Suchergebnisse

The current study is designed to identify factors that affect the psychological resilience of Palestinian adolescent ex-detainees of Israeli jails and understand the meaning and content of psychological resilience. This study utilizes qualitative data collection and analysis methods, mainly conducting semi-structured interviews and thematic analyses of interview content. The study sample consists of ten adolescent ex-detainees and uses purposeful selection to ensure the inclusion of ex-detainees from the southern areas of the West Bank (Bethlehem and Hebron), aged between seventeen to nineteen. The findings indicate that resilience is based on a high tolerance of stress resulting from traumatic events, such as arrest, and the ability to control life events, along with the reinforcement of a positive attitude toward social and political experiences, and the capacity to transform stress into an opportunity instead of a debilitating threat. The results also show that resilience is correlated with various factors, including secure attachment, supportive relationships, social support systems, conflict relationships – personal and collective aggression, challenge, commitment to principles (i.e. nationalism) and post hoc engagement in public events (community and voluntary work, solidarity visits with families of ex-detainees, participation in public discourse).

At present, there are about 4,500 Palestinians detained in Israeli prisons and jails. This study explores Palestinian women's experiences with sexual violence by prison personnel as they visit their detained loved ones. In interviews with 20 participants, the prevalence of, type of, and reaction to sexual violence were explored. Nineteen of the 20 participants stated that they experienced some sort of unwanted verbal and nonverbal sexual comments or gestures, forced nudity, or forced touching by prison personnel. The women talked about how the experiences have harmed them as well as the strategies that they use to overcome their experiences. The findings are contextualized within international law and describe the implications of sexual violence within a culture that links modesty with religious beliefs and honor. The implications of as well as strategies to address sexual violence are discussed at micro-, mezzo, and macro level.

Despite international social work commitments to social justice, human dignity, and individual worth, feminist social work remains silent on Palestine. Israeli settler colonial violence pushes us to revisit our responsibilities to stand against colonized militarism. We insist that collective liberation is a feminist ethical constant, a political bosom for decolonization, a compass for critical feminist social work. In this article, we extend previously made claims that Palestine is a feminist issue by highlighting four moral imperatives: 1) persistent sumud, (2) gendered impacts of Zionism's settler colonial violence, 3) commitments to justice and liberation, and 4) feminist praxis of narrating violence.