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 a webinar he 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.

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 after they’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........

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