Group Analysis is a long-established, radical, personal, and socio-political enterprise underpinned by ‘an open-ended list of ethical and political values’.1

 

Our approach draws inspiration from psychoanalytic and group analytic traditions amongst others, emphasizing the importance of truth-seeking, introspection, and perseverance in the face of contentious subjects and difficult emotions. We recognize the necessity of grappling with discomfort and pain to access deep-seated truths within the personal and social unconscious, working towards the alleviation of suffering and the healing of fractured people and societies. Motivated by its radical beginnings, Group Analysts uphold commitment to justice, democracy, social responsibility, and the sense that ‘we are all each other’s consequences’.2

 

It is in this context that now we find the socio-political voice of Group Analysis in relation to the Palestine/Israel conflict: We have been distraught and perturbed by historical, recent, and ongoing events concerning Israeli state violence against Palestine and its people, in effect a genocide. A combination of warfare, territorial theft, harassment, starvation and forced displacement has devastated millions of Palestinian lives, with most of those killed and injured women and children. The death toll officially accepted by Israel stands at over 71,000 with at least 20,000 of these being children. There can be no doubt that Palestinians are facing cultural, symbolic and,most urgently, physical annihilation and erasure.

 

Since 1948, Israel has ruled over Palestinian land with a system of apartheid: structural racialised asymmetry,inequality, and oppression, flagrantly violating international law and ignoring countless UN Resolutions condemning its actions. Israeli state crimes include evicting Palestinians from their land, the demolition of Palestinian homes and villages, unrestrained settler violence along with periodic aggressive military assaults on the besieged and vulnerable civilian population of Gaza and the West Bank. It has been increasingly clear that Israel’s deliberate occupation and expansion of settlements is aimed at eliminating Palestinian identities and culture, as well as lives and territories. Notwithstanding widespread popular concern, the continued silence of major global powers to speak out and hold Israel accountable for its illegal activity makes us all complicit in enabling Israel to continue and even accelerate its erasure in flagrant violation of international law and disregard for human rights.

 

Call to Action:

Israel’s position as a settler colonial regime that practices military occupation and apartheid against the Palestinian people can no longer be overlooked. We call on global citizens, and in particular group analysts nationally and internationally, to engage with the Palestinian/Israeli situation politically and clinically, consciously, and actively, without shying away from addressing sensitive issues pertaining to traumas past and present.

 

 

Join Us by emailing: ga4pal@gmail.com / Join Our Google Group: ga4pal@googlegroups.com Group Analysts for Palestine Steering Committee: Julia Borossa, Farideh Dizadji, Reem Shelhi

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Statement First issued 17th December 2023, updated 27th March 2026

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1 Benjamin, A., & Tucker, S. (2021). We’ve all got skin in the game: National Diversity Working Group: Power, Privilege and Position. Group Analysis,

54(3), 437-459.

2 Stegner. W (2013). [1967]; All the Little Live Things; Penguin Classics

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