Solomon2
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Oh, and since you ask me to "Freud" you and you've mentioned "projection" then maybe this paper might help, though it is mostly based on Palestinians and "culturally similar Arab-Muslim Islamists". Here's an extract:
...in individualistic Western societies, the affected individual may rebel against family and society, frequently with criminality. More rarely, with a different personality configuration, he may join a terrorist group and become collectivized therein.[54] In Arab society, because of its strongly collectivist and patriarchal nature, the individual characteristically does not criminally act out against the mores of family and society. Instead, the buried emotions of childhood trauma are handled by the psychological defense mechanism of splitting, whereby antagonistic feelings toward the parent, and toward the individual himself, continue as a dammed-up source of predominantly subconscious anger. Later, this is discharged by projection outward onto a socially endorsed target-in this case, Jews and Israel.
An eminent Palestinian psychiatrist noted the authoritarian upbringing and harsh disciplining of children in Gaza for even an incorrect answer in school. He suggested that children of the First Intifada were rebelling not only against the actions of the “invading Israeli army” but also displacing onto Israelis their repressed anger at the harsh circumstances of their daily life.[55]
The first few years of infantile development are pivotal in determining the baby’s self-esteem and his future personality. No mother is perfect,[56] but if she is a “good-enough mother”[57] the baby will incorporate predominantly good memories. With seriously defective or abusive mothering, or with harsh paternal abuse, the child will be negatively influenced, lose basic trust in one or both parents, withdraw emotionally from them and from others, and come to trust only himself, losing empathy with others and possibly becoming capable of great cruelty.
Concomitantly, he experiences severe anxiety and rage. But since he cannot yet accurately localize these painful feelings, they are translated by a postulated, primitive, punitive superego (or early “conscience”)[58] into self-blame, followed by poor self-esteem. He either sinks into apathy or compensates by developing fantasies of self-grandeur. For this, and to maintain trust in himself, he needs and demands constant reassurance in the form of admiration and attention. Thus evolves the pathological narcissist, or at its worst the malignant narcissist who, if charismatic, intelligent, and articulate, may become a ruthless authoritarian leader.
Recent research utilizing new brain-imaging and other techniques indicates that previously severely abused children, due to abnormal stress hormone production, suffer abnormal brain development affecting nerve centers that regulate memory, emotions, and behavior, including aggression. These findings appear to link child abuse, consequent aberrant brain development, and ensuing psychological, emotional, and behavioral consequences.[59]
The most important psychological mechanism alleviating the painfully damaged psyche is the abovementioned splitting,[60] whereby the good and bad internal representations are split off from each other. The intensely negative representations of self and parent, having been split off and rendered unconscious, are displaced, by the well-known defense mechanism of projection, onto others toward whom the individual is caused to feel hatred.[61]
Thus the emerging leader is enabled to become grandiose and feel omnipotent. But because of associated split-off fear he blames and scapegoats the other, considering himself and his cause “the victim,” thereby manifesting early paranoia that accompanies the projective mechanism. Refusing to accept responsibility, he even perpetrates atrocities against the “other.”...
