screaming through his tears.
Ahmed was 7 when he was killed by an Israeli airstrike during the 2008 Israeli invasion of Gaza. Fatima was 8 at the time but that was old enough to remember, said her father, Osama Mohamed Qurtan.
Four years later, Fatima has been through therapy. She has taken what her father calls strong medications to manage the flashbacks. Their new apartment is darker and more cramped than the old one, but the Qurtans needed to get away from the scene of the trauma, the doctors said.
Fatimas listlessness and spontaneous aggression had started to improve, Qurtan said until war struck again in November.
This time, the explosions felt just as personal as they did previously; the possibility of death just as likely. When Israeli airstrikes rattled the buildings for a week during the Jewish states latest confrontation with Hamas, the eight surviving Qurtan children hid in the stairwell, as Gaza schools have taught children here to do.
Gazans often talk about the inescapability of war and the symptoms of their suffering. They cast Gaza as a prison both physical and psychological, where Israeli bombardment comes every so often and there is little to do but bear it."
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Jefferson23
(30,099 posts)snip* The experience of repeated conflict with an increasingly foreign enemy has left Gazas youths on edge, health professionals say. Anxiety, excessive worrying, depression and post-traumatic stress disorder are rampant among Gazas young people.
Teachers, parents and psychologists talk of children who act out in the classroom, struggle with speech impediments and concentration, jump at loud noises, and wet their beds at night.
Salah Haj Yehia, director of mobile clinics in the strip for the Israeli nongovernmental organization Physicians for Human Rights, said he participated in a psychological health initiative in recent years that showcased the drawings of Gazan children. The exercise was disturbing, he said.
You saw drawings of air raids, tanks firing, homes being torn down, he said. This is what is on the minds and in the imaginations of Gazan children. Its not a happy life that you see in those drawings.
King_David
(14,851 posts)Violet_Crumble
(35,977 posts)King_David
(14,851 posts)And children at that.
Violet_Crumble
(35,977 posts)I forgot the 'they made us do it!' defense
holdencaufield
(2,927 posts)Are we writing about the children of Sderot and Ashkelon now?
Violet_Crumble
(35,977 posts)holdencaufield
(2,927 posts)... as you have for Jewish children who suffer through daily rocket barrages. Probably more.
Violet_Crumble
(35,977 posts)Especially as I don't single out Jewish children from others. I find it very strange that you do...
I apologise in advance for dragging you kicking and screaming back to the OP. The trauma suffered by the girl in the article who saw her brother killed by an Israeli rocket and the boy who was injured in an airstrike is very real and should bother any decent person. Children are always the saddest and most tragic victims in conflict, imo...
holdencaufield
(2,927 posts)Yes -- children on both sides of any conflict. Only a monster would imply that only children on one side suffer trauma that is "very real". Lucky for me, I don't know anyone who would imply such a thing.
Violet_Crumble
(35,977 posts)'Lucky for me, I don't know anyone who would imply such a thing.'
I do. Which is why I asked you why you single out Jewish children. What about children that aren't Jewish? Don't they matter?
btw, I think yr being a bit harsh referring to people who express such views as monsters...
holdencaufield
(2,927 posts)... that someone who has no compassion for children's suffering because they might be on one side of a conflict versus another couldn't be categorized as a "monster"?
I have to tell you, you are much more forgiving of reprehensible behaviour than I.
Violet_Crumble
(35,977 posts)For example someone who singles out jewish children because people dare to mention that palestinian children are traumatised isnt a monster. Its ugly and stupid but it doesn't make them a monster.
azurnoir
(45,850 posts)that is a false statement
holdencaufield
(2,927 posts)... by comparing my compassion for children on both sides of the conflict to those expressed by Violet ... I'm hoping to express my deep compassion for ALL children. Just as I assume would Violet. Why would you think otherwise?
azurnoir
(45,850 posts)for 17 year-old Muhammad Salaymah here on this thread
http://www.democraticunderground.com/113425659
in fact I can not remember seeing a more extraordinary outpouring of compassion in recent memory
holdencaufield
(2,927 posts)... the suffering of a 17-year old who gets shot drawing a weapon on armed security agents is equivalent to an actual child cowering in his or her home while bombs fall around them then you spread your compassion quite thin.
As for me -- I make a distinction between armed combatants and innocents. When you pick up a weapon to fight in a cause, you lose the right to be called an "innocent victim".
azurnoir
(45,850 posts)from any Israeli personal when he was killed
Violet_Crumble
(35,977 posts)It's not here. You appeared in this thread not to express any compassion or to discuss the trauma those children are suffering, but to try to make out the article should have been about Jewish children, and I'm wondering still why you specifically mentioned Jewish children. What about any kids who aren't Jewish?
holdencaufield
(2,927 posts)... one ... I didn't start any discussions on the suffering of children ... you would be hard pressed to find a discussion that I started on any topic.
... two ... I don't think there should be a thread specifically on the subject of Jewish children suffering any more than there should be one implying that only Palestinian children are the only ones who suffer. ALL children suffering in conflicts is reprehensible ... so I'm confused why any OP would single out only children from one side of the conflict and ignore suffering from the other or why a poster would imply that the suffering of children from one side is "very real" -- implying the suffering of other children is less real.
But, of course, you knew that already. You know precisely what I'm saying as does any who is reading this and no amount of obfuscation is going to make anyone believe I don't believe that the suffering of ALL innocents is regrettable.
Violet_Crumble
(35,977 posts)No one said you started conversations about the suffering of children. I've commented repeatedly that you singled out Jewish children and gave the impression people should talk about them rathe than other children.
2. This thread didn't imply that only Palestinian children suffer. That would be yr own rather one sided viewpoint twisting things like that. Acknowledging that children in gaza are traumatized and their suffering is very real is not saying only they suffer. And when I said it was very real I was pointing that out to people like yrself who'd rather ignore them, not yr ugly and false accusation. But you already knew that.
3 someone who singles out Jewish children and refuses to explain why will find their claims of caring for all children equally will understandably not be believed. I'd suggest that you refer to Israelis as Israelis and not Jews as a lot of Israelis aren't Jewish and you appear to be ignoring them and that if you honestly care about all children caught up in the conflict that you attempt to reflect that in what you say rather than carrying on because an articles about Palestinian children being traumatized.
azurnoir
(45,850 posts)and the fruit of that will be born when they reach adulthood