ABSTRACT
This chapter explores the ways in which psychoanalysis collaborates with systems of power, in this case, Zionist settler colonialism in Palestine, by intervening with dialogue initiatives that are misattuned to the violence that structures settler colonialism and occupation. In so doing, this chapter evinces that psychoanalytic “dialogue” initiatives are not neutral, but instead have an ideological investment in psychoanalytic innocence which functions in collusion with and as an extension of the asphyxiatory closure system throughout Palestine. We define how psychoanalytic innocence is a practice of structural, ideological misattunement that involves affirming settler-colonial realities and logics and pathologizes Palestinian will and desire for liberation and self-actualization, collectively and individually.
