Palestinian and Israeli children not only suffer the direct physical consequences of violence, they are also being psychologically scarred by the high levels of violence they witness.
Researchers from the University of Michigan Institute for Social Research (ISR) have found that nearly 50 percent of Palestinian children between the ages of 11 and 14 have seen other Palestinians upset or crying because someone they knew or loved had been killed by Israelis.
Nearly the same proportion reported seeing in person other Palestinians who were injured or dead, lying on stretchers or on the ground, as a result of Israeli attacks in the last year.
For Israelis, the figures were lower but still high. More than 25 percent of Israeli Jewish children of the same age reported seeing other Israelis upset or crying because someone they knew or loved had been killed by Palestinians. Nearly 10 percent reported that they had seen in person other Israelis who were injured or dead, lying on stretchers or on the ground, as a result of Palestinian attacks in the last year.
What do the results signify? Explains Rowell Huesmann, director of the Research Center for Group Dynamics at ISR and principal investigator of the project, "Palestinian children are seeing extraordinary amounts of very disturbing violence in their daily lives. This exposure is deleterious and is associated with dramatic increases in post-traumatic stress symptoms and increases in aggressive behaviour directed at peers."
According to Huesmann, a child's regular exposure to violence should increase the likelihood he or she will grow up to be more violent individuals because of emotional desensitisation to violence, observational learning of scripts for violence, and observational acquisition of beliefs supporting violence. "Moreover, children’s regular exposure to violence should increase the likelihood of their experiencing serious traumatic stress metal health problems as they grow up. The manifestations are recurring anxiety attacks, crying and unhappiness, sleeplessness, lack of motivation, and depression."
Children who saw the most violence experienced the highest levels of fear, anxiety, nightmares, and incapacitating thoughts, according to results from the first year of the three-year, longitudinal study of 1,500 children ages 8 to 14. More than 70 percent of Israeli Arab children who saw these things frequently had nightmares.
Both Palestinian and Israeli youth who saw the most violence were significantly more likely to slap, choke, punch, beat, or threaten others of their own groups with a gun or a knife. And the after-effects are beginning to show. Fifty-one percent of youth at the lowest levels of violence exposure reported having committed at least one of those acts during the past year versus 71 percent of youth at the highest levels of violence exposure.
The Israeli sample included 901 children and their parents. The Arab group consisted of 450 children: 150 8-year-olds (66 girls, 84 boys), 149 11-year-olds (69 girls, 80 boys) and 151 14-year-olds (79 girls, 72 boys) and one of their parents (68 percent were mothers). The Jewish group consisted of 451 children: 151 8-year-olds (79 girls, 72 boys), 150 11-year-olds (73 girls, 77 boys) and 150 14-year-olds (94 girls, 56 boys) and one of their parents (87 percent were mothers). The Palestinian sample is a representative sample of 600 children: 200 8-year-olds (101 girls, 99 boys), 200 11-year-olds (100 girls, 100 boys) and 200 14-year-olds (100 girls, 100 boys) and one of their parents (98 percent were mothers).
"Palestinian children in particular are seeing extraordinary amounts of very disturbing violence in their daily lives, and the more they are exposed to violence, the more anxiety they experience and the more aggressively they behave," pointed out ISR psychologist Eric Dubow, who along with Paul Boxer of Rutgers University was a co-principal investigator.
"For instance, 29 percent of 8-year-olds had seen at least one in person Palestinians upset/crying because someone they knew was killed by Israelis. Twelve percent of them had seen such disturbing events more than once. A relatively high 58 percent of 14-year-olds had seen such incidents at least once; and 26 percent reported being witness more than once. Forty percent of them had also at least once seen in person Palestinians held hostage, tortured, abused by Israelis," the researchers said.
Worse still. The percentage of children who had lost friends or acquaintances due to political violence was 28 percent for 8-year-olds, 42 percent for 11-year-olds, and 38 percent for 14-year-olds. All high numbers.
A lot of hard work, but do authorities concerned ever act to such research? Answered Dubow, "Studies from our Aggression Research Group have focused on exposure to violence in the media and the family, and how such exposure shapes children's thoughts about violence in their everyday lives. Some of our research has informed public policy issues including national reports and professional organisation recommendations (e.g., American Psychological Association; Surgeon General's Report) for parents to decrease children's exposure to media violence. Some of our research has been used to develop school-based intervention to decrease children's aggressive behaviour."
"Because of the sophisticated sampling and interviewing techniques used by our collaborators—Khalil Shikaki at the Palestinian Center and Simha Landau at Hebrew University, we believe that this is the most accurate data every collected on this topic anywhere in the world," said Huesmann.
"Given the accumulated scientific evidence showing that exposure to violence stimulates aggression, some of these results are not surprising," he said. "However, it is not well known that exposure to war violence committed against your own group by another group increases your aggressive behaviour toward members of your own group.
What about comparative figures? The way forward? "Replied Dudow, "We have not conducted such a study of exposure to ethnic-political violence in the Middle-East in the past. But this study follows children over three years, so we will be able to track these short-term changes in exposure and resulting behavioral and psychological adjustment."
