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Nancy Hartevelt Kobrin

Psychoanalyst & Counter Terrorism Expert

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May 9, 2026, 7:38 PM

Before Blood, Before Mind

The unfinished self — and how it is being exploited by Iran, Hamas, and Hezbollah This is the fourth piece in a series. The first, “The Visual Holds the Key,” examined how images of violence function as psychological weapons. The...

May 8, 2026, 7:59 PM

First the Blood. Now the Mind.

Iran’s assault on Israel’s interior front This is the third piece in what has become, without my fully planning it, a series about a single question: what does it mean to wage war not against territory, but against the human...

May 7, 2026, 2:53 PM

Hamas’ Blood Charter 1988

The World Had the Document. It Chose Not to Read It. This post continues the argument from “We Need This Blood: Some Thoughts on The Meaning of Blood in Hamas’s Psychotic Mind,” published on Substack May 2, 2026. AI translations...

May 6, 2026, 8:38 PM

The Visual Holds The Key

Body Parts, Primitive Mental States, and October 7th A recent conversation with a colleague about the barbarism of October 7th prompted me to return to something I published nearly two decades ago — a forensic analysis connecting the imagery of...

May 5, 2026, 5:22 PM

‘We Need This Blood’

Some Thoughts on The Meaning of Blood in Hamas’s Psychotic Mind Elsewhere I have written about the way Hamas and jihadi terror reduce human beings to fragments and objects — how the body becomes weapon, message, and political instrument of...

Apr 26, 2026, 12:54 AM

Hamas’ Child Brides and The Annihilation of Israel

The Logic of Continuity in Hamas Child marriage in Gaza is often described as a byproduct of poverty or war. That explanation is incomplete. When a minor is married, she cannot give meaningful consent. Sexual relations under those conditions constitute...

Apr 24, 2026, 5:21 PM

Sahm and Rad‘a: The Language of Control

Sahm (Arrow): سهم Rad‘a (Deterrence): ردع Reading Michael Barak’s recent and oustanding analysis of Hamas’s internal psychological warfare prompted a closer look at something often left aside: the language itself. Recent reporting has described Hamas’s use of internal enforcement units with...

Apr 23, 2026, 9:28 AM

What Minnesota Taught Me about Misreading Iran

In the summer of 1978, before the Iranian Revolution dominated every conversation, I was introduced to the newly appointed chair of the department at the University of Minnesota. I was just beginning my doctorate in Islamic literature and still...

Apr 22, 2026, 12:13 AM

North Korean Cluster Munitions to Female Succession

The same symbolic and developmental structures that shape the regime’s use of force also limit its capacity to transform from within. Recent reports that North Korea has again tested ballistic missiles equipped with cluster-munition warheads—designed to disperse multiple submunitions across...

Apr 20, 2026, 7:28 AM

Women, Girls and the Reconstruction of Gaza

Abuse of Women and Girls Under Hamas Rule—and What It Means for Reconstruction Domestic Violence and Political Order: Women, Silence, and Power in Gaza Recent reporting, brought to wider attention by the counterterrorism expert Noor Dahri and reinforced by accounts in...

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About Me

Dr. Kobrin made aliyah in 2010 and is an internationally renowned counterterrorism expert and psychoanalyst holding a PhD in Islamic literature. Author of six books. Her most recent A Soldier's Guide to Hamas's Genocidal Psychosis: The Unconscious in Psychological Warfare -- Beyond Ideology, Before Words. Atzmaut Press 2025. She is currently working on her seventh book 1977—Between Empire and Covenant: The Jewish Bond, The Refuseniks and The Bukharan Jews.

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