Always two sides to a conflict
Professor David Stone, University of Glasgow
Hospital Doctor, 18 March 2004

Michael Cooke’s moving article on the plight of Palestinians living on the West Bank (Hospital Doctor, 29 January, page 18) represents only one side of an apparently unending conflict. There is, of course, another.

Last summer, I stood in silence on the sun-baked hillside on the western outskirts of Jerusalem. The view from the cemetery was spectacular, but I was in no mood to appreciate it. Instead, I tried to comfort my 19-year-old daughter as she sobbed at the graveside of her murdered Scottish friend, Yoni, whose only crime was to have climbed aboard the wrong bus at the wrong time in the wrong city (Tel Aviv) during his visit to Israel.

Yoni, unfortunately, is only one of many.

Since the outbreak of the violence in September 2000, around 1,000 Israelis have been killed and several times that number seriously injured, many of whom will be disabled for life.

On my most recent visit to Israel, I was advised for my own safety to avoid, as far as possible, any place where large numbers of people congregate – Including buses, trains, and supermarkets.

No society can function properly in such circumstances.

Most people try to live as normal a life as possible but they pay a heavy price. You can see the tension etched on all faces.

In a tiny country of six million, almost everyone is directly touched by the tragedy. The population as a whole is gripped by unremitting anxiety. Many children suffer nightmares, school phobia, behaviour disorders and other manifestations of collective million, almost everyone is trauma. Their parents cope as best they can, a task made more difficult by the extra army reserve duty imposed, of necessity, on fathers.

If the immediate human costs of the conflict on Israelis are obvious to the visitor, the trauma. Their parents cope as corrosive effects on the economy of the country are equally damaging.

Local authorities have run out of cash, municipal workers have not been paid for months and strikes paralyse public services. Hospitals, schools and colleges are laying off staff, and social benefits have been slashed.

As caring professionals, I believe we have two obligations to the protagonists. First, we should extend compassion to both Palestinians and Israelis.

Second, we should give support to all advocates of a fair settlement based on a two state solution in which both peoples can live in peace and security.

That is the least we can do to honour the memory of Yoni and all the other innocent victims on both sides of the divide.