The means ‘by which injustice becomes normalized’

BRATTLEBORO-For the first time since 2015, the Windham World Affairs Council (WWAC) Annual Galbraith Lecture will feature non-Galbraith-family presenters.

The lecture honors influential economist, author, diplomat, and intellectual John Kenneth Galbraith, co-founder of the WWAC and a summer resident of Townshend.

Having delivered the inaugural lecture in 1981, Galbraith set the stage for bringing consequential international and public policy questions to the fore for community discussion. Since then, Galbraith’s sons, primarily Peter Galbraith, former ambassador to Croatia and Vermont state senator, have regularly taken the podium.

On Tuesday, Nov. 17, at Centre Congregational Church, Ilan Pappé and Yoav Litvin step into the slot to speak from their recent book Wired to Ste al: Zionism and the Shaping of the Western Mind (Interlink Publishing, 2026).

A historian at the University of Exeter and codirector of the European Centre for Palestinian Studies there, Pappé is recognized globally for work regarding Israel and Palestine. Litvin, a neuroscientist and researcher, explores the intersections of “emotion, political ideology, collective identity, and human behavior,” according to a WWAC press release.

“Drawing on historical scholarship, psychology, and behavioral neuroscience,” the authors will “examine how Zionism and the political, cultural, and psychological systems surrounding it have contributed to the normalization of Palestinian land dispossession, displacement, and inequality.”

Exploring how psychological systems enable acceptance of — even institutionalizing — dispossession and violence, Pappé and Litvin look at how the “taking of land becomes justified and embedded in a society’s political consciousness, how collective identities and narratives of belonging influence moral judgment, and how institutions sustain unequal relationships of power.”

Rather than positing “Israel and Palestine as opposing sides in an abstract or symmetrical conflict,” Pappé and Litvin look at “historical structures of power underlying Palestinian dispossession and the denial of Palestinian rights” as well as the means by “which injustice becomes normalized.”

The two will urge participants to consider how political ideologies and institutions normalize the taking of land and denial of rights; the understanding of suffering vis à vis human rights and political accountability; the ways violence and dispossession are experienced, justified, and sustained; and the responsibilities that individuals, institutions, and societies bear in responding to injustice with the goal of collective healing.

The lecture includes a discussion moderated by Michel Moushabeck, founder of Interlink Publishing, who has worked extensively in and with Palestinian literature, history, and political analysis while examining political responsibility, historical accountability, and justice.

Yoav Litvin recently connected with The Commons via videoconference from his home in Bellingham, Washington.

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Annie Landenberger: What brings you to the Galbraith Lecture?

Yoav Litvin: Well, I’d been working on [ Wired to Steal ] for a few years, and my publisher organized this talk for myself and Professor Pappé. I’m very excited to speak in Vermont.

A.L.: So I see that you’re not just an academic — you’re a storyteller, a photographer, a widely published journalist.

Y.L.: Well, first of all, I’m not affiliated with any institution. I’m an independent scholar. My degrees are in behavioral neuroscience. I have been applying a behavioral analysis to politics for over a decade. This is kind of my niche.

It started with an article I wrote about [how] the Israeli population was being propagandized using fear conditioning, a very studied process — Pavlov, Skinner, etc. Of course, it’s been developed way beyond those simple examples. And it’s very relevant for humans as well.

There are different forms of conditioning which are relevant to the colonial relationship and dynamic.

When the Oct. 7, [2023 Hamas-led attack on Israel] happened, it was as if all the masks, all the subterfuge, all the apologia was just shed, and I could see the mechanisms that I’d been talking about just staring me in the face.

I’d been thinking of writing this kind of book for a while, so that’s what I did with my co-author — an expert on Zionist history. I integrated behavioral neuroscience, political analysis, and also my arts background to look at radical resistance [through] non-mainstream kinds of narratives.

A.L.: Tell me more about the psyche of “settler colonialism.”

Y.L.: I want people to know that they’re going to get something they hadn’t considered before. As far as the psyche of the colonizer, I follow the tradition of revolutionary psychiatrist and political theorist Frantz Fanon, who looked at the colonized through the lens of conditioning and through a system that dehumanizes both the oppressor and the oppressed. He looked at the redirection of aggression inward within colonized societies, and at the destruction of the colonized society’s identity.

For me, as an Israeli American, I’m kind of exposed to both these empire and vassal states [and] felt I was in a unique position to provide a similar analysis but one informed by so many more findings that have since been published.

From my vantage point, this is the first time that such a complete behavioral model has been put together as far as not only how we can see evil deeds within society, but really the engine of it — how it reproduces across generations. The primary engine and motivation is extraction or greed.

There’s a mechanism I lay out as far as how a ruling class goes about dispossessing [others]. So we have segregation and the formation of a colonizer identity, which is in contrast to the colonized identity — thus, the creation of “in” and “out” groups.

Then we have fear construction, and finally, we have a situation in which a hierarchy is formed based on the fear and also on rewards for participation.

A.L.: Can you just name a parallel in history?

Y.L.: Absolutely. We discuss in the book, for example, Spanish colonization. We have apartheid South Africa, we have homegrown American colonialism. The European forms of colonialism are really the ones that I tend to focus on, and that really fit the model well.

A.L.: So Britain going forth to India?

Y.L.: Let’s also separate colonialism and settler colonialism, right? So settler colonialism is when the settler population comes and stays: It has no plans to leave. And colonialism is just coming in order to steal resources to send back to the imperial core.

A.L.: And it’s the generating of fear, the commodifying of fear, that’s pretty much at the core?

Y.L.: Fear has a unique function in that it works to get over natural empathy. So segregation — creating in and out groups — first of all creates a space, right? Because if you don’t have lived experience with your neighbor, then empathy also suffers.

That’s why segregation is hugely important in disrupting empathy. And then that space that’s created can be filled with fear-invoking propaganda that creates consent to violence. Fear is very important because it opens up the toolkit of defensive aggression.

A.L.: Defending oneself?

Y.L.: It’s the final step in a behavioral repertoire that includes avoidance, risk assessment, freezing, flight — all these behaviors that are meant to avoid an aggressive interaction. But if somebody is cornered, they will lunge at the other person and use even lethal means to defend themselves.

A.L.: So, what do you hope the audience will come away with in terms of Israel and Palestine now?

Y.L.: As a scientist, I’m keenly aware that mechanisms need to be outlined in order to be appropriately tackled and even dismantled. So really outlining how the colonial structure works: that’s first and foremost.

When you do this, then a lot of the propaganda loses its power, and it is clear where within the cycle we can target in order to dismantle it or delay it or whatever the aims of resistance are.

The whole conflation of Zionism and Judaism is an artificial construct that serves colonial violence and demonstrates, as I said, where we can focus our efforts in order to expose and hopefully dismantle and then rebuild.

The whole fifth part of the book is about healing. It’s called “Wired to Heal.” And it’s about how we change direction from a culture of theft to a culture that is collectivist, that is connected to an empathy, that is centered on accountability and truth.

A.L.: Thank you. Anything else?

Y.L.: If you want something to deliver to your readers so they can get really a firm understanding of the model — and the talk — then share this link: bit.ly/890-litvin.

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The Windham World Affairs Council’s Annual Galbraith Lecture takes place on Tuesday, Nov. 17, at 6 p.m. at Centre Congregational Church, 193 Main St., Brattleboro.

This event is presented in partnership with Southern Vermont for Palestine and Jewish Voice for Peace VT-NH.

Founded in 1961, the Windham World Affairs Council brings the world to Windham County through education, dialogue, and community engagement hosting films, public conversations, lectures, and a monthly salon, as it supports youth engagement in global citizenship and peace building through its PeaceJam program.

For more information about WWAC programs and to register for the free Galbraith Lecture, visit windhamworldaffairscouncil.org.

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Editor ’ s note: Stories presented as interviews in this format are edited for clarity, readability, and space . Words not spoken by interview subjects appear in brackets, as do editorial clarifications .

Annie Landenberger is an arts writer and columnist for The Commons . She also is one half of the musical duo Bard Owl, with partner T. Breeze Verdant. [Editor's note: The web version of this piece corrects a production error in the print version, where a photograph of Yoav Litvin’s co-author, Ilan Pappé, accompanied the interview.]

This Arts item by Annie Landenberger was written for The Commons .

The means ‘by which injustice becomes normalized’

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