Editor’s Note: The author of this article is a psychoanalyst in New York City.
On October 20, three days following the bombing of Al-Ahli Hospital in Northern Gaza, and nearly two weeks following Hamas’s attack on Israel, the Board of Directors of an American Psychological Association section — the section for Psychoanalysis for Social Responsibility issued a statement that felt to many of us Palestinians in the diaspora and in the homeland, quite heartening. We felt witnessed, recognized, and acknowledged, and it was particularly moving because it came from an American institution.
Here are screenshots of the original statement:
A discussion ensued on the listserv of the section, where the statement was criticized and, to some extent, ridiculed. There were many posts back and forth on a private listserv on the topic. A few days following the issuing of the statement, which many had applauded and welcomed, it was taken down. Reportedly, it was taken down at the request of the APA administration.
How does one pontificate about moralism and, in the same breath, actually do harm by silencing thoughtful voices asking for an end to genocide?
Ethnic cleansing requires not only the dispossession of land and property, imprisonment, and expulsion, but it also necessitates the erasure of narratives, silencing, and gaslighting. I don’t expect anything I say in a piece like this to be surprising. What’s particularly interesting is when some of these tactics are employed by a group of psychoanalysts who are part of a section that claims social responsibility.
When it comes to Palestine and mainstream rhetoric, you know the drill: any criticism of Israel is so often labeled as antisemitic, the bombing of Gaza is justified in the name of countering Hamas, and in an area with one of the highest population densities on the planet, many still buy into the ‘Hamas and the Human Shields’ falsification and justification of the murder of civilians. It is quite unfortunate and disheartening when such naivete is espoused by well-established psychoanalysts.
It is only a handful of psychoanalysts who are members of the section under discussion who took it upon themselves to publicly and privately criticize the statement. To add insult to injury, some decided to go full-blown psychoanalytic on us and employed, I must say, useless and sterile psychoanalytic concepts to critique a statement calling for halting of the genocide.
In private discussions, I was told that the statement was not ‘neutral’ enough. The idea of maintaining neutrality in the face of genocide is beyond my comprehension.
The Board was further criticized for equating the Zionist project with genocide: how else would you describe Deir Yassin and the many massacres thereafter? What would you call the expulsion of 750,000 inhabitants of the land and the destruction of 450 villages? And that is just the beginning of more than seven decades of untold suffering and dehumanization.
Others seem to object that October 7 was placed in the context of 75 years of relentless oppression and suffering. If we understand terrorism to be violence targeted at civilians for political ends, then, from my perspective, armed Palestinian resistance is no more terrorism than the actions of Israel, the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, France, and the list goes on. Please take a moment and listen to Norman Finkelstein’s response to Bernie Sanders’ description of Hamas. However, my intention is by no means to justify the killing and murder of anyone. We Palestinians, to quote my dear friend and colleague, Professor Nadera Shalhoub-Kevorkian, are for life and livability. We are for dignity, justice, and freedom. We are against murder, torture, and humiliation.
We have to recognize, however, that oppression breeds resistance. To paraphrase the late UN Secretary-General, Kofi Annan: ignoring the motivations of those who commit horrific acts of violence could lead us into the role of instigators of violence. That is why placing October 7 in the context of 75 years of terror against the Palestinians is not only correct but necessary.
During the past four weeks, caring friends and colleagues have approached me: “How are you holding up?” they would ask. I, and perhaps many others in my Arab and Palestinian community, feel changed forever. I know now, on a visceral level, what it means to be the other, what it means that my life and the lives of people like me are not only ungrievable (as Judith Butler so aptly put it) but also disposable.
I also feel stronger and more grounded than ever. I feel in my bones what the Palestinian Sumud (steadfast perseverance) means. I refuse, utterly refuse, to buy into the dehumanizing rhetoric. I am determined not to feel defeated and certainly find it quite encouraging and heartening to see the masses of people throughout the globe on the streets calling for a cease-fire.
At last, the truth is out. This is not the first, second, or third massacre– starting from Deir Yassin in 1948, Tantura, Sabra and Shatila, and then Gaza over and over again. However, my dear friends, this is the last!
During the national march of November 4 in Washington, DC, we were reminded that just 40 years ago, a similar march took place to end the apartheid in South Africa.
The Zionist project of ethnically cleansing Palestine, by any means necessary, is now out in the open for all to see. The time has come for the masses, who have already taken to the streets, to change the trajectory we have been on.
What seems to have been missing in all the debate that ensued around the statement was that all we, the Palestinians and our supporters, want immediately is a cease-fire and providing food, water, and much-needed medical assistance to Gaza. Do you understand? Do you realize that by objecting to a call for a cease-fire you are basically condemning more than 2 million people to death by starvation? I think you do know, but choose not to think about it, just as you do not think about or discuss the many crimes of Israel.
As professionals who care and cater to people’s mental well-being, our role is to immediately STOP the genocide for the sake of all the inhabitants of the land of any religion. How else can one live/sleep/educate/write/publish/treat….when one is complicit in an ongoing genocide? Members of Jewish Voice for Peace took it upon themselves to insist on a cease-fire now, and I hope that we as mental health workers can take responsibility and not speak up but SCREAM and state, “not in our name.”
“How does one pontificate about moralism and, in the same breath, actually do harm by silencing thoughtful voices asking for an end to genocide?”
IMO this is must read – a New Yorker article on the Israeli crackdown on speech, by my favorite Russian Jewish dissident, Masha Gessen: ( Delete New Yorker cookies )
Inside the Israeli Crackdown on Speech…Since the October 7th attack, Palestinians and peace activists in Israel have increasingly been targeted by employers, universities, government authorities, and right-wing mobs.…Frey is one of at least three prominent left-wing Israelis who have been doxed in the past few weeks. Yuli Novak, the executive director of B’Tselem, a leading human-rights organization, felt she had to temporarily leave Israel with her wife and newborn baby after her phone number was published on social media. Another target of doxing was Gur Litman (not his real name), a filmmaker and activist, who, over the years, wrote many Facebook posts critical of Israel’s armed forces, which he believes are guilty of war crimes. He has also stated that, contrary to the oft-repeated claim that Israel is the only democracy in the Middle East, the country was never a democracy, largely because its national project has always excluded nearly half of the people on the land it controls. “I’m a man—Jewish, white, Ashkenazi,” Litman told me, listing the traits that bring him privilege in Israeli society. “It’s almost not moral to live in such a place in such dark times and not speak up.”
https://www.newyorker.com/news/annals-of-human-rights/inside-the-israeli-crackdown-on-speech