Palestinian depression

Washington Times:

More than nine in 10 Palestinians show signs of depression caused by despair over violence between Hamas and Fatah gunmen and the apparent demise of the Palestinian unity government, according to a West Bank pollster.
Jamil Rabah, the director of Ramallah-based Near East Consulting, said he found that 92 percent of Palestinian survey respondents suffer from depression-related anxiety, a jump of 15 percent compared with a poll in October and more than double the level from November 2005.
"The higher the level of depression, or discontent, the higher this score comes out, the higher the social fragmentation of society," Mr. Rabah said.
Mr. Rabah said he built a depression index with questions used by the World Health Organization to study the Balkans.
The group polled 801 Palestinians from the West Bank, Gaza Strip and East Jerusalem for the latest survey, which has a margin of error of 3.4 percent.
The poll was taken last month, following a deadly flare-up between Hamas and Fatah gunmen that left dozens dead in Gaza and laid bare a dysfunctional unity government. The unrest cuts across region, political affiliation and social class, according to the poll findings.
Analysts fear the growing despair will cause more grass-roots Palestinians to be drawn into an internecine conflict, which has been largely limited to militias from rival parties and families. Other reactions include rising support for radical Islamic militant groups as well as increasing waves of emigration.
"There's a high level of frustration. It's getting dangerous. There isn't any value to life," said Ibrahim Habib, field-work coordinator for the Israeli chapter of Physicians for Human Rights. "A lot of people feel the [Palestinian] Authority is irrelevant."
Cairo Arafat, a psychologist and an official in the Palestinian Planning Ministry, said that, though the survey doesn't address levels of clinical depression among Palestinians, it indicates an erosion of Palestinians' coping mechanisms developed over seven years of daily clashes with the Israeli army.
In addition to the internal fighting, Palestinians are hemmed in by Israeli restrictions on their movement, as well as an international aid boycott of the government.
The government is divided, with the presidency controlled by the secular Fatah movement and the Islamist Hamas, which refuses to recognize Israel, forswear violence and recognize peace accords.
"We've never [before] been a society where we've had any type of significant internal struggles," Miss Arafat said. "Internal violence with the continuing levels of poverty and unemployment was a significant marker for many people that the situation was deteriorating further."
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Perhaps they will recognize what a catastrophic mistake they made in choosing a Hamas government. When they voted for a death cult, they condemned themselves. They were already a beggar society, and they chose a government that alienated most of the donors. They have also lost the ability to blame Israel for the mess in Gaza after it withdrew everyone from that area. Now they have mainly themselves to blame and that is truly a depressing event.

Perhaps they will become hopeless enough to select a government that can make peace with Israel, but I will not hold my breath. For many the desire for genocide runs too deep.