New Article: Zerach et al, The Role of Fathers’ Psychopathology in the Intergenerational Transmission of Captivity Trauma

Zerach, Gadi, Yaniv Kanat-Maymon, Roy Aloni, and Zahava Solomon. “The Role of Fathers’ Psychopathology in the Intergenerational Transmission of Captivity Trauma: A Twenty Three-Year Longitudinal Study.” Journal of Affective Disorders 190 (2016): 84-92.

 

URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jad.2015.09.072

 

Abstract

Background

The aversive impact of combat and parents’ combat-induced posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) on young children has been examined in a few studies. However, the long-term toll of war captivity on the secondary traumatization (ST) of adult offspring remains unknown. This study aimed to assess the longitudinal associations between former prisoners of war (ex-POWs), PTSD, depressive symptoms and their adult offsprings ST.

Method

A sample of 134 Israeli father-child dyads (80 ex-POWs dyads and a comparison group of 44 veterans’dyads) completed self-report measures. The fathers participated in three waves of measurements following the Yom Kippur War (T1: 1991, T2: 2003, and T3: 2008), while the offspring took part in T4 (2013).

Results

Offspring of ex-POWs with PTSD at T3 reported more ST symptoms than offspring of ex-POWs without PTSD and controls. Ex-POWs’ PTSD hyper-arousal symptom cluster at T3 was positively related to offsprings ST avoidance symptom cluster. Offspring of ex-POWs with chronic and delayed PTSD trajectories reported more ST symptoms than offspring of ex-POWS and controls with resilient trajectories. Ex-POWs’ PTSD and depression symptoms at T1, T2 and T3 mediated the link between war captivity (groups) and offsprings ST in T4.

Limitations

The use of self-report measures that did not cover the entire span of 40 years since the war, might may bias the results.

Conclusions

The intergenerational transmission of captivity related trauma following the Yom Kippur War was exemplified. ST symptoms among ex-POWs’ adult offspring are closely related to their father’ PTSD and related depressive symptom comorbidity.

 

 

 

New Book: Lebel & Lewin, eds. The 1973 Yom Kippur War and the Reshaping of Israeli Civil–Military Relations

Lebel, Udi, and Eyal Lewin, eds. The 1973 Yom Kippur War and the Reshaping of Israeli Civil–Military Relations. Lanham, Md.: Lexington Books, 2015.

The 1973 Yom Kippur War did not only have external implications on Israel, but also some dramatic internal implications, particularly with regards to the civil-military relations as well as the fields of psychology and political sociology. To this day, the consequences of this war are still prevalent in Israel, in terms of drafting security policies and the military doctrine.
After the war, new identities were formed in the Israeli civil society, which began to function as active agents in shaping security policy. These players are not a unique Israeli case, yet their actions in Israel serve as a case study that illuminates their significant impact in other countries as well. This is due to the fact that the “Israeli Laboratory” is a liberal democratic society living with an ongoing conflict; it has a mandatory army that is sensitive to fluctuations in public opinion, culture and the media; and issues of national security and military conduct are always a top public concern.
Consequently, this book examines the rise of five identities and agents that were formed after the 1973 War and highlights the effects they had on the formation of Israeli defense policy from then on. The book also clarifies the importance of exposure to these agents’ activities, referring to the psycho-political social factors that may actually dictate a state’s international policies. It therefore forms a study that connects sociology, political psychology, international relations, the field of culture studies and studies of strategy planning. Thus, the book is of interest to both the domestic-Israeli field of research and to the global scholarly discourse, particularly to academic disciplines engaged in civil-military relations (political sociology, political science).

 

UDI LEBEL is associate professor and chair of the Department of Sociology and Anthropology at Ariel University.

EYAL LEWIN is assistant professor at the Department of Middle Eastern Studies and Political Science at Ariel University.

 

Table of Contents

• Introduction
  Udi Lebel and Eyal Lewin
• The Combatants’ Protest after the Yom Kippur War and the Transformation of the Protest Culture in Israel
  Eithan Orkibi
• The Significance of the Yom Kippur War as a Turning Point in the Religious-Zionist Society
  Nissim Leon
• From Domination to Competition: The Yom Kippur War (1973) and the Formation of a New Grief Community
  Udi Lebel
• Not Just Intermediaries: The Mediatization of Security Affairs in Israel since 1973
  Rafi Mann
• The 1973 War and the Formation of Israeli POW Policy: A Watershed Line?
  Alexander Bligh
• The 1973 War as a Stimulator in the Reshaping of Israeli National Ethos
  Eyal Lewin
• Index
• About the Authors

 

Lecture: Haider, Israeli Imprisonment of Pakistani Fighters in the PLO, 1971-85

Sabah Haider’s PhD research project investigates alternative histories of the Israeli-Arab conflict, during the 1970s and 80s. Specifically she will explore the use of Pakistani foreign fighters by the PLO to engage in armed conflict with Israel, and will seek to understand the ideological, political and cultural contexts of the participation of Pakistanis in this conflict. She will highlight and ask how and why complex and transnational histories are excluded from dominant Israeli and Palestinian narratives of the Israel-Palestine conflict.

New Article: Stein and Tuval-Mashiach, Loneliness of Israeli Veterans of Combat and Captivity

Stein, Jacob Y., and Rivka Tuval-Mashiach. “Loneliness and Isolation in Life-Stories of Israeli Veterans of Combat and Captivity.” Psychological Trauma 7.2 (2015): 122-30.

 

URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/a0036936

 

Abstract

Loneliness holds detrimental ramifications for health and well-being. Nevertheless, loneliness references in the literature addressing combat-related trauma are few. Consequentially, the qualities and characteristics of such experiences in these posttraumatic realities remain uninvestigated empirically. In the current qualitative study we began filling this gap in the literature. We utilized thematic content analysis of life-stories of 19 combat veterans and 7 ex-POWs that have given testimony at the Israel Trauma Center for Victims of Terror and War (NATAL). Our findings suggest that the loneliness in the contexts at hand is primarily characterized by a sense of experiential isolation, rather than social, emotional, or existential. This is the sensation that due to the extraordinary nature of traumatic experiences the fulfillment of needs such as empathy and intersubjectivity may be unattainable. Integrating our findings with existing interdisciplinary literature regarding social sharing, trauma, and loneliness, we discuss implications for clinical interventions and further research.

New Article: Abu Sitta and Rempel, The ICRC and the Detention of Palestinian Civilians in Israel’s 1948 POW/Labor Camps

Abu Sitta, Salman and Terry Rempel. “The ICRC and the Detention of Palestinian Civilians in Israel’s 1948 POW/Labor Camps.” Journal of Palestine Studies 43.4 (2014): 11-38.

URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.1525/jps.2014.43.4.11

Abstract

The internment of thousands of Palestinian civilians in Israeli-run prisoner of war camps is a relatively little known episode in the 1948 war. This article begins to piece together the story from the dual perspective of the former civilian internees and of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC). Aside from the day-to-day treatment of the internees, ICRC reports focused on the legal and humanitarian implications of civilian internment and on Israeli’s resort to forced labor to support its war effort. Most of the 5,000 or so Palestinian civilians held in four official camps were reduced to conditions described by one ICRC official as ‘slavery’ and then expelled from the country at the end of the war. Notwithstanding their shortcoming, the ICRC records constitute an important contribution to the story of these prisoners and also expose the organization’s ineffectiveness–absent a legal framework as well as enforcement mechanisms beyond moral persuasion, the ICRC could do little to intervene on behalf of the internees.