The American Psychological Association and the Weaponization of Antisemitism

Note: Last week I had the opportunity to participate in a panel discussion and offer my personal perspective on the weaponization of antisemitism. This session took place as part of the annual conference of the Society for Psychoanalysis and Psychoanalytic Psychology (Division 39 of the American Psychological Association). Below is the full text of my prepared remarks. As I noted at that time, the views expressed are entirely my own. They do not reflect the positions of the other panelists or any other group.

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Thank you for this opportunity. I want to use my 15 minutes to describe how the weaponization of antisemitism has impacted the American Psychological Association (APA) — and our profession more broadly — since the Hamas-led attacks inside Israel on October 7th, 2023. To be clear, these are my views alone, and I am not representing any group. 

I’ll begin with four important points for context. First, those attacks and the hostage-taking on October 7th were war crimes. They were undeniably horrific and traumatizing, deeply affecting Jews and non-Jews around the world. 

Second, real antisemitism is “discrimination, prejudice, hostility or violence against Jews as Jews.” It is dangerous, it is growing, and it must be condemned and combatted. But it’s important to emphasize that scholarly research — such as that by Eitan Hersh and Laura Royden — shows that while antisemitic attitudes in the United States exist across the political spectrum, they are “far more prevalent on the right” than on the political left. I’ll add that there’s no more obvious evidence of this than the white supremacists in the current administration in Washington, DC.

Third, support for Palestinian rights, dignity, and freedom is not antisemitic. In my view, to claim otherwise is at best misguided and at worst deceitful. Israel’s prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu is a prototypical example of the latter. But he is far from alone.

And fourth, I believe denial, blindness, minimization, or disregard for the horrors that have unfolded in Gaza over the past 17 months is, quite simply, outrageous and indefensible. I’ll add here a finding from a Pew Research Center poll last spring: only 4% of Israeli Jews said that Israel’s military response against Hamas in Gaza had gone too far. Only 4%.

So, what do I mean by the “weaponization of antisemitism”? I understand it this way: as a psychologically powerful, gaslighting propaganda machine with two complementary narrative engines. One engine takes the State of Israel and dramatically expands it, so it becomes “All Jews Worldwide.” This profound distortion is intentional. It is used to claim that condemnation of Israel’s genocidal assault is an attack on all Jews — and is therefore an unacceptable expression of “antisemitism.”

But this propaganda machine has another task as well: it must simultaneously stifle concerns over Palestinian suffering. So, the second engine works in the opposite direction. It takes all Palestinians and dramatically shrinks them into Hamas alone. In this way, all Palestinians are dehumanized and presented as caricatured monsters. Through this distortion, they all become supposedly legitimate targets for annihilation. And this enables some people — far too many people, apparently including some psychologists — to seemingly ignore the unconscionable misery in Gaza. That’s the weaponization of antisemitism. 

This weaponization is dangerous on multiple counts. Not only because it’s quite literally deadly for the victims of Israel’s aggression. And not only because it’s being used as a Trojan Horse to dismantle our institutions of higher learning and other organizations essential to a functioning civil society. And not only because it serves as an excuse for a cruel, inhumane, and racist deportation agenda. It’s also dangerous for Jews themselves, because it divides the Jewish community and it distracts us from the clear-and-present peril posed by the antisemitism of white Christian nationalists and other right-wing extremists.

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My Brief Response to an Outrageous Petition from “Psychologists Against Antisemitism”

An outrageously misleading petition titled “Antisemitism/Anti-Jewish Hate within the American Psychological Association” is now circulating among psychologists and related health professionals. Drafted by leaders of a group that calls itself “Psychologists Against Antisemitism,” the petition is long on accusations and generalizations but shamefully short on clarity and evidence.

The petition authors claim that they “have documented extensive evidence of antisemitic discourse and concerning behavior across APA divisions.” But they don’t share their “archive” of “extensive evidence” and it’s unclear exactly what they count as “antisemitic discourse” or “concerning behavior.” Nevertheless, it isn’t hard to figure out what seems to be their primary grievance: the critical attention some APA members and groups have given to Israel’s devastating and indiscriminate 16-month onslaught against the Palestinian people, following the Hamas-led attacks of October 7, 2023 in which 1,200 people were killed and 250 were taken hostage. 

At this point, tens of thousands of Gazans, most of them women and children, have been killed by the Israeli military; many more have suffered serious and life-altering injuries; Gaza’s healthcare, education, and vital water systems have all been destroyed; and nearly the entire population of Gaza — two million Palestinians — has been displaced at least once. Yet the petitioners seemingly portray expressions of horror and outrage over this mass destruction as instances of antisemitism. This strategy is, of course, the standard playbook of influential “pro-Israel” organizations like the Anti-Defamation League (which officially categorizes pro-Palestinian rallies as antisemitic) and “Stand With Us” (a U.S.-based advocacy organization that has received funding from the Israeli government and is also known as the “Israel Emergency Alliance”).

To be clear, discrimination, prejudice, hostility, or violence against Jews as Jews — i.e., real antisemitism — is indeed a very serious threat, especially from white supremacists and similar groups increasingly ascendant in the United States and around the world. But accusations of antisemitism that are used to silence, harass, and punish anyone who speaks out in support of Palestinian rights and against Israel’s aggression are something entirely different. They are false and deceptive charges, often designed to draw attention away from Israel’s merciless assault.

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Guantanamo: We’ve Been Here Before

Upon his return to the White House, Donald Trump wasted no time in issuing a barrage of executive orders advancing his authoritarian assault on vulnerable communities and the U.S. Constitution. Among these orders is one that instructs the Departments of Defense and Homeland Security to prepare the naval station at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, for the influx of 30,000 undocumented immigrants. At the signing ceremony, Trump told those assembled that the facility will “detain the worst criminal illegal aliens threatening the American people.” 

As a psychologist who’s paid close attention to goings-on at Guantanamo for more than 20 years, this is eerily and tragically familiar. It was under George W. Bush’s presidential watch that Guantanamo rapidly descended into lasting and worldwide infamy. When the first of almost 800 “war on terror” detainees were brought to the island from Afghanistan in January 2002, General Richard Myers — then chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff — described them as “people that would gnaw hydraulic lines in the back of a C-17 to bring it down.” Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld insisted that they were the “worst of the worst” and claimed that they had no rights under the Geneva Convention.

Abuse and torture followed in short order. Detainees at Guantanamo were subjected to solitary confinement, sleep deprivation, painful stress positions, the disorienting manipulation of light and sound, exposure to extreme temperatures, physical beatings, and sexual and cultural humiliation. It didn’t take long before reports emerged that health professionals were playing important roles in the detention and interrogation operations there. And that’s how Guantanamo became the improbable site where the American Psychological Association (APA) — the world’s largest professional association of psychologists (including my own membership for a quarter-century) — hit rock bottom. For years thereafter, the APA’s leadership seemingly abandoned fundamental Do-No-Harm principles and failed to adequately challenge or condemn Guantanamo’s profound disregard for ethics and human decency.

It’s important to note that Bush’s vengeful “war on terror” and Trump’s vicious war on immigrants share some key features. Denying reality, both have been presented as heroic and moral endeavors to protect our nation’s security and defend us from marauding invaders. Both have also been promoted through massive marketing campaigns characterized by gross misrepresentations and by the dehumanization of people deemed different and unworthy — and therefore deserving of exploitation, deprivation, and worse.

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Psychologists Call for Justice and Accountability: Confronting the Atrocities Against Palestinian Lives

The statement below was issued in January 2025 by the Society for the Study of Peace, Conflict, and Violence (Division 48 of the American Psychological Association). As the Society’s current president, I am pleased to share it with readers. A PDF version is available online here.

Psychologists Call for Justice and Accountability: Confronting the Atrocities Against Palestinian Lives

This is an official statement of the Society for the Study of Peace, Conflict, and Violence, Division 48 of the American Psychological Association, and does not represent the position of the American Psychological Association or any of its other Divisions or subunits.

As 2025 begins, violent conflicts and gross violations of human rights are causing death and displacement on a massive scale, creating humanitarian crises around the world.[1] As psychologists, we take seriously the February 2021 policy resolution on “APA, Psychology and Human Rights,” adopted by the American Psychological Association’s Council of Representatives, which encourages members of our profession “to support and advocate for populations at risk of human rights violations, including marginalized populations both domestically and globally.”[2] This resolution followed a report from the APA Task Force on Human Rights, which included the recommendation that “APA’s advocacy for human rights should extend to international human rights concerns, including in some situations making direct requests or criticisms of foreign governments.”[3]

Consistent with these advocacy priorities, here we specifically seek to bring heightened attention to and greater engagement with the current unparalleled devastation of Gaza.[4] This destruction is a catastrophic escalation of collective violence against the Palestinian people. Most have already endured an immiserating and decades-long unlawful occupation[5] and, in the specific case of Gaza, a crippling 17-year blockade.[6]

Reflecting numerous reports, findings, and recommendations from the United Nations Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights over the past 15 months,[7] we call for an immediate, unconditional, and sustained ceasefire; the release of all hostages in Gaza as well as Palestinians subjected to arbitrary detention in Israel; an arms embargo on any further supplying of offensive weapons; the urgent and unfettered provision of humanitarian aid; the timely and dedicated reconstruction of Gaza’s infrastructure, healthcare system, educational facilities, and neighborhoods; and accountability before international judicial bodies for all violations of international law. We believe it is the duty of our profession and the APA — an accredited nongovernmental organization at the UN with a stated commitment to “respect and promote human rights” as a guiding principle[8] — to stand, speak, and act in unequivocal support of these goals.

As psychologists based primarily in the United States, we issue this statement keenly aware of the distinctively strong alliance between the U.S. and Israel,[9] and the crucial and calamitous role that the U.S. government has played in supporting Israel’s 15-month assault on Gaza. As recently as November 2024, the U.S. cast the sole vote against a UN Security Council resolution calling for an immediate and unconditional ceasefire.[10] The United States has also continued to provide Israel with billions of dollars of munitions[11] — despite compelling evidence that these weapons are being used against civilians in violation of U.S. and international law.[12]

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Peace Psychologists Oppose Looming Mass Deportations

The statement below was issued in December 2024 by the Society for the Study of Peace, Conflict, and Violence (Division 48 of the American Psychological Association). As the Society’s current president, I am pleased to share it with readers. A PDF version is available online here.

Peace Psychologists Oppose Looming Mass Deportations

The Society for the Study of Peace, Conflict, and Violence (Division 48 of the American Psychological Association) expresses its alarm and outrage over the looming possibility of the mass deportation of immigrants in the United States.[1] As an organization committed to promoting peace through psychology-based knowledge and practice, we deplore this inhumane escalation in the adversity already faced by over 12 million workers, parents, and children who are part of our communities and contribute to the U.S. economy.

Our discipline’s scientific literature is replete with research documenting the debilitating harms associated with family separation and with forced removal to detention facilities or back to regions of instability and violence. Despite the fortitude and determination that have long characterized immigrant communities, such experiences can have devastating and lifelong psychological effects, especially on children.

Psychologists have also illuminated the long-term toll on both physical and psychological health when fear becomes a chronic part of people’s daily lives. The menacing effects of past and promised workplace raids — and other unpredictable and distressing intrusions into the security of family and community life — are cruelly terrorizing in both their intent and their impact.

Finally, in addition to undocumented immigrants themselves, these policies can harm the mental health of U.S. citizens who know detained or deported immigrants. Indeed, peace psychologists recognize that the targeting of any vulnerable group poses a serious challenge to a shared vision of the common good, by fraying the fabric of trust and mutual care that binds diverse communities together.

For all of these reasons, the Society for the Study of Peace, Conflict, and Violence stands with those directly threatened, learning from their leadership and their persistence. We strongly condemn the current plans for mass deportation and support acts of pragmatic solidarity in opposition to these draconian measures.

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The American Psychological Association Is Abandoning Its Commitment to Human Rights by Refusing to Speak Out on Palestine

The American Psychological Association (APA) — one of the world’s largest organizations of healthcare clinicians, researchers, and educators — contends that it “prioritizes human rights advocacy” and “encourages psychologists to support and advocate for populations at risk of human rights violations, including marginalized populations both domestically and globally.” But if APA leaders want to truly honor that commitment, they must do much more to publicly recognize and address the devastating plight of Palestinians in Gaza today. 

For ten long months after the Hamas attacks in Israel last October, the APA’s senior executives and board of directors seemingly avoided public acknowledgement of the genocidal assault by the Israel Defense Forces. Indeed, in spite of the mass death and injury, displacement, and starvation in Gaza, APA’s leadership even discouraged groups within the Association from issuing their own statements calling for an urgent humanitarian ceasefire.

Finally, this past August, several members of the APA’s larger governing body — its Council of Representatives — challenged this resistance and brought a resolution to the floor in support of “an immediate, permanent, and comprehensive ceasefire in the Israel-Gaza conflict.” With repeated revisions, they worked tirelessly to craft a “balanced” statement responsive to the concerns raised by various committees and factions within the APA. Among their compromises, for example, was the inclusion of language stating that the resolution “is not meant to advocate or criticize any of the parties engaged in conflict.” Not surprisingly, absent from the statement are the words occupation, apartheid, ethnic cleansing, and genocide.

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Weaponizing Antisemitism 101: A Back-to-School Special

It is irony at its most bitter. Not so very long ago, hundreds of white supremacists marched in Charlottesville, Virginia. With tiki-torches held high, they chanted “Jews will not replace us!” And yet here we are, seven years later, and apparently these fanatical card-carrying antisemites have indeed been “replaced” in the minds of many Americans. Why? Because a deceitful campaign now portrays anti-genocide college students (including many Jews) as the leading purveyors of “the world’s oldest hatred.” But for anyone — including a Jew like myself — who hasn’t stubbornly closed their eyes and covered their ears over the past eleven months, one thing should be obvious: it’s simply absurd to label outrage, protest, and despair over the plight of Palestinians in Gaza as “antisemitism.” Period.

Last October 7th, Hamas and other armed groups unleashed a brutal attack in Israel. Several hundred civilians were killed, over 200 were taken hostage, and the fear, agony, and trauma experienced by the distraught and the grief-stricken are profound and unrelenting. But these horrors — amplified and distorted by vengeance-stoking misrepresentations from Israeli officials — can never justify the response that followed.

Ever since that dreadful day (and after the immiseration of a decades-long occupation), an unfathomable humanitarian catastrophe has been unfolding in Gaza. Israel has killed over 40,000 Palestinians — most of them women and children — and more than twice as many have been injured. Gaza’s health care, education, and vital water systems have been systematically destroyed. Almost the entire population of Gaza has been displaced once or more. Starvation is increasingly widespread. Paralytic polio has now emerged. And all of this has been made possible by the United States’ ongoing provision of political cover and lethal munitions to the Israel Defense Forces.

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Ceasefire: Thank You, APA Council

I’m not known for congratulating the American Psychological Association very often. I’ve harshly criticized the APA’s leadership for failing to adequately prioritize our profession’s Do-No-Harm ethics during the so-called War on Terror. I’ve expressed serious reservations about the APA’s overly close ties to the military-intelligence establishment. And I’ve raised significant concerns about the fact that politicians whose views diverge sharply from APA’s avowed commitment to human welfare nevertheless receive campaign funds from the “Psychology PAC” of APA’s sister organization, APA Services, Inc.

But I have nothing but praise and appreciation for an action that the APA’s governing body — its Council of Representatives — took last week before the Association’s annual convention in Seattle, Washington. Recognizing the horrific and heightened violence and devastation that have become a recurring nightmare in Gaza ever since the deadly attacks in Israel last October, the Council has approved a statement calling for an “immediate, permanent, and comprehensive ceasefire in the Israel-Gaza conflict” — and by an overwhelming margin (64% to 36%). 

I feel fortunate to have had the opportunity to witness this historic occasion firsthand. Numerous Council members explained in compelling and heartfelt terms why this statement is important, necessary, and overdue. Yes, there were some who rose in opposition. But their appeals — including calls for a postponement of the vote — were entirely unpersuasive given the urgency of addressing the catastrophic harm and trauma that have beset the region. (I agree with those who wish the statement had gone even further, but I recognize that it needed to be crafted in a way that would win majority support from a diverse body.)

It’s worth emphasizing that the path to this consequential vote was an arduous, months-long journey full of twists and turns for the primary movers. A series of hurdles were apparently erected to keep the measure from the Council floor, and to thereby silence voices dedicated to ending the bloodshed — for Palestinians and Israelis alike. But this wasn’t surprising. I know from personal experience how Association officials successfully stalled and then blocked a simple ceasefire call from leaders of the APA’s peace psychology division.

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Why I Support Wendi Williams for APA President-Elect

Several years ago, I resigned from the American Psychological Association after being a dues-paying member for over a quarter-century. Like others who’ve made this same choice, my resignation reflected an accumulation of both frustration and a sense of alienation. Too often, APA’s leadership seemingly came up short when it was important to challenge government policies and political choices that endangered the dignity and welfare of communities here in the United States and overseas.

But one downside of no longer being an APA member is that I’m ineligible to vote in the election that’s now underway. Because if I could, I’d enthusiastically cast a vote for Dr. Wendi Williams as the APA’s next President-Elect. The world’s largest organization of psychologists — and the voice of U.S. psychology — needs to elect a leader who will not shy away from the fraught uncertainties that lie ahead. And Wendi is that leader. 

Let’s not pretend otherwise: if given the opportunity, powerful forces and factions in this country are eager to trample over a wide swath of rights we all count on. And beyond these threats to our freedoms, we also face the prospect of an era where racism, antisemitism, Islamophobia, and other forms of bigotry become ascendant and further institutionalized. In her platform, Wendi notes that risks such as these call upon us to embrace our profession’s insights and science in order to “courageously address inequitable, unfair, and oppressive conditions.” Indeed, this commitment reflects her life’s work as a scholar, educator, and administrator.

In my view, it is this outward gaze — beyond the APA’s frequently insular and guild-oriented priorities — that makes Wendi the ideal candidate for this moment. We give the network of professional associations and other civil society organizations power, privileges, and the public trust. In doing so, we count on them to lead us righteously and to stand up and oppose government and corporate negligence, overreach, and misconduct. To be sure, the APA is far from all-powerful, and its president is only one part of a much larger whole. But leadership and courage can be contagious, and they shouldn’t be underestimated. 

In this regard, 40 years ago the distinguished psychologist, APA member, and Peace Corp director Carolyn Payton published an article titled “Who Must Do the Hard Things?” in the APA’s American Psychologist. She warned that an organization’s opposition to involvement in social issues often amounted to support for an unjust status quo. At the end of her essay, Payton offered an answer to her question “Who must do the hard things?”: Those who can. And then she answered a related question, “Who must do the impossible things?”: Those who care. 

I know that Dr. Payton’s still-timely message resonates deeply with Wendi Williams today. Learn more about her here, and then please give her your vote!