A meeting of the Fatah Revolutionary Council at the Bedouin village of Khan al-Ahmar in the West Bank, July 12, 2018. Photo: Reuters / Mohamad Torokman.

The Eighth Fatah Conference continued to glorify past Palestinian terrorist murderers while building the next generation of terrorist leadership.

PA and Fatah leader Mahmoud Abbas decided that all prisoners who were incarcerated for more than 20 years — meaning those who were guilty of murder or attempted murder — automatically would become part of the Palestinian leadership and thus were able to participate and vote at the conference, which took place this past weekend.

The consequence of this is that a total of 388 Palestinians, who as prisoners were presented as role models, just transitioned into becoming PA leaders.

A senior Fatah youth leader described the importance: “We have a great opportunity as Fatah youth … to learn from them.”

Palestinian Media Watch (PMW) has shown repeatedly exactly how the PA and Fatah, as policy, portray murderers of Jews as role models for all Palestinians, and especially youth:

Official PA TV newsreader: “The prisoners [i.e., terrorists] will also have prominent representation in the [Eighth Fatah] Conference, there will be participation of more than 388 prisoners who have served more than 20 years in the occupation’s [i.e., Israeli] prisons…”

Fatah Shabiba Youth Movement Secretariat member Tasami Ramadan: “The participation of the [released] prisoners this time in this conference… is a very qualitative addition... seeing this qualitative and special addition that our released prisoners will contribute, as they are not just released prisoners and we cannot summarize them only as such.

They are also [figures] of national stature and national pillars who have outlined the characteristics of Fatah’s path, and they are also spiritual and organizational pillars. We have a great opportunity as Fatah youth … to learn from them and to be their partners in building Fatah’s political decision.” [emphasis added]

[Official PA TV News, May 8, 2026]

A Fatah spokesman further legitimized the participation of released terrorists in Fatah’s leadership conference as they “precede everything” and are held “in highest regard:”

Fatah Spokesman and Eighth Fatah Conference preparatory committee member Iyad Abu Zneit: “The composition of the [Eighth Fatah] Conference is diverse and rich … Of course, the released prisoners [are also represented], as they precede everything.

I will emphasize that the leadership insisted on there being broad representation for the [released] prisoners at this conference… The group of prisoners that these ones represent from among those in the Fatah Movement also constitutes a significant number [of members], a large number, who have their own role, and we hold them in the highest regard. They have the right to be partners in Fatah, in the [Fatah] Revolutionary Council, in the leadership of the [Fatah] Central Committee, and in any place they can reach.” [emphasis added]

[Official PA TV, Topic of the Day, May 6, 2026]

PMW exposed last week that among the Fatah members at the Eighth General Conference and those running for Fatah leadership positions are released prisoners responsible for the murder of 75 people while some of the most venerated figures at the conference included arch-terrorist murderers Abu Iyad, who planned the Munich Olympics massacre, and Abu Jihad, who was responsible for the murder of 125 people.

The author is the Founder and Director of Palestinian Media Watch, where a version of this article first appeared. 

FBI agents work on the site after the Michigan State Police reported an active shooting incident at the Temple Israel Synagogue in West Bloomfield, Michigan, US, March 12, 2026. Photo: Rebecca Cook via Reuters Connect

When the American Psychological Association (APA) posts about identity-based discrimination, the moral logic is clear. A targeted group is hurting. Hatred causes psychological harm. A professional organization responds with empathy, clarity, and support.

But when Jews are the victims, the script changes. Even the expression of sympathy becomes controversial.

A post about antisemitism, or even about how to help children process anti-Jewish hate, does not invite solidarity. It invites argument. Suffering becomes contested. The comment section shifts from care to qualification: “What about Palestine?” “Is this really antisemitism?” “Aren’t Jews privileged?”

This is not an argument against political discourse, nor a claim that complex geopolitical realities should be ignored. It’s narrower and more urgent: harm directed at Jews should be recognized as harm before it is reframed as politics. When empathy becomes contingent on political alignment, it ceases to be empathy at all.

In other words, even basic empathy for Jews becomes controversial.

That double standard should alarm anyone who cares about mental health, professional ethics, or the integrity of anti-bias work. And the double standard itself is a part of modern conceptualizations of antisemitism.

To be clear, the issue is not that professional organizations fail to condemn antisemitism. The APA has repeatedly publicly addressed antisemitism.The problem is what happens next. When support is offered to Jews, the support itself is often treated as suspect.

When the APA speaks about racial injustice, the message is generally allowed to stand on its own terms: identity-based hate causes harm and psychologists should respond with care. The underlying legitimacy of the harm is rarely put on trial.

But when the same institution speaks about antisemitism, the response often shifts from recognition to resistance.

One of the clearest contrasts came from APA posts related to antisemitism and the attack at Temple Israel. The problem was not merely disagreement. Comments deteriorated into whataboutism, collective blame, and overt hostility toward Jews, severe enough that APA disabled comments to prevent the platform from becoming a forum for hate speech.

By contrast, posts about racism did not require moderation. It points to something specific and troubling: when the APA posts support for Jews, the support itself becomes publicly contested and institutionally disruptive.

The claim is not that Jews suffer more than any other minority. It is that Jews are treated differently in a specific and recognizable way: their pain is more likely to be debated and invalidated.

When identity-based harm is denied, it does not disappear. It becomes trauma.

The response is as important as the original injury. When individuals or communities are targeted and then told that their fear is exaggerated, that they deserve it, or that they are unworthy of recognition, the harm compounds.

That is precisely what these comment patterns reveal.

In the Temple Israel thread, the responses followed a familiar sequence. First: whataboutism: demands to redirect a statement about an antisemitic attack into a geopolitical debate. Then, collective blame: holding Jews at a synagogue or preschool responsible for the actions of a foreign government. Then victim-blaming: suggesting the attack was understandable or deserved. Then conspiracy: claims of fabrication. And finally, explicit anti-Jewish animus: language portraying Jews as bloodthirsty, deceitful, or oppressive.

This is not just a social media phenomenon. It is psychologically meaningful.

The message to Jewish readers is clear: sympathy is conditioned on how they respond to interrogation, even in times of vulnerability. Time and again, Jews are asked to litigate their own suffering.

Psychologists should know better. This is a profession built on understanding trauma, minority stress, shame, exclusion, and the consequences of chronic invalidation. If psychologists can recognize harm when it affects every group except Jews, then something more than inconsistency is at work. That is not cultural competence. It is ideological capture.

This comes from a movement in the mental health professions called decolonial psychology. This approach is expressly political, ideological, demands clinicians become activists, and has a foundation that includes anti-Zionism, a specific form of anti-Jewish identity discrimination.

And once a profession begins filtering human suffering through ideology, it forfeits its credibility.

This extends beyond the Jewish community. If one group’s pain can be endlessly qualified, the moral foundation of anti-bias work begins to erode. If one minority must meet a political threshold to receive basic human concern, then the concern itself has become corrupted.

The demand here is not for special treatment. It is for equal treatment.

That this has become difficult is not a commentary on Jews. It is a condemnation of us.

The moral failure is not the statement. The failure is the society that made the statement controversial, and until that is named, Jews will remain trapped in a grotesque exception: visible enough to be blamed, but never legitimate enough to be comforted.

Miri Bar-Halpern is a Lecturer at Harvard Medical School. Dean McKay is a Professor of Psychology at Fordham University. Josh Simmons is a licensed clinical psychologist and certified Jungian psychoanalyst.

All three authors are members of the Collaborative of Jewish Psychologists, a group appointed by the American Psychological Association. The opinions in this article are solely those of the authors.

Illustrative: May 1, 2024; Los Angeles, California, USA; A flag is waved during a sit-in outside of a pro-Palestinian encampment at the campus of UCLA. Violence broke out early in the morning at the encampment, hours after the university declared that the camp “is unlawful and violates university policy.” Photo: USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect

During my four years as a student at Clark University, I have witnessed numerous episodes of blatant hostility and hatred towards Israel, both inside and outside of the classroom.

In response, my fellow Zionist students and I used our voices to combat this rhetoric, yet we found ourselves to be standing alone. This experience has shown me that being an active Zionist student leader has essentially functioned as a substitute for institutional responsibility, stepping in to challenge misinformation and misconduct in spaces where faculty and administrators either cannot or will not intervene.

When I first arrived on campus in the Fall of 2022, I knew that campus anti-Zionism was an issue across the country. Besides the occasional “Free Palestine” sticker on a student’s laptop, however, I was relieved to find that this was not a major issue at Clark.

That all changed after October 7, 2023. Israeli hostage flyers that my friends and I put up around campus were torn down, students chanted “there is only one solution, Intifada revolution” at a protest in the middle of campus, and hateful notes were written on a white board outside of a Jewish student’s dorm room. 

The response from the University? A single statement condemning antisemitism and Islamophobia that emphasized a need for mutual respect and understanding, and a reminder about the school’s Bias Incident Reporting System that I have yet to observe produce any meaningful results. 

Numerous on-campus events have reflected this sentiment. In late November 2023, Clark’s Middle Eastern and North African Students Association held a “Palestine Teach-In” with alumni who use their platform to deny the Jewish connection to Israel and recommend students follow pro-Palestine Instagram accounts that openly support Hamas. No attempts have been made by any University department or office to offer events with more diversity of thought. 

Another consequential instance of administrative passivity occurred when a Clark Undergraduate Student Council referendum in support of BDS was approved by the student body in April of 2024. Our Hillel was the only organization seeking to educate students on why BDS is harmful. It was during this time of intense debate over the referendum that I was harassed by several members of the Scarlet, Clark’s student-run newspaper. 

These student-journalists attacked me on the Scarlet’s official Discord, claiming I was “not that bright” for supporting Israel and calling me “hella Zionist,” all while advocating for other students to “keep bullying” me.

In response, I filed a bias report and met with the associate Dean of Students, who told me that the incident would be dealt with. Following the meeting, I never received any communication regarding the status of the incident. From that moment on, I realized that the only people actively challenging anti-Zionism on campus were us students. 

These experiences reflect a broader institutional pattern of faculty abusing their professorial power to demonize Israel without consequences, perhaps most famously at the Strassler Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies. It took the public resignation of the Center’s executive director for the University to even acknowledge the possibility that instances of intimidation and harassment had been taking place.

Even just last week, when I organized a tabling event of testimonies of October 7 survivors with 2025 Miss Israel winner Melanie Shiraz, we were met with numerous hateful comments and gestures, including being called Nazis on the anonymous social media app Fizz.

For the University to condemn this blatant Holocaust inversion would be the bare minimum, but after what I have seen over the past four years, I’m not getting my hopes up.

In response to this rhetoric, as vice president and later president of our Hillel, I used my platform to host numerous educational events on understanding contemporary antisemitism, the geopolitics of the Middle East, and how to effectively talk about Israel. 

In spite of our efforts, these events simply do not have the same reach as ones sponsored by academic departments or the University itself. It almost feels as if the task of educating others has been placed on me, rather than on the institution whose mission is to “advance the frontiers of knowledge and understanding.”

As I prepare to graduate in the coming weeks, it fills me with disappointment that despite my efforts, Zionist students and staff remain the ones confronting unabashed hatred towards Israel due to the failure of administration. But I have already seen that my fellow students and I have inspired a new generation that is more willing to challenge misinformation, and more dedicated to holding those in positions of authority accountable.

Jacob Vetstein is a fourth-year Political Science major at Clark University and a 2025-2026 CAMERA Fellow. Opinions expressed are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of CAMERA.