{"id":310281,"date":"2025-12-22T12:00:57","date_gmt":"2025-12-22T12:00:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/?p=310281"},"modified":"2025-12-19T12:34:22","modified_gmt":"2025-12-19T12:34:22","slug":"the-weaponizers-of-antisemitism-have-come-for-the-american-psychological-association","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/2025\/12\/the-weaponizers-of-antisemitism-have-come-for-the-american-psychological-association\/","title":{"rendered":"The Weaponizers of Antisemitism Have Come for the American Psychological Association"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\n

\u201cWhen I use a word,\u201d Humpty Dumpty said in rather a scornful tone, \u201cit means just what I choose it to mean \u2014 neither more nor less.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

\u201cThe question is,\u201d said Alice, \u201cwhether you can make words mean so many different things.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

\u201cThe question is,\u201d said Humpty Dumpty, \u201cwhich is to be master \u2014 that\u2019s all.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

18 Dec 2025 – <\/em>Those psychologists who\u2019ve seemingly spent the past two years weaponizing false charges of antisemitism in order to silence criticism of Israel and punish supporters of Palestinian rights are probably celebrating now. Thanks to their own misguided but tireless efforts, the Republican-controlled House Committee on Education and Workforce is now officially investigating the American Psychological Association.<\/p>\n

That these Israel-right-or-wrong members of our profession actually welcome this investigation by the Trump administration demonstrates just how out of touch they are with the American Jewish community \u2014 a community they claim to represent.\u00a0Consider a May 2025\u00a0survey of\u00a0American Jews by the Jewish Voters Resource Center, which showed that\u00a0twice as many<\/em>\u00a0respondents believed Trump\u2019s actions on college campuses \u2014 purportedly aimed at combating antisemitism \u2014 were\u00a0increasing<\/em>\u00a0rather than\u00a0decreasing\u00a0<\/em>antisemitism (and over half viewed Trump himself as antisemitic). Going a step further, a\u00a0September 2025\u00a0Ipsos poll found that almost\u00a0three-quarters<\/em>\u00a0of American Jews said the Trump administration is simply using claims of antisemitism as an\u00a0excuse<\/em>\u00a0for its attack on higher education. But here\u2019s a key point: the weaponizers of antisemitism are probably untroubled by this data \u2014 because their priority is defending Israel, not Jews.<\/p>\n

So then who exactly are the kindred spirits that the weaponizers have encouraged to investigate the APA? Well, in this \u201cMake America Great Again\u201d era of Trump adoration, it\u2019s not as though holding a Republican seat in Congress reflects some elevated stature on matters of justice, human rights, free speech, or democracy. And that\u2019s certainly clear when one looks at the roster of GOP representatives on this particular House committee. By all indications, many of them seemingly don\u2019t care a whit about the ongoing genocide of the Palestinian people.<\/p>\n

For example, committee chair Tim Walberg (R-MI), a religious-right zealot, told his constituents last year,\u00a0\u201cWe shouldn\u2019t be spending a dime on humanitarian aid\u201d for\u00a0Gaza and \u201cIt should be like Nagasaki and Hiroshima. Get it over quick.\u201d Virginia Foxx (R-NC) has equated criticism of Israel with antisemitism based on her paraphrased biblical injunction,\u00a0\u201cIf you bless the Jewish people, you will be blessed. If you curse the Jewish people, you will be cursed.\u201d Elise Stefanik (R-NY) affirmed her belief that\u00a0\u201cIsrael has a biblical right to the entire West Bank\u201d\u00a0during her confirmation hearing for the position of ambassador to the United Nations.\u00a0Mark Harris (R-NC), a former evangelical pastor, has claimed that Islam is \u201cdangerous\u201d and \u201ccounterfeit,\u201d and that peace in the Middle East will require Muslims and Jews to convert to Christianity. Mary Miller (R-IL) quoted Adolph Hitler approvingly in a speech at a rally in Washington, DC, the day before Trump supporters stormed the U.S. Capitol.\u00a0And Randy Fine (R-FL) is on record with these comments:\u00a0\u201c\u2018Palestinian\u2019 is just another word for demon\u201d and Palestinians in desperate need of humanitarian aid should just \u201cstarve away.\u201d<\/p>\n

For any psychologist who cares about things like ethics, human dignity, and international law, the ugliness and absurdity of such statements need no further discussion. But even more disturbing is the weaponizers\u2019 seemingly reckless assault on the APA \u2014 relying on anecdotes, distortions, and misrepresentations of what antisemitism means \u2014 all because some members have refused to be silent about the devastation of the Palestinian people through occupation, apartheid, and genocide. Of course, the bitter irony here is that the APA has failed to adequately speak out against these horrors and injustices, or against anti-Palestinian racism.<\/p>\n

What the APA\u2019s leadership will do now isn\u2019t clear. Discrimination, prejudice, hostility, and violence against Jews as Jews is a very serious problem, in the United States and around the world. But, unfortunately, that\u2019s not what this is about.\u00a0<\/strong>The House Committee has made an extraordinarily expansive request for all documents and communications in the APA\u2019s possession that refer or relate to \u201cantisemitism,\u201d \u201cJews,\u201d \u201cJudaism,\u201d \u201cIsrael,\u201d \u201cIsraeli,\u201d \u201cPalestine,\u201d or \u201cPalestinian\u201d since October 7, 2023. Complying with the request will expose untold numbers of vulnerable colleagues to potential jeopardy \u2014 personally and professionally \u2014 in light of the draconian crackdown on pro-Palestinian speech by self-serving MAGA politicians.<\/p>\n

I suppose if there\u2019s any silver lining here, and that\u2019s a stretch, APA leaders have now been given another chance to stand up and do the right thing, by resisting<\/em> this punitive targeting of human rights advocates. I hope they don\u2019t let the opportunity pass.<\/p>\n

_______________________________________________<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Roy Eidelson is a member of the <\/em>TRANSCEND Network<\/em><\/a> and was a member of the American Psychological Association for over 25 years, prior to his resignation. He is a clinical psychologist and the president of <\/em>Eidelson Consulting<\/em><\/a>, where he studies, writes about, and consults on the role of psychological issues in political, organizati<\/em>onal, and group conflict settings. He is a past president of <\/em>Psychologists for Social Responsibility<\/em><\/a>, former executive director of the University of Pennsylvania\u2019s Solomon Asch Center for Study of Ethnopolitical Conflict, and a member of the <\/em>Coalition for an Ethical Psychology<\/em><\/a>. Roy is the author of <\/em>Political Mind Games: How the 1% Manipulate Our Understanding of What\u2019s Happening, What\u2019s Right, and What\u2019s Possible<\/a> and can be reached at <\/em>reidelson@eidelsonconsulting.com<\/em><\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n

Go to Original \u2013 royeidelson.com<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

18 Dec 2025 – Those psychologists who\u2019ve spent the past two years weaponizing false charges of antisemitism to silence criticism of Israel and supporters of Palestinians are celebrating. The Republican-controlled House Committee on Education and Workforce is now officially investigating the American Psychological Association.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":243442,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[40],"tags":[3287,1668,1000,87,865,88,2571,427,70],"class_list":["post-310281","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-transcend-members","tag-anti-zionism","tag-antisemitism","tag-apa","tag-gaza","tag-genocide","tag-israel","tag-official-lies-and-narratives","tag-palestine","tag-usa"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/310281","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=310281"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/310281\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":310286,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/310281\/revisions\/310286"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/243442"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=310281"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=310281"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=310281"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}