Dante and Virgil witnessing Vanno Fucci, the pillager of a church in Pistoia, being attacked by the monster Cacus.

Note: This essay is adapted from the author’s August address at the American Psychological Association annual convention and from awebinarhe presented in early September. The webinar includes many visual depictions of the topics discussed here.

Welcome everyone. I’m Roy Eidelson, president of the Society for the Study of Peace, Conflict, and Violence — Division 48 of the American Psychological Association (APA). Thank you all for being here. At the outset, I want to emphasize that I am speaking only for myself, and that I’ll be sharing my own perspective and opinions on the issues I’ll be discussing. I am not speaking on behalf of Division 48 or any other individual or group.

We meet today amid an alarming constellation of global trends, including the burgeoning repression of human rights, escalating threats to vulnerable groups, and the rise of authoritarian leaders who seemingly take pleasure in the pain, cruelty, and humiliation they inflict on those they deem to be lesser, disposable, and exploitable for political and financial gain.

Almost 60 years ago, one of Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr’s final speeches, just months before his assassination, was at the APA convention in 1967. In part, he told the assembled psychologists this: “On some positions cowardice asks the question, ‘Is it safe?!’ Expediency asks the question, ‘Is it politic?’ Vanity asks the question, ‘Is it popular?’ But conscience must ask the question, ‘Is it right?!’ And there comes a time when one must take a stand that is neither safe, nor politic, nor popular. But one must take it because it is right.” Two years earlier, in 1965, Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel was among those who marched arm-in-arm with Dr. King from Selma to Montgomery, Alabama, across the Edmund Pettus Bridge, advocating for voting rights for Black Americans. Back then, Heschel reminded us that, in a free society, “few are guilty, but all are responsible.”

In my view, we cannot take righteous stands or honor our responsibilities to others — as citizens and as psychologists in this country — if we look away from the devastation unfolding in so many critical areas where psychological principles, research, ethics, and practice apply. Consider these examples:

• The heartless offensive against the right to healthcare, including cuts to Medicaid, misinformation about vaccines, and the defunding of medical research.

• The racism-fueled attacks on the principles and policies of diversity, equity, and inclusion, which will subvert progress toward greater opportunity for marginalized and disadvantaged groups.

• The implementation of a cruel and brutal program of mass deportations, one that traumatizes immigrants while tearing apart families and futures.

• The reckless, greed-driven, let-it-all-burn onslaught on the environment, denying climate change, accelerating pollution, and abandoning conservation.

• The pursuit of restrictions on voting rights, that will deprive millions of the opportunity to fully participate in elections central to the preservation of democracy itself.

• The contemptible assault on the LGBTQ community, especially transgender individuals by denying them appropriate medical treatment and the right to live their lives fully and authentically.

• The imposition of draconian restrictions on reproductive rights, including the further curtailing of access to abortion, contraception, and relevant educational resources.

• The tyrannical assault on our education system and on support for the free inquiry and independent scholarship that are foundational to our institutions of higher learning.

• Crackdowns against students and faculty who non-violently exercise their free speech rights in an effort to defend vulnerable communities here and around the world.

• The strangling of funding for scientific research, the gold standard for advancing knowledge as a means to alleviate suffering and improve the quality of life for millions.

• The authoritarian discrediting of judges, intimidation of law firms, non-compliance with court orders, and targeting of political adversaries, all undermining our legal system.

• The autocratic offensive against the press and media that will deprive people of access to valuable independent reporting and educational programming.

• Oppressive attacks on the welfare of workers — including instituting mass layoffs, denying them the benefits of unionization, and subjecting them to unfair labor practices.

• The disruption of trust and cooperation with international allies and institutions, thereby threatening crucial treaties, blocking access to humanitarian aid, and encouraging heightened militarism and lawlessness around the globe.

The sources of distress and injustice I’ve highlighted demonstrate the breadth and depth of the current onslaught against values and priorities that psychologists — and certainly peace psychologists — hold dear. So, when I say we must not look away, I mean we must not look away from the carnage; from the victims; from the perpetrators; from the lies that cause the victims to become victims and enable the perpetrators to continue being perpetrators; from the sources of impunity; and from the greed and self-interest that propel so much of what’s wrong today.

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Anyone who has not been looking away for the past 23 months will realize that all of these markers have been part of Israel’s assault on the Palestinian people in Gaza, ever since the Hamas-led attacks in Israel on October 7, 2023, when almost 1,200 civilians and soldiers were killed and 250 were taken hostage. No account of what I say here today can legitimately claim that I failed to acknowledge or condemn the atrocities committed that day, or that I chose to minimize the horrors and the deep and lasting fear and trauma they have caused so many. I acknowledge them, I condemn them, and I do not minimize them.

But I do not pretend that the Palestinian people haven’t suffered under a dehumanizing system of apartheid and an immiserating unlawful occupation for decades. It was shortly after the 1967 Six-Day War that Amos Oz — the distinguished Israeli author and intellectual — wrote, “Even an enlightened and humane and liberal occupation is an occupation. I fear for the quality of the seeds we sow in the near future in the hearts of the occupied. More than that, I fear for the seed that is being sown in the heart of the occupiers. And the first signs are already recognizable now.”

I also do not avoid the term genocide in describing Israel’s unconscionable response to October 7th. Far more authoritatively, neither do an overwhelming and steadily increasing number of distinguished genocide scholars and human rights groups**,**including Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, Doctors Without Borders, and B’Tselem, among many others. One of these scholars is Israeli-American historian Omer Bartov. This past summer, he wrote in a New York Times op-ed, “My inescapable conclusion has become that Israel is committing genocide against the Palestinian people.”

So, as tragic and nightmarish violence overtakes so many regions of the world today — from Sudan to Ukraine to Myanmar to Kashmir and well beyond — some may sincerely ask why, as a peace psychologist, I choose to bring heightened attention to Israel and Palestine in particular. I want to offer five specific reasons. But before doing so, I’ll note that, because of some unique and deeply disturbing dynamics, which I’ll describe shortly, in my opinion it is Israel and Palestine that confront the American Psychological Association with both its greatest challenge and its most significant moral test today.

Now, my five reasons. First, consider that the United Nations International Children’s Emergency Fund, UNICEF, has called Gaza the most dangerous place in the world to be a child. More than 17,000 children — 1,000 under the age of one year — have been killed there over the past 23 months of unrelenting assault by the so-called Israel Defense Forces. From bullets, from bombs, from disease, and from being starved to death.

If I took only ten seconds to name each of these children, it would take me two full days, 48 hours. And even then, most of us — including me — would only know their names. Not who they were. Not what they liked. Not who they loved and who loved them. And not who or what they dreamed of becoming. So let’s remember what James Baldwin, the renowned critic of race relations in this country, wrote almost a half-century ago: “The children are always ours, every single one of them, all over the globe; and I am beginning to suspect that whoever is incapable of recognizing this may be incapable of morality.”

My second reason. Because as a Jew I’ve been taught that to save a single life is to save an entire world. Of course, Israel didn’t build this core tenet of the Jewish faith into its high-tech Lavender and “Where’s Daddy” AI systems, designed to track targets and then bomb them afterthey’ve entered their homes, wiping out entire families. And that tenet is just as obviously lost on the IDF soldiers who have reportedly gunned down desperate parents at under-supplied and overwhelmed emergency food distribution sites in Gaza.

In contrast, someone who does understand this principle is Palestinian poet Rasha Abdulhadi. She has written, “Wherever you are, whatever sand you can throw on the gears of genocide, do it now. If it’s a handful, throw it. If it’s a fingernail full, scrape it out and throw. Get in the way however you can. The elimination of the Palestinian people is not inevitable. We can refuse with our every breath and action. We must.” And there’s this, from Jewish Israeli historian Yuval Harari: “Judaism never faced a catastrophe like we are dealing with right now, which is a spiritual catastrophe for Judaism itself. Because what is happening right now in Israel could basically, I think, destroy, void 2,000 years of Jewish thinking and culture and existence.”

My third reason. Because in important ways, what has happened and is happening in Gaza — and the West Bank — is a microcosm of so much that’s profoundly wrong today. That’s why it’s central to movements for social justice and liberation around the world. Francesca Albanese, the courageous UN Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Palestinian territories occupied since 1967, has described this better than I can, writing, “Palestine is a mirror held up to the world’s moral and political failures.” And so has American political activist, professor, and authorAngela Davis, who has said, “We deposit our dreams in Palestine.”

My fourth reason. Because this country, the United States, and both of its major political parties have been so thoroughly and calamitously complicit in the genocide. How? By providing political and diplomatic cover in vetoing any number of UN Security Council ceasefire resolutions. And by providing Israel with billions of dollars of munitions — despite compelling evidence that these weapons are being used indiscriminately against civilians in violation of U.S. and international law. It is bitterly ironic that the weaponry used by Israel includes U.S. Apache and Blackhawk helicopters — named after Indigenous peoples that were subjected to genocide in this country. Meanwhile, the U.S. mainstream media doesn’t deserve a free pass — it certainly bears significant responsibility as well.

And my fifth reason. Because as psychologists most of us have core commitments to providing healthcare or education, or both. And Israel’s assault on Gaza has specifically and intentionally destroyed these essential elements for a society’s survival. As psychologists, we should be horrified by the deliberate destruction of Gaza’s healthcare facilities and the targeting of healthcare personnel. And as psychologists we should be similarly distraught over the systematic destruction of Gaza’s educational institutions. Nearly all of them have been damaged or destroyed — including all 12 universities — and hundreds of Palestinian educators and scholars have been killed.

I want to pause here for a moment to say that I’ve learned so much from the courage of individuals like Mahmoud Kahlil, Rumeysa Ozturk, and Mohsen Mahdawi. And from groups like Jewish Voice for Peace, If Not Now, Breaking the Silence, and Psychologists for Justice in Palestine, among others, that have refused to be silent about this genocide despite the risks they face. I am committed to speaking out too. As someone blessed with many privileges, at this rather ripe age I’m still trying to learn how not to waste them.

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So, then what happens when you speak publicly about the painful truth of genocide in Gaza? What happens when you mention, for example, a May 2025 poll of Israeli Jews — not American Jews — showing that 82% said they support the forced expulsion of all Palestinians from Gaza? Or a poll from this past July showing that 79% of Israeli Jews — again, not American Jews — said they’re not even “somewhat” troubled by reports of famine and suffering in Gaza?At the same time, I want to recognize, with appreciation, that there is a beleaguered community of Israeli Jews who, for months and months, have desperately but futilely pushed for a permanent ceasefire.

Well, when you share disturbing figures like those I just mentioned Israel’s staunchest defenders immediately kick their seemingly insatiable Antisemitism Outrage Machine into high gear. It appears to have one primary purpose: to misrepresent legitimate criticism of Israel and expressions of support for Palestinian lives as antisemitic, and to punish those who refuse to be silent. In small ways, I’ve come to know this first-hand. Tragically, in doing so Israel’s defenders downplay and distract us from the very serious threat posed by real antisemitism which, according to the Jerusalem Declaration on Antisemitism, is “discrimination, prejudice, hostility or violence against Jews as Jews.” That definition has been endorsed by over 300 scholars of Holocaust history, Jewish studies, and Middle East studies.

But many individuals and groups focused on defending Israel are seemingly more concerned about phrases that make some Jewish students uncomfortable on campus than they are about the IDF’s indiscriminate assault that has left so many children in Gaza maimed, lifeless, or orphaned. To be clear, I do not believe students should be harassed on campus because they’re Jewish. That is antisemitism, period. And it does happen — but not nearly to the extent some would like us to believe.Worthy of note, “Jewbelong,” the same advocacy group responsible for those “Jewish Students Deserve to Be Safe on Campus” billboards and lawn signs across parts of the country, also continues to falsely claim that babies were beheaded on October 7th— an inflaming fabrication that was completely debunked almost two years ago.

So, with a new school year underway here in the United States, bear this in mind: the most dangerous and powerful engines spreading antisemitism today are not anti-genocide protesters on college campuses. No, they are the White Christian Nationalists, the neo-Nazis, and the government of Israel itself, which insists that its horrific actions in Gaza are being undertaken on behalf of all Jews around the world. To which I join many other Jews in saying, “Not in Our Name.”

In fact, according to recent polling, a representative sample of American Jews recognizes that antisemitism is a greater threat from the political right than the political left. A majority of American Jews also describe Donald Trump himself as “antisemitic.” Perhaps they remember when Trump described some of the white supremacists marching through Charlottesville, Virginia chanting “Jews will not replace us” as, in his words, “very fine people.” Most American Jews also oppose the Trump Administration’s duplicitous agenda in which universities are threatened with defunding and protesters with abduction in the guise of “fighting antisemitism.” They realize that these actions are more likely to increase rather than decrease antisemitism.

There’s one exception to this pattern: the highly observant subgroup of Orthodox Jews in the United States. Unlike the vast majority of American Jews, they alone are enthusiastic about Trump and his policies. So, of course, Trump has nominated an ultra-Orthodox Jew, Yehuda Kaploun — who raised millions of dollars for his re-election campaign — to be the next special envoy to monitor and combat antisemitism around the world.

As starvation and death have spread every day in Gaza, it seems Israel advocacy groups like the Anti-Defamation League and AIPAC, doxing groups like Canary Mission and Betar US, and far too many craven and self-serving politicians have simply ramped up their claims of antisemitism in order to defend Israel and punish those who criticize its genocidal assault. Even more troubling, in my opinion two groups comprised of fellow psychologists — the “Association of Jewish Psychologists” and “Psychologists Against Antisemitism” — seem to be following their lead. And despite any claims otherwise, these two psychology groups do not represent the diverse American Jewish community — or the equally diverse community of Jewish psychologists. I wish APA leaders could understand this. In fact, as far back as 18 months ago, polling showed that more American Jews supported a permanent ceasefire in Gaza than opposed one. But I believe neither of these two psychology groups has publicly expressed similar support for a ceasefire, at any point. Is it unreasonable to ask why?

Indeed, one of these two psychology groups — the Association of Jewish Psychologists — issued what I personally consider a stunning statement after the October 7th attacks. It seemingly criticized the APA for opposing the collective punishment of the Palestinian people. This group’s board of directors wrote that it was “terribly naïve” for the APA to assert that “there can be no justification for cutting off access to basic necessities, such as electricity, food, and medicine.” To the best of my knowledge, this group has never issued a public retraction or apology for that stance. I believe it’s well past time that they do both. Instead, this same group is now trying to obtain a seat on the APA’s governing Council of Representatives.

In sharp contrast, this past July, the Central Conference of American Rabbis, representing more than 1.5 million Jews in the United States, stated: “Denying basic humanitarian aid crosses a moral line. Blocking food, water, medicine, and power — especially for children — is indefensible.” Meanwhile, in a recent radio interview, Israel’s Heritage Minister said, “The government is racing ahead for Gaza to be wiped out…All Gaza will be Jewish” and he added, “There’s no hunger in Gaza…But we don’t need to be concerned with hunger in the Strip. Let the world worry about it.”

The other psychology group — Psychologists Against Antisemitism — has accused the APA of “systemic” and “virulent” antisemitism, apparently because some APA members and divisions —including Division 48 — have expressed concern and outrage over the horrors unfolding in Palestine. In a newspaper article, one of the leading voices in that psychology group outrageously described the APA this way: “Several [APA] divisions have specialized in the kind of hot Jew-hatred that once prevailed at German and at other European universities in the Nazi era.” Reportedly, another member of this psychology group recently made the preposterous suggestion that wearing a keffiyeh is comparable to someone dressing in the white hood of the Ku Klux Klan.

It was also disturbing to me to learn that members of this same psychology group have reportedly encouraged the Trump Administration’s so-called antisemitism task force to target the APA. As relevant background, the head of that task force is Leo Terrell. Terrell has compared the Black Lives Matter movement to ISIS and has complained about “anti-white” and “anti-Christian” bias on college campuses.

At this point, I believe the absurdity of the wholesale and reckless antisemitism charges against pro-Palestinian advocates — and the APA — has reached Alice-in-Wonderland heights. After all, it was Alice who once asked Humpty Dumpty how he could make words mean so many different things. To which he replied, “When Iuse a word, it means just what I choose it to mean—neither more nor less.” Humpty Dumpty is long gone. But I think his tactics describe rather well the way in which the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) “working definition” of antisemitism — discredited by many scholars and civil rights organizations — is now being used to suppress criticism of Israel.

Decades ago, George Orwell also had a few things to say that are relevant here, including this: “The great enemy of clear language is insincerity. When there is a gap between one’s real and one’s declared aims, one turns as it were instinctively to long words and exhausted idioms, like a cuttlefish spurting out ink.” Recall too, the so-called Ministry of Truth’s motto in Orwell’s classic novel 1984: “Who controls the past controls the future. Who controls the present controls the past.” That may be why those who insist on weaponizing antisemitism promote a narrative of Israel’s perpetual victimhood, as it destroys Palestine’s history in real-time.

For anyone, anywhere, who has somehow achieved some measure of personal peace with what has unfolded in Gaza, or who cries “Antisemitism!” in response to claims of genocide, I encourage you to consider what Omar El Akkad has written in his book titled One Day, Everyone Will Have Always Been Against This, published earlier this year. I’ll quote these sentences in full:

There is no terrible thing coming for you in some distant future, but know that a terrible thing is happening to you now. You are being asked to kill off a part of you that would otherwise scream in opposition to injustice. You are being asked to dismantle the machinery of a functioning conscience. Who cares if diplomatic expediency prefers you shrug away the sight of dismembered children? Who cares if great distance from the bloodstained middle allows obliviousness. Forget pity, forget even the dead if you must, but at least fight against the theft of your soul.

I strongly believe that APA’s leadership should not allow itself to be bullied and intimidated into submission by those who seemingly, in my opinion, want everyone to look past what has become the first ever live-streamed genocide. Only time will tell what path APA leaders will take. But if they were to ask me, I’d recommend an immediate —and overdue — public statement that communicates four things, none of which should be controversial for an organization committed to human rights and human welfare.

First, that the APA rejects the accusations of systemic and virulent antisemitism within APA and its divisions. Second, that the APA affirms that neither criticism of Israel nor support for Palestinian rights is intrinsically antisemitic. Third, that the APA strongly opposes efforts aimed at silencing or punishing pro-Palestinian advocacy, within the APA and beyond. And fourth, that the APA condemns racism in all its forms, including discrimination, prejudice, hostility, or violence toward Jews, Muslims, Arabs, and Palestinians as Jews, Muslims, Arabs, and Palestinians.

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The APA’s own history offers reasons for both hope and skepticism as to whether it will now rise to the occasion. As some of you may know, roughly 20 years ago I was among the so-called dissident psychologists. Back then, many of us resigned as APA members. Recalling that period now, following the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, the U.S. government —led by George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, and Donald Rumsfeld, among others — unleashed the so-called War on Terror. It was propelled by vengeance, with utter disdain for human dignity and international law. In short order, a central component became the abuse and torture of thousands of Muslim men and boys in U.S. custody.

The APA’s leadership faced a key decision point back then — as it does now. The organization could have joined other human rights-focused groups by strenuously and publicly opposing the way this war was being prosecuted, especiallygiven the fundamental “do no harm” principle of our profession. But that was the proverbial road not taken. Instead, APA’s leaders seemingly embraced the “War on Terror” as an opportunity to expand the roles and lift the stature of psychologists at a time of national crisis. As a result, it took years of dissident activism within our profession before APA leaders finally took meaningful steps to oppose the involvement of psychologists in abusive and sometimes torturous U.S. war-on-terror detention and interrogation operations.

During those many years, in all of our efforts, we dissidents knew that the odds of victory were consistently tilted in the APA’s favor. We were volunteers with very limited resources compared to the deep pockets and staffing available to the APA and its powerful allies, the Department of Defense and the intelligence community. We also lacked the enormous megaphone available to the APA’s leaders. So we struggled to garner the profession’s and the public’s attention and engagement in our efforts to move the needle when it came to changing what we believed were the APA’s ethically bankrupt policies. At the same time, we realized that our only chance to eventually bring reform and accountability to the APA was to constantly maintain the pressure for change, as best we could.

For years, when they responded at all, the responses we received from APA leaders and representatives of the military-intelligence establishment were typically hostile, harsh, sometimes threatening, and all too often aimed at discrediting us. One past president of the APA described us as “opportunistic commentators masquerading as scholars.” A former Guantanamo psychologist wrote that we were “clowns who have never looked in the whites of a terrorist’s eyes.” And another past president seemingly compared us to the “Dementors” of Harry Potter fame — frightening cloaked figures who feed on human happiness. We also faced ethics complaints, a defamation lawsuit, and efforts to keep our scholarly publications out of APA journals. But we persisted because we knew the stakes were high, not only for the victims of abuse and torture but also for the future of the profession of psychology. And we ultimately succeeded, to a significant degree. I believe there are some important lessons from that era that are still worth remembering today, for everyone.

Back then, in my opinion, APA leaders chose expediency, opportunism, and misrepresentations of fact over ethical action. And the consequences were tragic. A full generation has passed since those earliest days after 9/11, and I think the APA has made significant progress on multiple fronts in the intervening years. But in certain ways, the core problem seemingly persists: even now, I believe the APA’s leadership is too quick to prioritize what seems politically safe and expedient, and to therefore look away when what’s needed is for the voice of the world’s largest organization of psychologists to be at the forefront in what has truly become an existential struggle for human rights, civil rights, and democratic principles in this country and beyond.

Time does not allow me to go into detail in offering examples of what I consider to be the APA’s current shortcomings in this context — despite the many brilliant, dedicated, and ethically-driven psychologists and graduate students among its members, including some who are thankfully here today. But instead I’ll just note several things briefly.

For me, the APA’s press releases too often seem to reflect a troubling disconnect from what’s actually happening in the world. As of last month, these were the three most recent press releases I could find: “In a competitive world, mean leaders look smart”; “Killer whales, kind gestures: Orcas offer food to humans in the wild’; and “Cool is cool wherever you are.”

I also find it distressing that voluntary donations to the APA’s affiliated “Psychology PAC” regularly go to politicians whose goals and ambitions seem to me to be inconsistent with the APA’s mission of advancing human welfare.

And, I find it discouraging that just over a year ago, nearly a third of APA’s Council of Representatives voted against a ceasefire statement in Gaza. As I recall, one Council member recommended that the vote be postponed for another six months. And when the resolution passed, of course it was condemned by some as antisemitic. Meanwhile, APA’s leadership has done precious little to follow-up on that call for a ceasefire in meaningful ways.

As one more example, at the annual convention this past August, APA’s governing Council couldn’t even muster the two-thirds vote necessary to add an item — titled “Reaffirming APA’s Commitment to Human Rights and Free Speech” — to the agenda. What was wrong with the statement? Well, it drew attention to the humanitarian crisis in Gaza. And it expressed opposition to bigotry in all its forms, including anti-Muslim hatred and anti-Arab and anti-Palestinian racism. And it expressed support for non-violent advocacy directed towards safeguarding human life. Draw your own conclusions about why nearly 40% of Council members didn’t even want to take the chance that this statement might be voted on and approved.

I realize that the APA is far from unique in falling short, in my view, in honoring its core humanitarian commitments when confronted by political, economic, or reputational pressures from the powers-that-be. The network of professional associations and other civil society organizations all have an essential role to play. Collectively, we give these groups power, privileges, and the public trust. In exchange, we count on them to stand up and assertively oppose government overreach, corruption, and misconduct that serve the interests of the few at the expense of the many.When these groups abandon these responsibilities, their betrayal can have dire consequences, for almost everyone. History leaves no doubt about that.

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When I was preparing this talk, I made a commitment to myself, and to everyone here, that I would do my best to speak the truth and conclude on a hopeful note. I believe I’ve done the first part, so that leaves the second. The two are actually closely related. Because, as author and activist Rebecca Solnit has explained, we can be “hopeful and heartbroken” at the same time. She’s also written that too often we think of hope as “smiles and sunshine, when it’s fury in the face of danger and oppression, and pressing on in the storm.”

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