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.
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