Beyond Neutrality, Normalization, and Complicity at Times of the Genocide: Psychologists for Palestine

We have been witnessing the perpetuation of violent and cruel aggression against the Palestinian people by Israel. At the international level, there have been sparse individual or collective initiatives within the field of psychology to demonstrate solidarity with Palestine and against the genocide in Gaza, yet the question of Palestine remains ambiguous, and the possible stance of psychology as a research field and scientific institution on the matter is still unclear. This ambiguity and uncertainty about the position of psychology reflects neutrality claims. However, this neutrality normalizes and silences the current violations of human rights and the suffering of the Palestinian people, rendering psychology a silent complicit actor in the genocide. In this contribution, we address this silence of psychology by looking at the international juridical norms on the violation of human rights. Following the juridical concept of jus cogens, we discuss the responsibility of psychology in relation to the question of Palestine. With this juridic diagnosis, we continue by presenting how psychology can advocate for human rights. We propose to rethink and redefine psychology from the perspective of protecting human rights, to situate psychology for Palestine. This work is our humble form of resistance, and we hope that our paper can encourage reflections on the role of psychology in the context of emerging global conflicts and genocides.