Trap · reasoning move
◆ DARVO: deny, attack, reverse
Sounds like: “You're the real aggressor here.”
When confronted with a wrong, the response denies it, attacks the person raising it, and recasts the accused side as the victim and the accuser as the offender.
Signs
the answer to a specific wrong is 'that's a lie' plus an attack on who said it; within a few sentences the accused side is the victim; the original question is never answered.
Questions to ask
Was the specific claim addressed, or only its messenger? Can both be true — the accuser has an agenda AND the wrong happened? Who is being cast as victim, and does the evidence support that role?
What to do
bring the conversation back to the specific event and its evidence, and acknowledge real victimhood on both sides without letting it cancel the question.
Example
'Zionists are the modern Nazis' in reply to a report of antisemitic attacks — the victims of the attack become the offenders.
The mirror
'the settler-violence stories are NGO propaganda, the real victims are the settlers' in reply to a documented attack like Huwara 2023.
What it is.
DARVO — Deny, Attack, Reverse Victim and Offender — was named by the psychologist Jennifer Freyd (1997) to describe how perpetrators respond when held to account. It works at the level of groups too, and in this conflict it runs both ways. The facts get denied ('it didn't happen', 'the numbers are fake'), the messenger gets attacked ('hasbara', 'antisemite', 'terror supporter'), and the roles get swapped: the side accused of a wrong becomes the victim of the accusation, and the accuser becomes the offender. Holocaust inversion is an extreme form: the Jews' own history as victims is turned into the charge that they are the new perpetrators. Denying the Nakba or settler violence and blaming 'Arab leaders' or 'NGO propaganda' is the mirror.
Why it works on us
- Sometimes the accuser really is acting in bad faith, and pointing that out is fair.
- Both peoples in this conflict have been victims, so claiming victimhood is rarely entirely false.
- Being accused publicly feels like an attack, and answering with a counter-attack feels like self-defence.
Where this trap shows up
Your side does it too — look at both columns.