ISRAEL IS NOT YOUR SHRINK

“PRO-PALESTINIAN” ACTIVISTS MAY EXHIBIT PSYCHOLOGICAL DISORDERS. BUT ZIONISM IS NOT THE REASON THEIR LIVES ARE SHITTY.

Is anti-Israel activism a symptom of psychological disorder?

The pitch of anti-Israel hysteria in the world today is so irrational that race-hatred is the best explanation. There is simply no explanation for why the Jewish state evokes obsessive global vitriol when the most tyrannical forces on the planet completely escape the keen eyes of the foremost self-proclaimed defenders of justice and human rights.

The breadth of anti-Zionist activism can be explained by racism. But I have always struggled to explain something else that is an unavoidable characteristic of this activism.

It’s the depth of the fury that is so mysterious. I get that a lot of people get caught up in this issue. What is baffling is the level of sheer batshit bananas people go on this topic, when they manage to maintain some level of sanity on every other issue facing the world.

I have witnessed people frothing at the brain when they see us lighting memorial candles and singing and praying for Israeli hostages. I have watched people practically throw themselves from moving vehicles to scream obscenities at the sight of an Israeli flag.

On multiple occasions, while Jews and allies have marched through the streets of Vancouver, I have seen human beings turn into Tasmanian Devils in response to our very presence.

On one occasion, I felt a bit like a faith healer when a woman in a wheelchair practically propelled herself upright in frenzied outrage toward me when she encountered our vigil outside the Vancouver Art Gallery.

No other “issue” engenders this level of spittle-flying, vein-throbbing, nostril-flaring, seatbelt-straining, horn-assaulting volcanic emotion. Only Israel makes people soil themselves in indignation, transform into a rage hologram and emotionally combust.

This is more than “mere” racism. This is a sign of widespread psychological disorder.

I am going out on a limb here — I have fully one first-year psychology class (40 years ago) under my belt. But tell me if a lot of my theories don’t make as much sense as any other explanation for this seeming insanity.

People are projecting their personal emotional and psychological ailments onto Israel.

This should not be surprising. Let’s remember that, in our very civilizational DNA, European-descended peoples and Christians everywhere have been inculcated for 100 generations to project our sins, guilt, fears, disorders, shame, confusion, powerlessness and other business onto the body of a single Jew. A Jew has embodied central cosmic meaning in the life of every Christian for 2,000 years.

In a perverted twist on this reality, “Jews” have served a similar but different socio-psychological role in Western civilization. (These are not actual Jews, of course, but imaginary objects of the antisemitic imagination, although actual Jews have routinely been the targets of the accompanying wrath.)

Seeking answers to unanswerable questions, today’s generations have taken refuge in the same warm blanket of blame our ancestors used. Except blaming Jews became kind of stigmatized after 1945 among a portion of decent humanity, so we decanted that ancient wine into a new bottle labeled anti-Zionism.

Still, even racism cannot fully explain the behaviors we see among “pro-Palestinian” activists.

There is no doubt that the wildfire spread of the anti-Israel (or “pro-Palestinian”) movement hard on the heels of COVID is to some degree a response to social isolation and loneliness, the desperate need for people, especially the young who lost a year or more of socialization, to find a place of meaning and relevance.

Likewise, it is self-evident that many of the people involved in this cause have anger management issues. That is a diagnosis anyone can make by momentary observation.

Stepping onto thinner ice, it seems to me that maybe people who have experienced trauma or PTSD, who have been abused or bullied, may be reenacting some sort of revenge fantasy in which Israel takes on the identity of their persecutor. Can the extreme reactions to Israel, out of all proportion to actual events especially in comparison to other world events and exhibited in people with no direct connection to the region, be explained as unresolved effects from past traumatic events?

There are also possible effects around low self-esteem, self-harm and things like internalized hatred. Queers for Palestine is an example of people irrationally aligning with the very forces that condemn them and would, given the opportunity, murder them. Is this a manifestation of self-hatred? Parallels exist with Jewish anti-Zionists, whose internal workings and family traumas are cause for much speculation.

When things have gone wrong — economic collapse, extreme weather, epidemics, unexplained phenomena of any type — our ancestors blamed Jews. Now it’s the Jewish state. In a civilization that so often seems to have gone mad, we are all probably struggling with identity and existential concerns, pondering how we fit into a world where everything seems askew. In what may be today’s most widespread scapegoating conspiracy, Israel, in the eyes of anti-Zionists, is the fulcrum of all the world’s troubles and the lynchpin upon which global peace and human fulfillment rest. If only we solved the Palestinian problem (which requires triumphing over those infernal Jews) the rest of the world’s problems would dissolve into rainbows. This is a core underlying tenet of the anti-Zionist narrative. That is not rational political discourse. That is mental illness.

It is difficult also not to see compulsive or addictive behaviors at play. The myopic obsession with Israel and Palestine in a world that offers a kaleidoscope of traumas and injustices to choose from is a sort of pathological obsessiveness. The phrase “Free Palestine” can seem like a symptom of Tourette’s coming as it does almost involuntarily from the mouths of people who have no real knowledge of the issues or ability to find the flashpoint on a map.

Guilt and shame, I’m pretty sure, play invisible roles in many of our life decisions. We may not be aware of the ways our most deep-seated senses of childhood or other shame and guilt experiences impact our day-to-day responses to the world. There has never been a doubt in my mind that, collectively, the anti-Israel/”pro-Palestinian” movement is a response by the most privileged people in the world to rationalize and atone for their own excesses — excesses of wealth, of food, of clean water, of peace, of, well, everything — again by taking our guilt and shame and projecting it onto Jews, accusing the Jewish state of the very things of which we are guilty. Then crucifying it.

Antisemitism plays a role in the current inferno of hatred toward the Jewish state. (That accounts, perhaps, for the breadth of anti-Zionist raging.) But the depths of rage Israel evokes, I can only speculate, must be explained by something even more pathological, like undiagnosed psychoses and disorders.

Just as no one likes to be accused of racism and so chant things like “Anti-Zionism is not antisemitism,” being accused of exhibiting a psychological disorder will hardly invite the introspection that these “activists” so desperately need to undergo.

Nonetheless, at a minimum, we need to tell these people two things …

Zionism is not the reason your life is shitty.

And Israel is not your shrink.

*

A personal note …

I started this Substack because I thought my perspective as a progressive, gay, non-Jewish, Zionist Canadian offered something different to the dialogue about antisemitism, anti-Zionism, Palestinians and peace. It actually never crossed my mind that people might give me money for it. When people started generously subscribing and donating, I threw myself into this project more, partly because I am a writer by trade and I am still building my RSPs for some distant retirement. Based on online advice (!) I started making my Saturday posts for “Paid Subscribers Only.” But, I modestly acknowledge, each one is too delicious to paywall. So I am going to assume that, if you like my stuff and want more of it, you’ll give if you can. If not, please share. (Please share regardless!) No more paywalls. But there may be other incentives I could offer. Not sure what. Got any ideas? Do folks want to get together for online discussions or see me compile some of these posts as a book? Let me know. Meanwhile, enjoy! (If that is the right word for these sometimes dark musings.)

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