Only 47% of those who supported the slogan knew which river and which sea it referenced. 

By JNS

Some may wonder what students understand when they chant the antisemitic slogan “From the river to the sea.” Ron Hassner, a professor of political science and Israel studies chair at the University of California, Berkeley, decided to find out.

Hassner, also editor-in-chief of the journal Security Studies, hired a polling firm to survey 250 U.S. students “from a variety of backgrounds,” he wrote in The Wall Street Journal. “Most said they supported the chant, some enthusiastically so (32.8%) and others to a lesser extent (53.2%).”

It turned out that just 47% of those who supported the slogan knew which river and which sea it referenced. Some thought it was the Nile or Euphrates, both of which are rivers, or the Dead Sea, Atlantic, and Caribbean, which are not rivers.

Students supporting the slogan showed greater ignorance about other facts about the region and its history. Fewer than 25% knew who PLO leader Yasser Arafat was, with 10% saying he was Israel’s first prime minister. A quarter thought the Oslo Peace Accords weren’t signed.

“There’s no shame in being ignorant unless one is screaming for the extermination of millions,” Hassner wrote.

After the students were confronted with their misunderstandings, 67.8% of them changed their minds and rejected “From the river to the sea,” Hassner added.

“These students had never seen a map of the Mideast and knew little about the region’s geography, history or demography,” he added. “Those who hope to encourage extremism depend on the political ignorance of their audiences. It is time for good teachers to join the fray and combat bias with education.”

The post Students who chant ‘From the river to the sea’ are clueless on the actual river, sea appeared first on World Israel News.

This is the first study to measure mental health before and after a second lockdown.

By Naama Barak, Israel21c

Lockdowns, as we in Israel have learned, do a good job preventing the spread of Covid. But as many of us have personally experienced, they also have quite an impact on our mental health – especially when we go through them for a second time.

A first-of-its-kind study recently published by researchers from Ariel University and the University of Warwick in BMJ Open looked into how the second lockdown in Israel, which took place in the fall of last year, affected the trajectory of anxiety and adjustment disorder among more than 100,000 Israeli adults.

The researchers divided respondents into four categories: people whose mental health didn’t change or only slightly changed following lockdown; people at higher risk for anxiety and depression before and after lockdown; people whose mental health deteriorated following lockdown; and people whose mental health improved after lockdown.

When they investigated the link between these groups and somatization (physical symptoms of psychological distress), they discovered that all but the first group exhibited significant vulnerability to somatization — even the “recovery group” those who reported that their mental health improved after lockdown.

This is the first study to measure mental health before and after a second lockdown.

“The study has two major contributions,” notes Ariel University’s Prof. Menachem Ben-Ezra, who led the study.

“First, strengthening the claim that a lockdown is a double-edged sword. Lockdown prevents mass spreading of the infection at the expense of mental health,” he said.

“Second, the presentation of somatic symptoms may mask psychological vulnerabilities, namely anxiety and adjustment disorder, even among those who appear to have recovered from the stressor. This indicates that lockdown should be carefully administered given these populations’ vulnerabilities.”

The post Israeli study shows mental-health cost of repeated COVID lockdowns appeared first on World Israel News.