Note: The following reflects my personal views and not those of any group with which I am affiliated.
In the days ahead you may hear about a new initiative for graduate school education in psychology, funded by the “Academic Engagement Network” (AEN) and led by two psychologists. It’s presented this way by its promoters:
Through curriculum development, faculty workshops, and an ongoing community of practice, the initiative will teach participants to recognize contemporary manifestations of antisemitism, understand the mental health impact of traumatic invalidation, and incorporate these insights into both training and clinical supervision.
That sounds like a potentially worthwhile endeavor. After all, antisemitism is certainly a very significant threat, especially on the political right, where Jew hatred is promoted by Christian nationalists, by white supremacists, and by the Trump administration itself. But it would be a serious mistake to think this new AEN initiative is anything more than another attempt by Israel advocates — adhering to Israeli propaganda guidelines and following the White House’s authoritarian playbook — to exert greater control over our universities by suppressing support for Palestinian rights and freedom. Simultaneously, this pilot project threatens to undermine the American Psychological Association’s (APA) commitment to culturally responsive training programs that advance justice and fairness.
More specifically, now almost three years after the horrific Hamas-led attacks on October 7, 2023, the initiative seems aimed at rehabilitating Israel’s post-10/7 image by portraying criticism of the country’s occupation, apartheid, ethnic cleansing, and ongoing genocide as “antisemitism” — and by presenting the American Jewish community as monolithic in its robust attachment to Israel. But actual survey data paint a very different picture. A poll of American Jews conducted just last month by the AP-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research reveals the following: only 20% say it’s antisemitic to criticize Israel, 30% say Israel has committed genocide in Gaza (and another 21% say they don’t know enough to say), and only 31% say they feel “extremely” or “very” emotionally attached to Israel.
For those unfamiliar with AEN, its self-described mission involves “mobiliz[ing] networks of university faculty and administrators to counter antisemitism, oppose the denigration of Jewish and Zionist identities, promote academic freedom, and advance education about Israel.” In all these realms, the primary focus is on defending Israel — not by explicating and justifying its policies but by attacking the bona fides of critics. Indeed, AEN’s agenda becomes even clearer when we recognize that its fiscal sponsor is the “Israel Campus Coalition.” That umbrella organization’s mission is “to inspire American college students to see Israel as a source of pride and empower them to stand up for Israel on campus” and its vision includes “creat[ing] a positive atmosphere for Israel on campus today so that we can ensure a thriving U.S.-Israel relationship in the future.” Nowhere is there any indication that these goals might be most appropriately pursued by pressuring Israel to abandon its horrific actions in Gaza, the West Bank, Lebanon, and Syria.
As for the two psychologists leading this initiative, they may be excellent clinicians and educators but their approach to antisemitism appears to revolve around a zealous defense of Israel — and that’s what matters here. For example, they’ve objected to the APA’s new resolution on antisemitism — which describes antisemitism as involving “hostility, prejudice, discrimination, harassment, hatred, or violence against Jews as Jews” — because it excludes anti-Zionism from the definition. They’ve been featured speakers at the annual conference of the militantly right-wing “Israel Emergency Alliance” (an organization doing business in the U.S. as “StandWithUs”). Testifying during a state hearing on antisemitism, one of these psychologists explained that she was frightened because members of the progressive groups Jewish Voice for Peace and Code Pink were seated in the audience behind her. The other leader has written that wearing a keffiyeh, a common way to show support for Palestinian rights, “represents a threatening gesture to Jews.” Both have criticized the APA for including a social justice framework in its ethics code, and they’ve warned of the harm associated with including social justice-oriented advocacy and activism as components of graduate training. (The Trump Administration must be smiling.)
Moreover, these two psychologists (and others) have accused the APA of “systemic” and “virulent” antisemitism, based predominantly on colleagues’ criticisms of Israel and support for Palestinian rights. They also appear to welcome the congressional investigation that such complaints have now spawned, with one of them saying the investigation “was needed a long time ago” and the other describing it approvingly as “a cautionary tale for future leaders.” It’s worth highlighting that this particular congressional committee includes members who have said things like “Israel has a biblical right to the entire West Bank”; “If you bless the Jewish people, you will be blessed…If you curse the Jewish people, you will be cursed”; “‘Palestinian’ is just another word for demon”; and Palestinians should just “starve away.”
To make matters worse, the two project leaders seem unaware of their own lack of objectivity, even though they’re quick to perceive it in others. As one example, they bemoan “ideological capture” and “identity-based bias” among some members of our profession, but they apparently have trouble accepting data that conflict with their misguided conception of Israel, Zionism, and Judaism as a single category. They’ve written, for instance, that “85% of American Jews identify as Zionists; it is a core aspect of their identity.” However, in contradiction to their claims, last month’s AP-NORC poll revealed that only 23% of American Jews said “Zionist” describes them “extremely” or “very” well, and only 36% said supporting Israel is “extremely” or “very” important to their Jewish identity.
In similar fashion, these two psychologists laud “scientific neutrality” and disparage deficiencies in “empirical reasoning.” Yet when antisemitism-focused research papers produce “findings” that accord with their own beliefs, they seem quite comfortable citing and promoting such studies even when the research appears to suffer from serious methodological flaws and other shortcomings of scholarship. And to take an even more disturbing example, while these psychologists write about the “public health risks” from therapeutic approaches they don’t like, as far as I know they’ve been completely silent regarding the much more severe public health disaster that Israel has created for Palestinians in Gaza:malnutrition, dehydration, infectious diseases, rotting garbage, raw sewage, chemical contamination, rodent and insect infestations, and the intentional widespread destruction of hospitals, primary care facilities, and mental health centers.
In sum, it seems obvious that psychology graduate students won’t actually benefit from a new curriculum that uses indoctrination in an effort to transform Israel from pariah state to paragon — while ignoring the daily atrocities it commits against Palestinians. By all appearances, this program will be welcomed only by administrators, faculty, and students who share the desire to suppress disturbing realities about Israel’s war crimes and Palestinian suffering. Of particular note, the proposed training will specifically include a focus on “traumatic invalidation” — a distressing experience reported by some Jewish clients when seeking psychological support from some healthcare professionals. Yet in all likelihood, it will omit a far more consequential form of traumatic invalidation: collective silence over the erasure of the Palestinian people. If this new AEN initiative doesn’t yet have a slogan, I’d suggest this one from Orwell’s dystopian novel 1984: “War is Peace. Freedom is Slavery. Ignorance is Strength.”