Summary of "“Israel is a master at torture: they severed my spine!” | Ashira Darwish"

Interview with Ashira Darwish: Trauma, Resistance, and Healing in Palestine

The video features an in-depth interview with Ashira Darwish, a Palestinian trauma healer, meditation trainer, and former journalist. She discusses the profound and ongoing trauma experienced by Palestinians under Israeli occupation, particularly amid what the UN has termed genocide in Gaza. Ashira shares her personal journey from a detained teenager subjected to brutal torture—including a spinal injury that left her partially paralyzed—to becoming a trauma therapist focused on healing trauma shaped by political violence and colonialism.

Key Points

Systematic Trauma and Torture

Ashira recounts her experiences of detention, torture, sleep deprivation, and sexual harassment by Israeli forces. She emphasizes that such treatment is routine for many Palestinian children and prisoners. She highlights the intentional use of psychological warfare by Israel to:

Dehumanize Palestinians
Break family and community bonds
Suppress resistance

Limitations of Western Psychotherapy

Ashira critiques Western talk therapy as inadequate for Palestinians living under continuous trauma and occupation, where trauma is ongoing rather than post-event. Instead, she advocates for holistic, somatic, and collective healing approaches rooted in indigenous, spiritual, and communal traditions, including:

Dance
Meditation

Collective Trauma and Healing

Trauma is described as intergenerational and collective, affecting not only Palestinians but also global communities with histories of genocide, racism, and displacement. Healing must therefore be collective and culturally grounded to restore self-worth and resilience.

Psychological Warfare and Media Manipulation

The interview discusses how Israeli-affiliated tech companies and former IDF soldiers occupy key roles in social media platforms (such as Meta and TikTok), influencing content moderation to suppress Palestinian narratives and weaponize trauma. The curated mixing of horrific images with trivial content is designed to induce numbness and desensitization, undermining sustained activism.

Activism and Self-Care

Ashira stresses the importance of balancing self-care with active resistance, warning against burnout and passive consumption of traumatic content online. She encourages activists to:

Limit social media exposure
Engage in community organizing
Channel rage constructively as a natural and necessary response to injustice

Understanding Palestinian Resistance

Through her journalistic work, Ashira humanizes Palestinian resistance fighters, portraying them as deeply loving, empathetic individuals driven by love for their families, land, and community, rather than hatred or desire for destruction.

Impact on Israeli Society

The interview also touches on the psychological toll on Israeli soldiers and society, describing a cycle of trauma and dehumanization rooted in historical fear and systemic racism, which manifests in violence and internal social fractures.

Hope and Future

Despite the ongoing genocide, Ashira expresses hope grounded in the resilience and spirit of Palestinian children and communities. She calls for envisioning a free Palestine and sustaining joy, love, and collective action as forms of resistance and healing.

“The resilience and spirit of Palestinian children and communities give hope amid ongoing genocide. Sustaining joy, love, and collective action are essential forms of resistance and healing.”

Overall, the conversation blends personal testimony, psychological analysis, and political critique to illuminate the complex layers of trauma, resistance, and survival in Palestine, while warning about the complicity of global media and technology platforms in perpetuating oppression.