Mental Health Disabilities & Palestine
We understand Disability Justice as a framework that moves beyond perceived “visible” disabilities to encompass disabilities that are often invisibilized, namely mental health, altered states, and neurodivergence.
As a mental health organization, we refuse to minimize the unrelenting grief and immense loss experienced by genocide survivors. We are watching Palestinian journalists mourn the loss of family, colleagues, and neighbors while reporting. We are witnessing Israel assassinate academics like psychologist Fadel Abu Hein who have devoted their lives to studying traumatic impacts of conflict and occupation. We are witnessing children hold the bodies of their friends, siblings, and parents. Even in death, we see how Israel denies the humanity of Palestinians and their ability to mourn by refusing access to the bodies and burial sites of loved ones while uprooting Palestinian graves.
There is no denying the devastating impact this current violence will have on Palestinians for generations to come. As queer and trans Asians, we ourselves are not strangers to generational trauma and many of us still hold the legacies and ongoing grief of genocide, displacement, and occupation in our bodies and souls. It is from this legacy and the framework of Disability Justice that we recognize the Israeli occupation as violence against the entirety of Palestinian existence.
Samah Jabr, chair of the mental health unit at the Palestinian Ministry of Health describes the occupation as a form of mental and emotional violence:
“The Israeli occupation is not only a political issue, but indeed a mental health problem. The injustice, daily humiliations, and trauma each and every Palestinian experiences have caused a repetitive injury, both to the individual and collective minds of my people. In Palestine, abuse and trauma are ongoing, enduring, and they affect every aspect of Palestinian life. Individual personalities are impacted, as is the value system of the community as a whole.”
Disability Justice demands that we ask, “What community are we creating if we are not ensuring access and care for all of us?”. We echo the question that Jabr poses:
“But so long as these conditions persist, are our mental health tools merely palliative? I have reasoned that until the occupation ends, I must promote the independence and freedom of peoples' minds. And the mental health strategies I employ must go deeper to dig at the root causes of our pain.”
As queer and trans Asians committed to caring for our communities, we too must dig deeper to understand the systemic root causes of our pain in order to transform the suffering we and others experience under oppression. We must envision a world where a free Palestine is possible, where Disability Justice is embedded into the ways we organize and care for each other, and where we all are resourced in ways that support our healing and liberation.