Prof. Gad Saad warns of "Collective Psychosis" behind rising anti-Jewish hatred at L.A. panel - just days prior to Marxist murdering of pre-engaged, Israeli Embassy couple

Los Angeles — May 22, 2025 — In a prescient conversation just days before the shocking assassination of two Israeli embassy staffers in Washington, evolutionary behavioral scientist Dr. Gad Saad issued a stark warning about the ideological forces fueling global anti-Jewish incitement. Speaking at the Temple of the Arts in Los Angeles on Sunday, May 18, with David Suissa, editor-in-chief of the Los Angeles Jewish Journal, Saad outlined what he described as a “collective psychosis” gripping segments of academia and activist circles.

Kings College Union, London Oct 21, '23

Saad, author of The Parasitic Mind, diagnosed the rise in antisemitism not as a byproduct of traditional ethnic bigotry but as a systemic infection enabled by identity politics, grievance studies, and Western intellectual self-flagellation. “It’s a mass derangement,” he said, “where hatred of Jews becomes a badge of virtue among the supposedly enlightened.”

A Timely Warning Before Tragedy

The exchange came just three days before Elias Rodriguez—a 24-year-old former university student radicalized online and through campus activism—gunned down Israeli Embassy diplomats Yaron Lischinsky (German-born son of an Evangelical Christian mother) and (Jewish-American) Sarah Milgram outside their Washington D.C. residence. Investigators have confirmed Rodriguez’s manifesto quoted post-colonial theorists and referenced the term “decolonization by any means,” a theme Saad explicitly criticized during his May 18 remarks.

Sarah Milgram                  Elias Rodriguez
Yaron Lischinsky     (photo: Jewish News UK)

“There’s a direct through-line,” said Suissa, who opened the conversation by noting the perverse celebration of Hamas on American campuses after the October 7 pogrom in Israel. “You see people chanting for genocide under the guise of justice.”

Saad agreed, lambasting what he called “the Olympics of victimology” and warning that Jews have become uniquely delegitimized in this ideological competition. “If Jews are seen as hyper-white oppressors,” he explained, “then calls for violence against them become excusable, even righteous, in the minds of the indoctrinated.”

Ideological Roots of Hate

Univ of Texas at Austin

The discussion traced antisemitism not to fringe hate groups but to elite Western institutions: academia, media, and global NGOs. Saad recounted how in some universities, Jewish students are explicitly told they are not welcome in “racial justice” coalitions. “This is not old-school Jew-hatred. It’s hatred with a PhD.”

Swarthmore College, Pennsylvania

He also noted that social media amplifies these narratives with devastating speed, building echo chambers that create moral inversion. “We now live in a world where the terrorists are seen as the victims, and the victims are condemned as colonizers.”

Suissa highlighted the disturbing moral collapse among cultural influencers and media outlets, where Hamas atrocities are minimized while Israeli self-defense is painted as aggression. “We’ve crossed into Orwellian territory,” he warned.

“This Is Not a Drill”

Both speakers urged the Jewish community to shed complacency and confront this ideological war directly. “You can’t fight fire with appeasement,” Saad declared. “We need courage, clarity, and an unapologetic defense of reason.”

Reflecting on the events of May 21, Saad’s words feel eerily predictive. “If we don’t treat the parasitic ideas infecting our institutions,” he warned, “we’ll see them translate into bullets.”

As details continue to emerge about Rodriguez’s path to radicalization, the L.A. panel serves as both a call to action and a haunting reminder: hatred intellectualized is hatred unleashed.