People of the Lie – The Collective Narcissism of the Palestinian Cause

Dr. M. Scott Peck’s seminal book, ‘People of the Lie’, came to life in 1983 after years of the author examining client interactions in his role as a psychiatrist. Over decades, he concluded that some of them were fundamentally committed to the destruction of the lives of those around them in a way that goes beyond normal human misbehaviour. He describes the stories of a number of people who came to him who were especially resistant to help, truly disturbed people who seemed bent on manipulating and destroying their so-called loved ones, often through a campaign of lies. In the process, Scott Peck built a psychology of evil, noting its unique characteristics as a mental condition. In this context, he pointed to malignant narcissism as a type of evil. Malignant narcissists operate without a conscience and are fundamentally committed to the lies they believe about themselves and the world around them. For Scott Peck, lying is both a cause and a manifestation of evil.

“Malignant narcissism is characterised by an unsubmitted will. All adults who are mentally healthy submit themselves one way or another to something higher than themselves, be it God or truth or love, or some other ideal. They do what God wants them to do rather than what they desire…. In summary, to a greater or lesser degree, all mentally healthy individuals submit themselves to the demands of their own conscience. The … wilfulness of evil people.. they are men and women of obviously strong will, determined to have their own way. There is remarkable power in the manner in which they attempt to control others”.

He does not conclude that the problem of evil lies in the will itself – indeed, he asserts that it is characteristic of great people that they are strong willed, whether their greatness be for good or for evil. He goes on to state:

“The strong will – the power and authority – of Jesus radiates from the Gospels, just as Hitler’s did from Mein Kampf. But Jesus’ will was that of his father, and Hitler’s that of his own. The crucial distinction is between ‘willingness and “wilfulness.’”

I have had the misfortune of spending a considerable amount of time with malignant narcissists, in both my professional role as a psychologist, and in my personal life. I did not choose these relationships, and managing them has been a soul destroying process. So, I know these wilful types, I know their playbook and I know their capabilities. They are dangerous and noxious, and if given the chance, they will take down whoever they deem has wronged them, and whoever they deem stands in their way. By any means necessary. Because it is their will, not thine, or anyone else’s, that must be done. The ‘smear campaign’ is a favoured modus operandi to further their cause, which they employ to destroy peers, colleagues, and loved ones who challenge them. These are extraordinarily manipulative and deceitful individuals who see no wrongdoing in their behaviour – they have no empathy, so they have no conscience. When presented with facts, or a version of things that does not align with their narrative, they escalate their attacks, lies and manipulations. They lack the ability to see shades of grey, all is black and white and exists according to their world view. So they are never wrong; to be wrong would be to lose their life blood – the admiration and esteem of others. Because at the narcissist’s core is a deeply insecure human who is constantly defending against their own inadequacies. When they are called out for wrongdoing or poor behaviour, they play the victim, turning the tables to vilify the other. And such is their finely tuned support base, they get away with this, time and again. In their world of fantasy and deception, they become skilled at honing a charming and seductive persona. They inveigle others with deceits and promises, and create allies (flying monkeys) who become complicit in carrying out their destructive work e.g., gossiping and spreading rumours, splitting and slandering. These flying monkeys are essential to the narcissist as they fulfil the need for a constant supply of adoration. The flying monkeys themselves may be blindly loyal to the narcissist, afraid of them, mentally disturbed, excessively codependent, or misanthropic. Or a combination of all.

Diagnostic traits of Narcissistic Personality Disorder:

· Grandiosity: excessive self-importance

· Preoccupation with success: fantasies of unlimited power or importance

· Entitlement: beliefs of being exceptional and deserving of special treatment

· Need for admiration: excessive need for validation, praise, and admiration from others

· Exploitative behaviour: exploiting others for personal gain or selfish reasons

· Lack of empathy: being unwilling to identify with the needs of others

· Envy: feeling envious of others and believing others are envious of them

· Arrogance: arrogant or haughty behaviour

Does this sound descriptive of the Palestinian cause as represented by Hamas?

I think it is. Except, I think what we see with Hamas (and other terrorist organisations) is ‘en masse’ narcissism i.e., ‘collective narcissism’. Arguably, a central feature of narcissism is excessive self-love or an inflated, grandiose view of self that requires continual external validation. When that admiration is sought on behalf of a group, narcissism can become collective. Collective narcissism thus extends the concept of individual narcissism into the intergroup domain. However, while individual and collective forms of narcissism share characteristics, collective narcissism doesn’t refer to a group of people with narcissistic traits banding together (although narcissists might be drawn to these groups). It describes situations wherein multiple people hold a collective belief that their organisation, their social grouping, is superior to others.

The term ‘collective narcissism’ was first used by Theodor Adorno to describe the sentiment that gave support to Nazi rule in Germany in the 1930s, and has been used to describe a number of populist movements. In 2005, attempts to understand what propels people to commit acts of terrorist violence led psychologist Agnieszka Golec de Zavala to undertake research into extremist groups. She noticed a phenomenon that resembled what Adorno had referred to as ‘group narcissism’. de Zavala defines it as:

“A belief that the exaggerated greatness of one’s group is not sufficiently recognised by others,”…

… in which a hunger for recognition is never satisfied. Initially de Zavala thought this was a fringe phenomenon, but after further research, she recognised there was nothing fringe about it – the mindset of collective narcissism can apparently happen in any kind of group alliance.

De Zavala went on to develop the Collective Narcissism Scale to measure the severity of group-narcissistic beliefs, which includes statements like “I will never be satisfied until my group gets the recognition it deserves”. (See below). Needless to say, it’s not a stretch to suggest that Hamas and other terrorist organisations would score high on each and every statement.

Collective narcissism, can be understood as a form of ‘in-group love’. This in-group love is in turn robustly associated with ‘out-group hate’. Collective narcissism differs from ‘collective self-esteem’ or ‘in-group satisfaction’ (beliefs that the in-group is of high value) in that it predicts prejudice, retaliatory intergroup aggression, and rejoicing in the suffering of other people i.e., intergroup hostility. Collective self-esteem, on the other hand, predicts a belief that the in-group conveys a reason to be proud.

The collective narcissist group has an erroneous and biased perception that it is constantly under threat, and an exaggerated sense that out-groups are pervasively hostile and malevolent. It is hypersensitive to insult, and intergroup situations are seen through a lens of deprivation and perpetual grievance. Collective narcissists believe that their in-group is singularly wronged by others and that the group’s superiority is unjustly ignored or unacknowledged by outsiders. In their view, the in-group never obtains the outcomes it is entitled to. For example, the collective narcissist group will feel angered if it does not gain recognition, status, and materials received by relevant out-groups. However, where groups motivated by in-group satisfaction might advocate for equal treatment, the expectation for collective narcissists is that they should be awarded better treatment than the relevant out-groups. They are interested in privilege, not justice or equality. As such, entitlement, hostility, and resentment lie at the heart of collective narcissism. Any reason can be used to claim that the in-group deserves special recognition and privileged treatment.

It is not hard to see the manifestations of collective narcissism in Hamas

Hamas and its supporters are committed to the lies they perpetuate about themselves and about the world. The very premise of Palestine is a falsehood, conjured up by Arafat and Russian propagandists. These fabrications sit at the heart of their cause, and are the driving force of their evil. For the lies to be true, they must be recognised and upheld – and so they demand the world conspires in their fiction. They demand statehood. They demand to be seen in the international community as worthy of the admiration that comes with this.

In the eyes of Hamas, greatness has been endowed upon them by Allah, and his will is enacted through them. Their interpretation of the prophet Mohammed fortifies a credence that they are entitled to honour Allah’s will with aggression, violence, terror, humiliation and torture. They operate without conscience, because like Scott Peck’s ‘people of the lie’, they have none. Wilfulness is their conscience, which they believe is the will of their almighty. In their worldview, non-believers are apostates and infidels; it is they who must succumb to the will of Allah, and therefore the will of Hamas. By any means necessary. For jihadists, this justifies terror.

Their world is one of paranoia and suspicion, about being cheated, about others being malevolent and envious of them. In reality, their own envy is projected onto others. It is they who for decades have been filled with lies about a ‘right of return’, about evil Jews, and pernicious rewritings of the history of the land. They are overflowing with resentment, and where there is resentment, there is usually envy.

They have callously exploited and manipulated their own people throughout this conflict, displacing them, using them as human shields, stealing aid, siphoning funding, the list goes on. This is the embodiment of their sociopathic lack of empathy. Even their own people have no value, only the value of their suffering which garners public support . As Golda Meir so astutely put it, “we will only have peace with the Arabs when they love their children more than they hate us”.

With the cunning of a chess master, they have been two steps ahead of the game, exploiting every chink of weakness. With shameless propaganda and psychological warfare, they have manipulated the emotional core of Western humanitarianism. They saw the woke West roiling in ‘coloniser guilt’ and maximised it, deploying the ideologues as their flying monkeys, to globalise their smear campaign. To globalise their intifada. They know that the hostages in Gaza are not their only collateral. They also have the hundreds of thousands of acolytes, spread across the globe, holding their local MP’s hostage over the vote. In this way, they have extorted ‘respect’ from the West. The West must listen and ‘succumb’.

They expect privileged treatment. No other refugee population has heritable refugee status. No other refugee group has an aid organisation devoted solely to them. For decades they have received funding amounting to billions of dollars. They have used this to advance their crusade of hate against Israel by building tunnels and amassing weapons. Unlike the kid who has his pocket money docked for misbehaviour, they have not experienced censure for decades of rocket launching into Israel. The funding has continued. And so of course they expect it. They can get away with it and not experience approbation. And after October 7th, their – false – protestations about starvation highlighted their expectations of receiving ongoing privileges. Privileges that no other aggressor of war receives. In spite of their barbaric murders and kidnappings of Israelis and other nationals on and after October 7^th, they have been handled with kid gloves.

And throughout all this, they have rejoiced in the suffering of the hostages, and Israelis and Jews worldwide. With sadistic malice they have intentionally taunted family members by releasing photos and video of hostages in various states of despair and torment. They have consistently and cruelly withheld information regarding the remaining hostages; it is still not known how many are alive and who they are. It is not hard to imagine these psychopaths rubbing their hands and smiling with glee as they wreak their revenge and revel in the pain they cause others. It is sick. It is evil.

And with the release of the three young women hostages on January 20th, they mounted a grotesque masquerade, gifting the hostages ‘goodie bags’ as memories from their time in Gaza. As if to say to “you misunderstand us, look how kind and caring we are”. And the flying monkeys lapped it up, ignoring the scenes of throngs of ‘civilians’, calling for future massacres of Jews and attempting to lynch these young women. No, they only saw neatly dressed young women with well-groomed hair who, in their eyes, could be returning from a ‘gap year’. And in this charade of flattery, the monsters let three women go, but grip hundreds of thousands across the globe in their duplicitous thrall.

To top it off, to add insult to injury, to rub salt in the wound, they have the gall to follow up the abhorrent lie of ‘genocide’ with cheers and celebrations of “we won”. As Hillel Neuer said, “never before in history has a side claimed that they suffered a genocide and at the same time said that they won the war they started.”

The impact of narcissism

Since the terms of the ceasefire ‘agreement’ were announced last week, I have noticed emotions that are familiar to me. The last time I felt this visceral sense of unease was when dealing with a narcissistic family member for an extended period up until a year ago. It was a ‘necessary evil’ that is thankfully behind me now. It is hard to describe such nebulous feelings, because the experience was almost beyond definition. That person’s actions were so ‘terrorising’ – unpredictable, aggressive, hostile, cruel and unnecessary. It felt like I was in a perpetual state of hypervigilance, always waiting for the next onslaught, priming myself for something unthinkable. I would oscillate between hypervigilance and fear, disgust, anger, rage, and powerlessness. I have cycled in and out of all of these feelings in the last week. The disgust has been visceral to the point of nausea. Disgust that screams “how can they get away with this?” Then anger and rage, “how is this possible? It simply isn’t fair or right”. An array of primal impulses accompany this. Then powerlessness, the feeling of having been chewed up, spat out, and kicked to the kerb. Flattened, like detritus, defeated.

This is the victory of narcissism. This is a trauma response. My body that has kept the score and carries shadows from the past, tells me so. I know that my response to recent events has awakened old feelings of hundreds of moments of aggression, hostility, manipulation, bullying, and cruelty.

I do not pretend to know or feel how any of the hostages have felt over the last 15 months, nor their families, nor Jews in Israel and the diaspora. But I do know that having relations with a narcissist feels a bit like being held captive by someone else’s will. Their will gaslights. It doesn’t matter what you say, what you do, how much you shout out the truth, they double down with their falsehoods, and wreak unmitigated havoc. And the flying monkeys in their clutches are numerous enough to make it seem like you’re in the wrong. So it is crazy making, and bewildering, and soul crushing.

In a way, we have all been held hostage by Hamas and their disciples. We have waited with bated breath for news of the hostages; we have been alienated from our city centres; we have fought against the untruths, mostly to no avail. So, just as there is collective narcissism, I believe that some of us who have been standing in solidarity with Israel and the Jewish diaspora may well be feeling collective trauma. In no way does that trauma compare to that of the hostages, their families and loved ones, and the families and loved ones of those massacred. No, their recovery will be long and profoundly painful. But in touching the edges of their trauma, we become present to our compassion and embrace our shared humanity.

I tell myself it need not be defeat, all is not lost. But how do we face down evil? How do we face down entrenched collective narcissism? How do we excise this malignancy from our midst? I scramble for answers, and I fear that dark times lie ahead. So, just as I did when facing down an individual narcissist, I tell myself to keep getting up when I feel defeated, I tell myself to go into the world with love. And I remind myself to hold firm the belief that while people of the lie will avoid the light, in the end the light of Truth will prevail.

Am Yisrael Chai.