Founder and head of Israeli Physicians for Human Rights Ruchama Marton delivers a speech calling for Israelis to endorse BDS in the plight for Palestinian human rights as she wins the prestigious Leibowitz award. “Palestinians were here and will continue to be here. They can and some indeed want to live in peace if only the occupier’s boot were lifted from their necks.”

The Israeli collective psyche is shaped by coercive pressures: It is post-traumatic; it cannot forgive the Jews their victimization in Europe; and so it is intoxicated by power and the use of violence against the weak; and is in a state of denial about its own aggression toward Palestinians. Staying alive by whatever means, the ethos of Netanyahu, has replaced traditional Jewish ethics of loving the neighbor, says psychiatrist Ruchama Marton, founder of Physicians for Human Rights, Israel.