A false self: Chaim Rochester, ‘The false self of the settler state: antisemitic contradictions of the Zionist imaginary’, Psychoanalysis, Culture & Society, 2026 | settler colonial studies blog

A false self: Chaim Rochester, ‘The false self of the settler state: antisemitic contradictions of the Zionist imaginary’, Psychoanalysis, Culture & Society, 2026

03Aug26

Abstract: This paper employs psychoanalytic theory and autotheoretical methodology to examine how Zionist discourse reproduces the very antisemitic structures it claims to oppose. Drawing on Klein, Winnicott, Bion, and Green, I argue that Zionism functions as a collective false-self formation—a defensive identity structure that emerged from historical trauma but now operates through melancholic incorporation rather than genuine mourning. The analysis reveals how Zionist ideology transforms Jewish multiplicity into nationalist singularity, attacking the capacity for thought through what Bion terms an “attack on linking.” Through personal vignettes and theoretical analysis, I demonstrate how anti-Zionist Jews become targets of the same dehumanizing logic historically deployed against Jews at large, as the apparatus claiming to protect Jewish communities becomes itself a mechanism of persecution. The paper traces how contemporary antisemitism discourse, particularly through organizations like the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) and the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), weaponizes expanded definitions to silence Palestinian solidarity while ignoring actual white supremacist threats, ultimately arguing that authentic Jewish safety requires rejecting Zionist capture of Jewish identity.

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