A call for healing, from a world expert in psychological trauma, individual and collective: Gabor Maté on Israel/Palestine

Again, we are looking for items to cover the battle between the Hamas militia and the Israeli state forces that don’t fall into “sides-taking” (more on that in this week’s editorial).

At the very least, the angle that there’s a traumatised element to a history of atrocities and violence in this area is worth exploring. And there’s none better to do that than the psychologist Gabor Maté—himself from a Hungarian-Jewish background, whose grandparents died in the Holocaust, and who tours the world talking to communities (many indigenous) about how they might loosen the terrible grip of historical trauma on their individual and collective lives.

In the interview embedded above - which is 2hrs long, so carve out time for it - Maté applies his trauma theories to the current situation in Isreal/Palestine, and also uses his past and his many visits to Gaza over the years. No immediate answers, but an approach to managing emotion and reactive response which will benefit all of those watching - whether combatants or civilisans, allies and critics - seeking a long-term peace.

More: see this amazing interview between two friends, one Muslim and one Jewish, on the UK’s Good Morning Britain show