Sunday, December 24, 2023

Zionist Psychology 101

 There was an excellent #SARS2 thread recently on the psychology of COVID denial.   See: Mike Hoerger, PhD MSCR MBA on X: "As a clinical health psychologist, I notice that many people are using psychological defense mechanisms to downplay the risk of COVID. These are my Top 7 examples: 🧵 https://t.co/Fkal1FUw1w" / X (twitter.com)

So, as an MSW and someone who was in raised and left Zionism, I've decided to apply the same to Zionism. I'll go through and explain the defense mechanisms Zionists use.

#1 – Denial – Pretending a problem does not exist to provide artificial relief from anxiety.

  • Accusing Gazans of making up images or stories.
  • Making videos mocking Gazans.
  • Claiming Gazans have plenty of resources like food, water or electricity (even though the government of Israel has publicly stated cutting these off).  
  • Using the term war, instead of genocide or Holocaust.     
  • Saying media coverage is biased towards the Palestinians.   
  • Citing the Israeli government or IOF (IDF).    
  • Obsessing over one lie or misprint in a newspaper and generalizing it to everything related to Gaza or Palestinians.   
  • Dehumanizing Palestinians.

#2 – Projection – When someone takes what they are feeling and attempts to put it on someone else to artificially reduce their own anxiety.

  • Americans (or others in the diaspora) posting pictures of Israeli flags, especially as profile pictures.
  • "Stand with Israel"
  • Calling criticism of Israel antisemitism (could also be #3 displacement) 


#3 – Displacement – When someone takes their anxiety and redirects their discomfort toward someone or something else.

  • Irrational angry outbursts.
  • White people who are unhappy with their own lives taking out their anger on Gazans.
  • Telling Gaza supporters to go to Gaza.
  • Shaming, guilting or exiling Jews who don't support genocide ("What is wrong with you", You aren't really a Jew, etc).
  • Calling criticism of Israel antisemitism (could also be #2).
  • Blaming Hamas instead of Israel.
  • University witch hunts.

#4 – Compartmentalization – Holding two conflicting ideas or behaviors, such as caution and incaution, rather than dealing with the anxiety evoked by considering the incautious behaviors more deeply (hypocrisy)

  • Talking about reducing civilian "casualties of war" (when it is actually a genocide).
  • Rabbis or others stating concerns about the conditions of Palestinians while stating they support Israel.
  • Asking for understanding for those who "aren't ready for a ceasefire" rather than being concerned about how many people will die because of that.

#5 – Reaction formation – expressing artificial positive feelings when actually experiencing anxiety

  • Talk of how Gaza will be better when the "war" is over.
  • Articles about how a child in Gaza got medical care in Israel at sometime.
  • Talking about how the Jewish community is coming together to support each other (even though the opposite is true).

#6 – Rationalization – Artificially reducing anxiety through a weak justification.

  • Citing Hamas
  • Citing Oct 7
  • Citing Hostages
  • Claiming Israel is the only "safe" place for Jews (It isn't).
  • Zionist vegans citing Israel has more vegans than Palestine.
  • Citing or in many cases misciting issues like LGBQT rights or women's rights to justify killing Gazans.
  • Also, not Zionists but the silent: Not speaking up because it might offend people.
  • Also, not Zionists but the silent: Being more concerned with feelings of others than deaths.

#7 – Intellectualization – using extensive cognitive arguments to artificially circumvent genocide anxiety

  • Long rambling threads trying to justify genocide.
  • Long rambling articles trying to justify genocide.
  • Think tanks funded by or affiliated with AIPAC.
Other posts on Zionism:

Rachelle Kaufman is the author of a number of books including Amazon.com: An American Jew in Budapest eBook : Kaufman, Rachelle.   Having been brainwashed that "Israel is always right" from childhood, Rachelle has overcome that brainwashing to see the truth.   

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