American Psychological Association's Latest Appeasement
Calling a kaffiyeh anti-semitic is not only idiotic; it's divisive and threatens to suggest that anti-semitism and anti-Arab sentiment cannot be overcome.
APA has done it again. This blog could have been a congratulatory one, since APA posted a photo on its convention website that suggested that dialogue was possible, between an Arab-American wearing a kaffiyeh and a colleague who was not. But APA once again decided to cave in to, appease, and wrongly affirm the assertion that kaffiyehs are anti-semitic. No, APA, kaffiyehs are not anti-semitic. But taking down a photo that promotes dialogue in order to appease a tiny identity-based, anti-Arab group creates a high risk of anti-semitic backlash.
Instead of taking the photo down to appease a small group, APA could have stood firm. After all, its mission is to “benefit society and improve peoples’ lives” and in an era of unbridled polarization, dialogue is a good way to do that. Taking sides is not.
What should APA do now? Take some lessons from the group called Zeitouna—a group of six Palestinian and six Jewish American women who have remained in dialogue for 20 years. And the sentiment of alliances between Jewish and Arab students on many campuses, one of which is featured in the CBS News special report on Zeitouna. I do not agree with CBS’s suggestion that the campus encampments were problematic, but I do believe in the mission of Zeitouna and of the Jewish-Arab alliances, and I thank CBS News for airing this segment about a year ago.
Can APA encourage psychologists to promote and facilitate difficult dialogue? If not, let’s abolish APA altogether, and let’s require all psychologists to take an intensive training in dialogue in order to renew their licenses and keep their university professorships.