TY - BOOK AU - Bar-On,Dan TI - The silence of the psychologists. Why isn't there a “post-Zionist” Israeli psychology?  PY - 2002///. N1 - 47 N2 - Unlike certain Israeli historians or sociologists who have developed a post-Zionist critical approach, only a few signs of a comparable critical trend are to be found among Israeli psychologists. This is particularly worrying in light of the recent transition from war to the peace process. This transition has been the source of many new social and individual dilemmas which would benefit from an open debate within social and clinical psychology. This essay tries to report on this lack by linking it to its historical, political, and cultural roots. The historical aspects concern the influence of the European and American psychological traditions. Two observations of a political kind are made: Israeli psychologists, because of their involvement in the military field and their acceptance of Zionist security claims, tend to belong to the dominant political trend (Gergen 1973; 1989). A hyper-politicized atmosphere has forced Israeli psychologists to adopt a position of neutrality and objectivity. This has provided a convenient rationalization of an apolitical position, in particular in so far as Israeli political polarization during the 1980s and 1990s was perceived as a threat to the professional authority of psychologists. Culturally, psychologists, like the European social milieux from which most of them stem, have tended to adopt the North American individualist tradition as a reaction to the powerful collectivist trend that dominated Israeli society in its early years. This may explain the weakness and the slowness of Israeli psychologists’ social reaction, in terms of humanism, feminism, and constructivism. Exceptions to this general tendency are revealed and we will explore the question of how to achieve change in Israeli psychology such that it becomes more politically sensitive and critical. These reflections are also relevant to the development of a political psychology in other societies, particularly those that have experienced a period of transition of values, or which suffer from violent and lasting social conflicts UR - https://shs.cairn.info/journal-revue-internationale-de-psychosociologie-2002-19-page-45?lang=en ER -