Kuala Lampur, Sept. 17 -- We live in an age of jarring contradictions. The US, a nation literally forged by immigrants - from the Mayflower to Ellis Island to Silicon Valley - now grapples with fierce political movements demanding walls and closed borders. Meanwhile, halfway across the world, the modern state of Israel, established as a homeland for a persecuted diaspora, now pursues policies many see as systematically displacing the Palestinian people whose ancestors lived on that same land for centuries. It feels like historical whiplash, a collective madness. What drives this seeming global schizophrenia?

The uncomfortable answer lies not in inherent craziness, but in the collision of deep-seated human anxieties, historical trauma, an...