“Can You Be Normal In An Abnormal Reality?”

The Palestinian cause has the highest priority among the international community decades ago, but what are the actual and tangible achievements on its behalf politically?

For me, the answer is simply “NOTHING”.

The Palestinian cause is not only a political issue, it is also a humanitarian issue, so what are the actual and tangible achievements in this regard?

Let’s see .. We can’t ignore the different vital humanitarian aid has been flowing into Palestine since the beginning of the Palestinian crisis through the different international organizations, but did it help the Palestinian people to be independent? Or did it help in the recovery of the Palestinian economy?

For me, the answer is simple “Unfortunately, NO”.

All these humanitarian aid helped the Palestinians only to pass their days, it didn’t help in building a good future and a reliable independent country.

Let’s move to another different area.. We all had studied or read about Maslow’s hierarchy of the physiological needs.

These needs are physiological needs, safety needs, social belonging, esteem, self-actualization and self-transcendence.

Maslow’s hierarchy of the physiological needs

The question now, to what extent the Palestinian individual had fulfilled these physiological needs?

For me, the answer is “Most of Palestinian individuals now didn’t fulfill these needs”

Logically, I believe now that we reached a point where we realized that the Palestinian people live in an abnormal conditions, these conditions consequently affected their behavior.

So, I may repeat it. “Can you be normal in an abnormal reality?”*

The answer is simply “NO”

Che Guevara once said that if you imposed inhuman conditions over a man  and if he didn’t rebel against it he will lose his humanity gradually. This simply means that the Palestinian people have two options here; they may keep being rebels or they may become individuals with inhuman behaviors.

Young men rebeling against the Israeli Soldiers 

No one is thinking of how much the Israeli occupation and the unstable internal condition affected the humans of Palestine.

Throughout the history of all the occupied countries, the occupation’s main role was to destroy the people of the occupied countries by killing them, destroying their historical and cultural heritage and injecting its ideas within the new generations. So, the pressure experienced by the Palestinian people is not easy to be handled and of course, these pressures will be reflected in unacceptable behaviors.

Now, regarding the unstable internal conditions. Once I was discussing these issues with a friend and I said “ If the politicians disagreed, they will kill the people and if they agreed, they will steal them”. Unfortunately, the people will lose in all conditions.

So, who is responsible for the state of depression and disappointment among the people now? Will they work on solving these problems?

I don’t think so.

I’m trying to say here that both the international community and the local authority are in charge and must pay attention to the psychological state of the occupied Palestinian.

It is not a joke when we say that every Palestinian individual needs a therapist.

The Palestinian people now are like time bombs that will not simply go away if the international community and the local authority ignored them.

*Mahmoud Darwish, Palestinian poet and author.