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!

My Concerns about the “Association of Jewish Psychologists”

The new non-profit “Association of Jewish Psychologists” (AJP) has described its primary purpose as combating antisemitism, and I wholeheartedly support this important commitment to eradicating hate and discrimination. But a closer look at this organization reveals that, despite its broad-brush name, AJP has shown itself equally committed to a specific political ideology, one that’s inconsistent with the perspective of many American Jews and, by extension, many Jewish psychologists. Compounding the problem, I believe AJP’s seemingly uncritical defense of Israel—even in this moment—threatens to warp its fight against antisemitism in ways that are counterproductive and potentially dangerous. For these reasons, as a Jewish psychologist myself, I have serious concerns about AJP. Let me explain further.

AJP’s mission statement asserts that Jews have “a shared identity as a people, rooted in a common identification with its Jewish homeland, now found in modern day Israel.” The organization’s expectation that its members possess a strong and positive sense of rootedness in relation to the State of Israel is exclusionary, perhaps even more so than AJP’s leaders might realize. Consider that a Pew Research poll from just a few years ago found that only slightly more than half of American Jews “Feel very/somewhat attached to Israel” (58%) and less than half “Say caring about Israel is essential to what being Jewish means to them” (45%). And in a Jewish Electorate Institute survey from roughly the same time, 25% of the respondents agreed that “Israel is an apartheid state” (another 22% were unsure) and 34% agreed that “Israel’s treatment of Palestinians is similar to racism in the United States.” 

Perhaps the clearest evidence that AJP doesn’t represent me or many of my Jewish colleagues is the organization’s apparent stance toward the ongoing war in Gaza. Last October, shortly after Hamas’s horrific attacks in Israel and the commencement of Israel’s disproportionate retaliatory assault on Gaza, the American Psychological Association (APA) issued a press release. It noted, in part, “There can be no justification for cutting off access to basic necessities, such as electricity, food and medicine.” To my dismay, the official response from AJP’s board of directors described the APA’s condemnation of these acts of collective punishment as “terribly naïve.” 

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Jean Maria Arrigo: A Remembrance

Dear Friends and Colleagues,

With great sadness, I am writing to let you know that Jean Maria Arrigo has passed away, peacefully and painlessly while in hospice care at her home, with her husband John at her side. Many of you undoubtedly knew Jean Maria personally and were familiar with and benefited from her work and her compassion. For those who didn’t have that good fortune, I offer this too brief summary.

Jean Maria was a social psychologist and oral historian. For decades, she specialized in the study of military-intelligence professionals of conscience, the ethical challenges they face, and the courage of those who refuse to obey morally bankrupt orders. 

As a longtime member of the Coalition for an Ethical Psychology, Jean Maria became an unexpected and unassuming whistleblower after she concluded that the American Psychological Association—the world’s largest professional organization of psychologists—had abandoned its “Do No Harm” principles and was instead acting in concert with a U.S. national security establishment willing to abuse and torture “war on terror” prisoners. 

Jean Maria’s selfless determination served as a touchstone for ultimately successful efforts to bring important ethical reforms to the APA. And after facing years of hostility for her actions, in 2015 the APA’s governing Council bestowed upon Jean Maria a special award. That award’s inscription reads:

We honor you for your resolute commitment and tenacity in advocating for peace, human rights, and ethical behavior.

We honor you for your unwavering courage in opposing torture, despite efforts to discredit, isolate, and shun you, in orchestrated movements by those in positions of power.

We honor you for your steadfast reliance on logical, fact-based advocacy in the face of harsh, hostile personal criticism and attacks.

We honor you for being the ethical, moral conscience of this Association for over the past ten years.

We honor you for being the finest possible role model for us in the profession of Psychology.

After accepting the award, Jean Maria told close colleagues that she probably should have declined it, because she was worried it might diminish her resolve going forward. It didn’t. When it mattered most, Jean Maria Arrigo always stood firm and tall. She will be sorely missed.

How Can Peace Psychologists Not Call for a Humanitarian Ceasefire?

NOTE: This is an update on events I’ve previously described, first HERE and then HERE.

On October 7, 2023, over 1,000 Israelis died at the hands of Hamas militants and 200 more were taken hostage. Immediately thereafter, Israel began an unrelenting bombardment and siege of Gaza in a military campaign that’s been condemned—almost universally—as disproportionate and indiscriminate. At the same time, leading Israeli government officials issued calls for vengeance and collective punishment against the Palestinian people. To date, over 26,000 Gazans have been killed (most of them women and children), tens of thousands more have been injured, hundreds of thousands now face starvation, and nearly all the residents of Gaza have been displaced from their homes (most of which have been destroyed, along with most schools and medical facilities). And just last week, the International Court of Justice ruled that it’s plausible Israel is perpetrating genocide against Palestinians in Gaza.

Back in late October, several leaders of the American Psychological Association’s Society for the Study of Peace, Conflict, and Violence (Division 48: Peace Psychology) drafted and endorsed a short statement, with the intention of having the division join the worldwide call for a ceasefire in Gaza. Their statement was entirely consistent with the division’s commitment to “the advancement of peace, non-violent conflict resolution, reconciliation, and the prevention of war and other forms of destructive conflict.” It highlighted the U.N. Secretary General’s own appeal for a humanitarian ceasefire, the release of hostages, and the delivery of relief to Gaza in order to curtail “an unfolding catastrophe.” It emphasized that there’s no military solution to the crisis, and that there can be no peace without justice. And it urged world leaders to help end the unimaginable suffering in Gaza.

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Guantanamo: An Enduring Stain

The infamous U.S. detention facility at Guantanamo Bay turns 22 this month. Its ugly history now spans an entire generation. For those who might not remember, on January 11, 2002, General Richard Myers described Guantanamo’s first arrivals as “people that would gnaw hydraulic lines in the back of a C-17 to bring it down” and Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld chimed in, “To be in an eight-by-eight cell in beautiful, sunny Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, is not inhumane.” 

Since then, 780 Muslim men and boys have been detained there; 30 still remain imprisoned today. And despite the repeated claims from the Bush Administration that only the “worst of the worst” became Guantanamo detainees, we now know that a very high percentage had no connection to terrorism. They were simply rounded up by local forces in Afghanistan and Pakistan and then handed over to U.S. forces in exchange for hefty bounty payments. In fact, hardly any of those brought to the island prison camp—and subjected to years of abusive treatment and confinement—have ever faced charges or trials. 

By the time Guantanamo opened, four months after the horrific terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, there were already clear signs that our government’s new “war on terror” would be propelled by gloves-off vengeance, with little respect for human rights and open disdain for international law. It’s hardly surprising, then, that Guantanamo detainees were soon subjected to severe isolation, sleep deprivation, forced nudity, sexual and cultural humiliation, hooding, 20-hour interrogations, and other forms of degrading mistreatment.

Not so readily anticipated was the fateful and misguided decision by leaders of the American Psychological Association (APA)—the world’s largest organization of psychologists—to quickly embrace the so-called war on terror. They seemingly saw it as an opportunity to heighten the profession’s profile and bring psychologists closer to the center of U.S. national security operations. And soon thereafter, psychologists were on the front lines at Guantanamo and elsewhere, contributing to a systematic plan of detainee abuse and torture—while for years the APA’s leadership insisted, contrary to evidence, that psychologists helped to keep these operations “safe, legal, ethical, and effective.”

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Will the American Psychological Association Ever Join the Ceasefire Call?

The shocking numbers of Palestinian civilians, many of them children, subjected to unimaginable horrors in Gaza—death, displacement, disease, starvation, and more—grow larger every day. And yet it seems that urgent calls for a humanitarian ceasefire still can’t be heard inside the headquarters of the American Psychological Association (APA), an organization that for years infamously failed to forcefully oppose the degrading abuse of U.S. war-on-terror prisoners and the involvement of psychologists in that abuse.

At this point, the APA has already missed the opportunity to be part of the civil society vanguard calling for a ceasefire in Gaza. Hundreds of organizations—including Amnesty International, Doctors Without Borders, Oxfam International, Save the Children, UNICEF, the United Nations General Assembly, the World Food Programme, the World Health Organization, and many other human rights groups, faith-based organizations, and labor unions—have taken that step, weeks ago. 

But it’s not too late for the APA to add its voice to this movement, and to encourage other influential professional associations—organizations the public looks to for guidance on contentious issues—to do the same. After all, beyond the unrelenting destruction of Gaza that’s starkly visible for all to see, APA leaders possess a heightened awareness of the dreadful psychological consequences of seemingly unfathomable violence and the intergenerational trauma that will inevitably follow. To state the obvious, remaining silent at this time casts doubt on the APA’s avowed commitment to “respect and promote human rights.” 

Hamas’s October 7th attacks that killed hundreds of Israeli civilians—with 200 more taken hostage and facing perilous prospects—were undeniably brutal and horrific. Nevertheless, these atrocities and the anguish of a grief-stricken nation do not justify the disproportionate and indiscriminate response from Israel’s government over the past three months. This is especially clear in light of public statements from Israeli officials that raise concerns of genocidal intent behind the bombardment, ground invasion, and siege of Gaza.

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APA Peace Psychologists Are Rebuffed in Their Call for a Humanitarian Ceasefire

As a longtime member of the American Psychological Association’s Society for Study of Peace, Conflict, and Violence (Division 48: Peace Psychology), I was heartened when the division’s leadership— following a special meeting and vote on November 1st—issued this brief statement in support of a humanitarian ceasefire in Gaza (emphasis in original):

We, as peace psychologists, join the calls from all around the world for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza.

We join the United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres in his appeal “for an immediate humanitarian ceasefire, together with the unconditional release of hostages and the delivery of relief at a level corresponding to the dramatic needs of the people in Gaza, where a humanitarian catastrophe is unfolding in front of our eyes.”

We, as peace psychologists, remind the world that there is no military solution to the current crisis. There can be no peace without justice.

We urge leaders around the world to call for an immediate humanitarian ceasefire to end the indescribable suffering and indiscriminate killing in Gaza.

Many distinguished international health and human rights groups—including the United Nations, Amnesty International, Oxfam International, Doctors Without Borders, the World Health Organization, and over 200 other organizations—had already called for an urgent and immediate humanitarian ceasefire. And it’s easy to understand why. Responding to Hamas’s horrific attacks on October 7th that brutally killed hundreds of Israeli civilians (with over 200 hostages), Israel has unleashed a devastating bombardment and assault on Gaza. The death toll to date is staggering: more than 15,000 Palestinians have been killed, including over 6,000 children. Thousands more remain missing, and the looming risk of disease imperils countless others. At the same time, essential civilian infrastructure—from hospitals to schools to entire neighborhoods—has been leveled to the ground. 

Causing further distress is the fact that key Israeli officials have made disturbing statements of their own, suggesting that neither the grievous loss of life nor the massive destruction has been inadvertent. The Israeli Prime Minister vowed “mighty vengeance” and described the conflict as “a struggle between the children of light and the children of darkness, between humanity and the law of the jungle.” Israel’s President said “It is an entire nation out there that is responsible.” A spokesperson for the Israel Defense Forces explained that “the emphasis is on damage, not accuracy.” And the Israeli Defense Minister announced “a complete siege on the Gaza Strip. There will be no electricity, no food, no fuel, everything is closed.”

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Professional Psychology, 22 Years After 9/11

For many Americans, the weeks and months following the attacks of September 11, 2001 were a volatile mixture of unbridled fear, staggering grief, patriotic fervor, and worldwide solidarity. We were distraught over possible future attacks, we sought ways to help those in greatest need, our country’s flag suddenly appeared everywhere, and we heard expressions of support—“We’re all Americans now!”—from around the globe.

For some of us, however, there was also a dark foreboding about how our government might respond to the carnage. And we soon learned that the new “war on terror” would be propelled by vengeance, with little respect for human rights and open disdain for international law. Indeed, the Bush Administration made this apparent that very first month, warning “Either you are with us, or you are with the terrorists,” “It’s going to be vital for us to use any means at our disposal,” and “After 9/11 the gloves come off.”

What wasn’t so clear was that my own profession—psychology—would take two sharply divergent paths during this early period, led by the American Psychological Association (APA). One was constructive, the other was not. On the high road, the APA helped to organize thousands of psychologists who offered their servicespro bono to families of 9/11 victims, to rescue workers, to schools uncertain how to help fearful and traumatized children, and more. These and similar endeavors were invaluable contributions to the country’s healing and recovery.

But the APA also eagerly sought out opportunities for psychologists to participate in counterterrorism efforts and expand the profession’s stature in the eyes of the US military-intelligence establishment. Not long thereafter, psychologists became involved in detention and interrogation operations—at secret CIA black sites, at Guantanamo Bay, and elsewhere—that were characterized by routinized abuse and sometimes by torture. Yet for years the APA’s leadership insisted that psychologists helped to keep these operations safe, legal, ethical, and effective. They were actually none of these things, as one disturbing report after another has painfully revealed.

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