The Role of the Arts Toward Healing Trauma and Building Resilience in the Palestinian Community Yousef Al-Ajarma Lesley University

Lesley University DigitalCommons@Lesley Graduate School of Arts and Social Sciences Expressive Therapies Dissertations (GSASS) 2010 The Role of the Arts Toward Healing Trauma and Building Resilience in the Palestinian Community Yousef Al-Ajarma Lesley University Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.lesley.edu/expressive_dissertations Part of the Art Therapy Commons, Near and Middle Eastern Studies Commons, and the Trauma Commons Recommended Citation Al-Ajarma, Yousef, "The Role of the Arts Toward Healing Trauma and Building Resilience in the Palestinian Community" (2010). Expressive Therapies Dissertations. 34. https://digitalcommons.lesley.edu/expressive_dissertations/34 This Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by the Graduate School of Arts and Social Sciences (GSASS) at DigitalCommons@Lesley. It has been accepted for inclusion in Expressive Therapies Dissertations by an authorized administrator of DigitalCommons@Lesley. For more information, please contact [email protected]. THE ROLE OF THE ARTS TOWARD HEALING TRAUMA AND BUILDING RESILIENCE IN THE PALESTINIAN COMMUNITY A DISSERTATION Submitted by YOUSEF AL-AJARMA In partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy LESLEY UNIVERSITY May 19, 2010 DEDICATION This dissertation is dedicated to the following people: • The memory of my brother, Ali AlAjarma. • My parents, who have been my role-model for hard work, persistence and personal sacrifices, and who emphasized the importance of education, and who instilled in me the inspiration to set high goals and the confidence to achieve them. • My brothers and sisters who have been my emotional anchors through my entire life. • My wife, Nedaa Taweel, who has been proud and supportive of my work and who has shared the many uncertainties, challenges and sacrifices for completing this dissertation. • To my daughter, Nour and to my son, Deyah. The Role of the Arts Toward Healing Trauma and Building Resilience in the Palestinian Community Yousef Al-Ajarma This study has investigated the sources of resilience in a sample of Palestinians who experienced the first Intifada and are now studying in the United States. The study found that family and community support, the pursuit of an education, and participation in artistic activities all contribute to individual resilience among Palestinians. In addition, political awareness and activity are another source of resilience, because they help individuals living under the Occupation to find meaning in their life and make sense of their struggles. Currently, young people in Palestine are at risk of developing psychological trauma from exposure to the violence of the second Intifada. Building resilience in children and youths can prevent them from falling victim to trauma. Expressive arts therapy is an effective tool in treating victims of psychological trauma, and it can help build resilience and protect individuals who may be vulnerable to trauma. i Table of Contents Acknowledgments ii Chapter 1 Introduction 1 Chapter 2 Literature Review 7 Chapter 3 Methodology 51 Chapter 4 Results 59 Chapter 5 Discussion 112 Appendix Consent Form 129 References 130 ii Acknowledgments This dissertation provided an opportunity for enormous personal and professional growth. Though self-driven, and sometimes lonely, this process would never have even been possible without the generosity and help of many people along the way. First, I would like to thank the members of my dissertation committee, who dedicated several years of their time, energy and expertise to this project with a high level of enthusiasm that I can only wish to. I would like to express the deepest appreciation to my committee chair Professor Vivien Marcow-Speiser for her tremendous mentorship over the past six years. A model mentor who always puts her students first, Professor Marcow-Speiser provided precisely the right combination of encouragement and challenge to urge me on throughout this project. She continually set the bar for my work higher, and made me a better researcher as a result. I am deeply grateful and I would like to thank my committee members, Professor Susan Gere, Division Director of the Counseling and Psychology program at Lesley University and Professor Cynthia Cohen, executive director of the Slifka Program in Intercommunal Coexistence and director of Coexistence Research and International Collaborations at Brandeis University, who devoted much of their times to help and support me. I would like also to thank professor Michele Forinash, the Director of the Expressive Therapies Ph.D. Program at Lesley University for her encouragement and support. I would like to thank the faculty and staff of the Expressive Therapies Division for their continued support, inspiration and assistance. I would also like to thank my family and friends for their steadfast love and support throughout this process. There is not enough space to thank my wonderful parents for their unconditional love and acceptance, which they have shown me over the years, and for helping me to be resilient. Thanks also go to my brothers and sisters who have always been there for me. I would like to thank my colleagues and friends at Lesley University whose cheerleading has helped me get through these past few years, Michael Franklin, Sunhee Kim, Sangeeta Swamy, and Keren Barzilay-Shechter. One last person deserves her own paragraph. Over the past 10 years, my wife Nedaa Taweel, has stood by my side, providing a steady supply of encouragement, feedback, attention, endurance, caring, humor, understanding and love. It is no overstatement to say that without her, I could never have completed the project. For being there with me, and for putting up with untold weeks and months of seeing only the back of my head as I completed this dissertation, I cannot thank her enough. 1 Chapter 1: Introduction For the past 61 years, the Palestinian and the Israeli people have been living in a contentious environment of unpredictability, instability, and animosity punctuated by periods of sporadic violence against each other. Amid the continuing violence between the two groups, many lives have been ruined, and families have been torn apart by death, deprivation, and incarceration within the Palestinian community. Many schools and educational institutions have been closed or destroyed, affecting the lives of three generations of Palestinians. Conflict between Zionist settlers and native Palestinians dates back to the 1920s, when Britain administered what was then Palestine, but the roots of the present situation lie in 1947. In that year, the United Nations proposed to replace the British Mandate with a partition plan that would create a Jewish state and an Arab state in Palestine. The Arabs rejected the plan, and the sporadic fighting between settlers and natives that began in late 1947 turned to open warfare after the Jews founded the State of Israel in May 1948. By 1949 the Israeli army controlled much of Palestine, with the exception of the West Bank, which became under Jordanian control. During the fighting, over 700,000 Palestinians left their homes and fled to neighboring countries, where they settled in refugee camps. Other displaced persons settled in refugee camps within Palestine, in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. Palestinians remember this defeat and dispersion as an-Nakba, “the catastrophe.” 2 In 1967, the “Six-Day War” started between the Arab countries and Israel after the Israelis had expanded their territory to include the Sinai Peninsula, the Gaza Strip, the Golan Heights, and the West Bank. Now the Arabs who had remained in Palestine were living under Israeli occupation. Over the next two decades, tension between Palestinians and Israelis continued to increase, especially as Israeli settlers began to encroach on West Bank territory. To combat the activity of the Palestinian Liberation Organization, the Israelis invaded Lebanon in 1982. The simmering tension within Palestine itself erupted in 1987 in the popular uprising known as the first Intifada. The uprising and violence continued until 1993 to end with the Oslo peace process. During that period, the subjects interviewed for this study were youths or adolescents. They grew up in towns or refugee camps in the West Bank, the Gaza Strip, or Lebanon, as I did. The author of this study was born into a very large and poor family in a refugee camp near Bethlehem, Palestine. I have thirteen brothers and sisters; eight of them are older than me and five of them are younger than me. My father used to work as a construction worker inside Israel in order to help his family to survive. I do not remember having any toy or favorite hobby when I was a child. There was no place for imagination and dreams in my childhood. The prevailing idea was that, in order to live, you needed to live a serious life, which meant working and studying all of the time. When I was 6 years old, I started to work in a vegetable market from 4 to 8 p.m. every day. The money I earned—which was very little—I used to give to my father to use to buy food. When I was 13 years old, the first Intifada started, and I became active in fighting the Occupation, as a way of resistance. As a result of that fighting, I was held in an Israeli prison for two years. During that two years the only thing that helped me to survive and 3 overcome my suffering was using my imagination and making art. I carved stones and olive pits to make art pieces out of them. I also used to write poems as a way of expressing my feelings and emotions. I used to make picture frames from empty toothpaste tubes and then draw and write on them. All of this helped me to survive and to feel that my life had meaning. When I got out of prison, I decided that I wanted to shape my life in a new way, through education.

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