It’s hard to believe that the Democratic Socialists of America, the famous national progressive political group, was once an unabashed supporter of Israel. When the United Nations passed a resolution in 1975 calling Zionism a form of racism, the DSA’s chairman at the time perceptively called it a “preposterous charge” that “drain[ed] the concept of racism of any serious meaning.”
Ah, but that was yesterday, and yesterday’s gone. The DSA’s current stance on Israel is, to put it delicately, considerably less supportive.
The group proudly declares its “solidarity” with “Palestine,” demands “an end to diplomatic and military support of Israel” (which it calls an “apartheid regime”) and has enthusiastically endorsed the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) call to shun Israeli products.
Congressional members of DSA (of which there are a handful, though more than 200 reportedly serve as elected officials in state and local legislatures) voted, moreover, against a July 2023 House resolution declaring that “The State of Israel is not a racist or apartheid state. Congress rejects all forms of anti-Semitism and xenophobia, and the United States will always be a staunch partner and supporter of Israel.” (The resolution passed 412-9.)
Among those who voted nay on that resolution was DSA member Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who has opposed American military aid to Israel and has described the country’s war on Hamas and quest to free those it kidnapped on October 7 as “genocide.” A 2021 article on the DSA site dubbed the Congresswoman “DSA’s foremost socialist superstar.”
And so, it came as something of a surprise when, earlier this month, the DSA pulled its endorsement of Ms. Ocasio-Cortez.
The reason? In a June 10 webinar with Jewish Council of Public Affairs leaders, the Congresswoman charged that accusations of anti-Semitism had been “weaponized” to silence legitimate critiques of Israel, but she also dared to acknowledge that criticism of Israel did sometimes cross into anti-Jewish hate.
“[There is a] line past which criticism of the Israeli government can slip into anti-Semitism,” she said, adding that it’s incumbent on progressives to condemn such behavior.
Horrors!
Well, at least the DSA was horrified, fuming that, at the webinar, “anti-Zionism and anti-Semitism were conflated…[constituting] a deep betrayal to all those who’ve risked their welfare to fight Israeli apartheid and genocide through political and direct action in recent months, and in decades past.”
On June 23, the group expressed its continued support of Ms. Ocasio-Cortez, but only if she accepted a list of conditions, among them, to oppose “all funding to Israel, including the Iron Dome,” to participate “regularly in the DSA Federal Socialists in Office Committee” and to oppose “all criminalization of Anti-Zionism, such as bills advancing the IHRA definition, which conflates criticism of Israel with anti-Semitism.”
(The latter claim is a blatant lie, as the IHRA only notes that anti-Semitism “might [emphasis mine] include the targeting of the State of Israel, conceived as a Jewish collectivity,” and explicitly states that “criticism of Israel similar to that leveled against any other country cannot be regarded as anti-Semitic.”)
But the Congresswoman apparently disappointed DSA’s leadership by not capitulating to its conditions to retain its support for her. And so it withdrew it.
Ironically, by jettisoning Ms. Ocasio-Cortez, the group has precisely illustrated the truth of her admission. By denying that the brandishing of Hamas flags and swastikas, chants to make the Holy Land Judenrein, open celebration of the murder, torture and kidnapping of Israelis and attacks on Jews worldwide in the name of “Palestine” are not informed by—indeed, saturated with—anti-Semitism, the DSA implicates itself in the same.
As Amy Spitalnick, the Jewish Council for Public Affairs’ CEO, put it: “The fact that even participating in such a conversation is beyond the pale for DSA should tell us everything we need to know about where they stand.”
Congresswoman Ocasio-Cortez retains the support of the socialist group’s chapter in New York City, where she is expected to easily win a fourth term this fall in a heavily Democratic district. But the true colors the national DSA displayed must remain in her consciousness.
Would it be too Panglossian to imagine that her rejection by the group that helped catapult her to national prominence might convince her that anti-Semitism plays a larger role in progressive politics than she has realized?
It’s a comforting thought, anyway.
To read more, subscribe to Ami
Recent Comments