Anti-Zionist Psychosis
I propose that those who accuse Zionists of “settler psychosis” actually suffer from “folie antisémite à plusieurs,” an antisemitic group delusional disorder.
Please consider supporting our mission to help everyone better understand and become smarter about the Jewish world. A gift of any amount helps keep our platform free of advertising and accessible to all.
This is a guest essay written by Dr. Rae who writes the newsletter, “Dr. Truthfinder.”
You can also listen to the podcast version of this essay on Apple Podcasts, YouTube Music, YouTube, and Spotify.
It has come to my attention that the anti-Israel crowd has bandied around the term “settler psychosis” to describe Zionists.
And it sure is fun to to use a superficial understanding of psychology to objectify those you don’t agree with.
For example, I could say, “Clearly, Gazans and their supporters are suffering from castration complexes” — a psychoanalytic term indicating that males subconsciously fear removal of their genitals because they have an Oedipal complex (the subconscious desire to kill their fathers and marry their mothers). This can cause extreme anger and hostility.
“Anti-Zionists” subconsciously project onto Israelis their fears of harsh, punishing fathers. That is why Gazans repeatedly try to murder Israelis, and terrorist supporters angrily picket and terrorize Jews on college campuses.
Male Gazans sublimate their desires to marry their mothers by forcing women to cover themselves from head to toe and remain segregated from men.
Women agree to this because they are suffering from their own Electra complexes — the subconscious desire to kill their mothers and marry their fathers. To hide from this, they make themselves sexless.
Who could prove me wrong?
This is dogma; there is no way to prove or disprove my arguments. If you cry foul, I could accuse you of being in even more denial of your pathology.
That’s how critical race theory1 works — if you say you’re racist, then of course you are racist. If you say you’re not racist, it means you are even more racist and pathological because you are in denial of your racism. Lest you think that my analysis sounds like fantastical psychobabble, I assure you that I have read articles by well-published Palestinian professors with very similar talking points about Israelis.
So what do pro-terrorist pedagoges mean when they accuse Zionists of “settler psychosis”?
This is the American Psychological Association’s definition of a psychotic disorder:
“… any of a number of severe mental disorders, regardless of etiology, characterized by gross impairment in reality testing. The accuracy of perceptions and thoughts is incorrectly evaluated, and incorrect inferences are made about external reality, even in the face of contrary evidence.”
Note: “Settler psychosis” is not mentioned.
I failed to find an exact definition of “settler psychosis” — with the exception of “prairie madness,” the depression and agitation suffered by 19th-century settlers of the Great Plains2 due to isolation.
However, “settler psychosis” is a great defense against those who accuse you of antisemitism. This was the response of Dr. Lara Sheehi who, after being fired from the George Washington University’s department of psychology for discrimination against Israeli and Jewish students, now teaches in Qatar. Her definition of “settler psychosis” is:
“… a structure of power constitutively intending to harm. Organized around the logic of domination, exploitation, and racial and ethnic hierarchies, settler colonialism necessitates a persistent repetition-compulsion consisting of harmful practices that displace indigenous life, intrude on physical and psychic sovereignty, and physically maim or create debility.”
“The repetition-compulsion is key, and yet, unlike its Freudian origins, is not unconscious, but rather pointed, purposeful, and shored up by juridical, social, political, economic, and relational processes and structures.”
“The settler colonial repetition-compulsion is organized around a constellation of actions that aim to turn the settler into native while invading the psychic province of being. One such action is political intimidation and repression of academics and activists in the settler colony of the U.S. and across Europe in what, since October 7, 2023, has been called ‘a new McCarthyism.’”
After George Washington University students complained about her graduate diversity/psychology class, she apparently ranted to faculty about them; they were actually forced to apologize for their “racism.” Talk about political intimidation!
Jewish and Israeli students were ironically discriminated against in a mandatory first-year class about diversity. There are several online examples of her expletive-laced tweets against Zionists.
What a great defense! When accused of antisemitism, just spout out a logorrhea of intellectualized jargon explaining that the complaints are a “paranoid extension of settler colonial outposts.”
I am a Zionist, and I am not psychotic. But how can I prove that to you when you’ve never met me? Hopefully, this essay is clear and goal-directed enough to indicate that I’m sane. But it makes one feel oh-so-superior to use a bunch of psychobabble jargon on people you wish to diminish.
So it gives me great pleasure to introduce the new diagnosis of “folie antisémite à plusieurs.” Some readers may be familiar with folie à deux, a French term meaning a shared delusion between two people. For example, a psychotic person may convince a spouse that they both need to wear tinfoil hats because aliens are beaming messages into their heads.
I propose that those who accuse Zionists of “settler psychosis” actually suffer from “folie antisémite à plusieurs,” an antisemitic group delusional disorder.
Who actually has impaired reality testing? Well, originally some people were convinced that early Zionists were irrational. Who would have thought it possible for Jews to regain their lost kingdom?
Freud initially thought they were delusional to attempt to return to a land in which they were at risk of massacre. (Another thing that he was wrong about was claiming that children who accused their parents of sexual abuse were just fantasizing because they suffered from Oedipal Complexes.)
But Jews from outside Israel did successfully migrate back to their homeland. They used scientific methods to irrigate desert land, taught Arabs advanced agricultural techniques, drained swamps to cure malaria, helped cure river blindness, introduced more protein into the Arab diet by superior poultry breeding, created many centers for higher learning, including the Psychoanalytic Society in 1934, and won every battle against them.
All of this indicates clear-headed, rational, organized thinking.
The Palestinian Arabs were convinced by their elite leaders, who were vying for supremacy by finding scapegoats, that Jews were trying to destroy them, defile their women, poison their wells, and raze their mosques. They believed the lies from the forged document, “The Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion,” that Jews were conspiring to appoint the Antichrist to rule the world. The elite leaders infected them with mass delusion.
Dr. Lara Sheehi accuses Zionists of “repetition-compulsion.” Seriously? The term describes the concept of recreating earlier traumatic events in an attempt to master the situation, for example, a person who was abused by a parent subconsciously repeatedly choosing a new abusive partner, in the hope that this time will be different.
Zionists have not been repeating the same maladaptive patterns. They have continued to thrive. The Palestinians’ actions are the very definition of repetition-compulsion, metaphorically giving themselves brain damage by repeatedly hitting their heads against a mountain, expecting it to fall.
Action: Attack Jews in the 1800s and early 1900s. Result: Convince the United Nations that Jews and Arabs must have separate states. Action: Attack Jews in the 1940s. Result: convince the UN to make a formal partition plan. Action: Attack Jews in 1948. Result: Lose a big chunk of the land earmarked for you. Action: Attack Israel in 1967. Result: Lose even more land. Action: Attack Israelis in the from 1987 to 2005. Result: increasingly robust security barriers. Action: Attack Israel in 2023. Result: destruction of much of Gaza.
Long story short: Attack the Jews and lose, ad nauseam. That, my friends, is psychotic repetition-compulsion.
An obviously mentally ill person recently responded to one of my essays. They quickly typed several comments in a manic manner, accusing “my people” of various misdeeds, posting obviously doctored videos, misquotes from the Torah, and chapters and verse numbers from a nonexistent “Book of Moses” that any sane person would have immediately identified as fake.
This made me wonder on the interplay between psychology and skewed views about Israel.
I have identified the following defense mechanisms of “anti-Zionists”:
1) Denial: Refusing to Accept Reality
Israel is here to stay. Your surprise attacks, campus protests, and theatrical hostage exchanges won’t change that fact.
Other examples of denial include claiming that Jerusalem was never the ancient Jewish capital, that Jews aren’t the descendents of the original Israelites, or that Jews aren’t indigenous to Israel.
2) Displacement: Taking Out One’s Emotions on a Less-Threatening Target
For example, kicking the dog after being yelled at by your boss, or Gazans attacking Israelis because their leaders stole the money and food meant to improve their lives. Also: strangling Israeli babies with their bare hands.
3) Deflection: Blaming Someone Else for Your Own Failures
The Palestinians were exploited by the leaders of the Arab world, who wanted to rule a greater Syria, convinced them to attack Palestinian Jews, and refused to negotiate peace so the Palestinians could return. Instead, they blame Israel.
4) Projection: Attributing Your Own Unacceptable Emotions to Someone Else
Palestinians want to ethnically cleanse Jews from the region; thus they accuse Israelis of wanting to ethnically cleanse Palestinians. Palestinian Arabs violently massacred Palestinian Jews, but now claim it was the Jews who massacred them.
5) Passive Aggression: Resisting Using Passive Means Because of the Inability to Express Anger Directly
When the UN tried to resettle refugees in the 1940s, the Palestinians — unlike all the other refugees — refused to participate in the rehabilitation programs that would have integrated them into surrounding countries, and the surrounding Arab countries invented sudden reasons why the Palestinians couldn’t resettle there, such as claiming that Bedouins abruptly wanted to settle in all of the free land.
6) Splitting: Dividing People Into All Good or All Bad
Palestinians and their supporters see themselves as noble natives and Israelis as evil colonists — also an example of the defense mechanism of fantasy.
7) Intellectualization: Using Logic and Facts to Avoid Uncomfortable Emotions
Both the Qur’an and the Bible acknowledge the Israel is the homeland of the Jews. The Bible documents that ancient Jerusalem was the holy city of the Jews. Archeological findings throughout the region support this. Yet Palestinians and their supporters deny that Jews are indigenous. That is psychotic.
The Arab world attacked Israel multiple times. Israel offered peace multiple times, even trying to trade land for it. But the Palestinians and their supporters insist that Israelis were the violent aggressors and Palestinians the innocent victims. That is psychotic.
Surviving and thriving is inherent to the rational human condition. Teaching your children since toddlerhood that their highest goal is die as “martyrs” by murdering Jews is psychotic.
Hamas and their colleagues viciously attacked Israel on October 7, 2023, committing horrific rape, torture, murder, and kidnapping. Their crimes were even documented in gleefully published videos. Yet they claim that it is Israel raping, torturing, and murdering Palestinians, and their supporters believe them. That is psychotic.
Thinking you will get away with horrible atrocities by hiding behind schools, hospitals, and mosques is psychotic.
Believing that you will live forever in paradise for murdering Israeli children is psychotic.
Thinking you have any room for negotiation when the people you attacked soundly defeated you is psychotic.
Thinking that there would be peace if only Israelis were nicer to Palestinians, as was announced at yesterday’s Academy Awards, is psychotic. Palestinian Arabs were trying to ethnically cleanse Jews from the region long before Jews started defensive actions. The majority of Palestinians want a one state solution only.
Hamas can’t decide on a coherent narrative of lies. That is psychotic.
They published videos of cachectic hostages begging to be released, pleading that they were being starved and mistreated, but later, contradicted their scheme by fattened-up hostages just before their release to pretend that they were actually well-treated. They forced hostages to read speeches praising their captors. They forced them to smile and wave and even kiss the head of one of the terrorists.
They published propaganda articles in the Arab press that the released hostages completely agreed with them, and were grateful for their wonderful treatment. They claim on Al Jazeera that they are winning the war, that Israel is disintegrating and will soon disappear.
They constructed a giant poster of the Israeli prime minister as a vampire with the floating smiling heads of the Bibas mother and children surrounded by blood on his torso. Any competent mental health professional would tell you these are the ravings of a psychotic mind.
So, yes, I too can weaponize psychological terminology to “prove” that my detractors are lunatics. But I can’t administer psychological testing on every Palestinian and supporter, so I can’t actually prove anything. I can’t prove that people who believe in “Zionist settler psychosis” are actually psychotic themselves, although I can certainly suspect it.
A good psychologist, as most are, can save lives. An incompetent psychologist can ruin them. A psychologist who teaches that Zionists are psychotic is committing malpractice, and making the Palestinian situation worse.
The Israelis, who have defeated every attempt to destroy them, who have made brilliant discoveries and won several Nobel prizes, are exceedingly sane. Those who repeatedly try to destroy Israel and lose more every time are not thinking coherently.
What is the cure for irrational thinking?
I suggest population-based cognitive therapy, an evidence-based treatment that has been shown to be very effective for a variety of psychiatric conditions. A good therapist can help a patient identify cognitive distortions that are interfering with functioning and correct them to help them lead happier lives. The following are common cognitive distortions of “anti-Zionists”:
1) Self-Serving Bias
Attributing anything good that happens to you; attributing anything bad that happens to outside forces. For example, believing that Arabs made historical “Palestine” a paradise before the Jews ruined everything — ignoring the poverty, disease, and starvation of the 19th century, and discounting the improvements made by Jews.
2) Polarized Thinking
Palestinians are perfect; Israelis are evil.
3) Overgeneralization
Finding one example of an Israeli committing a crime and concluding that all Israelis are criminals.
4) Personalization
Misinterpreting Israelis defending themselves against terrorists who tortured, raped, and murdered their friends and family as Israelis wanting to commit genocide against Palestinians.
5) Labeling
Deciding that anyone who disagrees with you is psychotic, and anyone who agrees with you is a brilliant freedom fighter.
6) Catastrophizing
Calling your failed attempt to attack and ethnically cleanse Jews a catastrophe, instead of accepting responsibility for your actions and making rational choices moving forward.
7) Emotional Reasoning
Believing that Israelis are evil colonial oppressors and Palestinians are noble indigenous victims because “it feels right” — despite historical documentation contradicting this.
So, how to correct these maladaptive patterns? The answer is obvious to any rational person: stop attacking Israel and agree to a permanent peace.
Please note: This essay is meant to be semi-satirical and not necessarily educational or therapeutic in any way. If you actually believe that “settler psychosis” is real, please contact a competent mental health professional for treatment. If you would like to learn more about the cognitive distortions and defense mechanisms of “anti-Zionists,” please let me know in the comments section; I can give many more examples.
A field focused on the relationships between social conceptions of race and ethnicity, social and political laws, and mass media
A broad expanse of flatland in North America
The article may be "semi-satirical" as you say, but it is more than semi- right on!
This was a wonderfully entertaining article. But as I have said many times before in this forum, I am a simple guy, having only taken Psych 101 in college. Therefore, I say we tell them all to kiss our collective a##$#, smash the daylights out of them, and then talk about their mental health.