Beyond Statelessness: 'Unchilding' and the Health of Palestinian Children in Jerusalem

Abstract

Understanding the key determinants of health of Palestinian children in occupied East Jerusalem is enhanced by analyzing Jerusalem as a settler colonial frontier. Structural racism, prolonged occupation, and settler colonialism shape the social and political determinants of health in Jerusalem, generating ill health and insecurity for Palestinian children who are rendered stateless in their own city. They are “unchilded” and, in fact, treated like enemies of the settler state. Colonial violence penetrates their family stability, homes, classrooms, and targets their bodies and health. In providing a thorough analysis of the lived experience of indigenous Palestinian children in Jerusalem, a broadened understanding of the effects of statelessness on their health can begin to take shape.

Because its power remains naturalized: introducing the settler colonial determinants of health

“…While broadly analogous across contexts, health outcomes inevitably express a specificity that reflects colonial chronicity and the local dialectics of settler invasion and Indigenous resistance. Where expansionary attempts are ongoing, as in the case of Palestine/Israel, the outcome is active settler frontier violence, forced displacement, and the inevitable health consequences that follow (71). In a world where humanitarian values and human rights are lauded and overt Native elimination is illegitimate, frontier violence has in many cases transformed from its original North American and Australasian ferocity to population fragmentation (72), village and property destruction (73), maiming (74), unchilding (75), spatial sequestration (35), and more concealed forms like gentrification (76), assimilation (35) and liberal modes of recognition (32).…”

“…Veracini describes Wolfe's axiom as having "kickstarted what with hindsight could be called the 'settler colonial turn, ' the phrase that, by a very conservative estimate, launched a thousand papers" (48). This growing wave of interdisciplinary scholarship is now reaching the shores of public health (28,71,72,(79)(80)(81)(82)(83)(84)(85).…”

“…The resonance of this conceptualization reaches beyond Palestine/Israel to states like the US, in which settler police and society frequently dehumanize and unchild Indigenous and Black children (186), easing their physical elimination (187). Beyond violent death, the health consequences of unchilding are numerous and intertwined with other social and eliminatory determinants (71). A number of tools connecting settler colonial social and structural formations to health outcomes have also been proposed, including those designed to capture historical trauma, loss, humiliation, distress, and social suffering (87,109,(188)(189)(190)(191).…”

“…Notably, a still-open frontier, racial exclusion, and persistent resistance make Palestinians largely unassimilable within settler society today(71).…”

Publicly Underrepresented Genocides of the 20th and 21st Century: A Review

“…Muhareb and colleagues [70] focuses on the issue of statelessness and its impact on the health of Palestinian children living in East Jerusalem. First, the authors introduce the concept of "unchilding", a term coined to describe denying Palestinian children their childhood through statelessness and other forms of oppression [70]. The authors specifically focus on Palestinian children living in East Jerusalem, who face challenges due to Israel's policies towards their neighborhoods.…”