In a few days, we will enter Yom Kippur, a day traditionally devoted to soul-searching. In our professional soul-searching, we ask whether, as caregivers in such a time—when the violence enacted by the society we live in reaches the most severe dimensions imaginable—we are fulfilling our professional role? Can we continue to seclude ourselves in treatment rooms, separating the psychological from the “political,” when the violence and destruction we sow as a society are so immense? How much longer can we continue to wait for the beginning of the restoration of security for our patients and ourselves before we cry out to stop the way it is being exploited to sow further death and destruction?
While we wait, perhaps quietly condemning, perhaps internally appalled, the UN Commission of Inquiry has determined that what Israel is doing in Gaza is genocide. So have B’Tselem. Physicians for Human Rights. Amnesty International. IAGS. And the International Society of Political Psychology (which includes Israeli psychologists among its members) and other respected bodies worldwide have determined that Israel is committing genocide in Gaza.
In light of this, we propose starting our soul-searching now – turning to our professional unions and ethics committees with a request to urgently acknowledge the fatal harm to the Palestinian population in Gaza, the violence in the West Bank, and the persecution and silencing in Israel. We believe that in the face of this disastrous reality, we, as mental health and welfare professionals, are obligated to do everything in our power to help know and see what is so difficult to look at directly. Precisely out of an understanding of the difficulty, we must act. Precisely out of familiarity with the massive internal and external defenses operating within us all – we must demand the voices of our professional organizations as a compass in these terrible days. We must cry out and resist in every way the terrible disaster our country is causing, which claims the lives of dozens of children and families every day. Which also destroys health infrastructures and care providers.
Send your demand today to your professional union to make its voice heard.
For your convenience, you can click on the links attached below, according to professional affiliation, and use the email that opens automatically for sending (you can edit the email as you wish, or just add your name at the end, and send – a matter of a few seconds – by clicking the link you will receive everything already drafted and ready to send):