Why America's socialist movement has Israel in its crosshairs

When it comes to the Democratic Socialist Movement, the agenda laid out is fundamentally economic: Medicare for all. Free college. Stronger unions. Higher taxes on the wealthy. Government-funded housing. A dramatically larger social safety net. Even, in some cases, government-run grocery stores.

But increasingly, another issue has become deeply embedded in America’s socialist movement: opposition to Israel and Zionism. Look at the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA), the country’s most prominent socialist organization. The connection is impossible to miss.

The DSA doesn’t just criticize individual Israeli governments or Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. No, that’s low-hanging fruit. The organization formally supports the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement, calls for ending U.S. aid to Israel and routinely describes Israel as a “settler-colonial” and “apartheid” state.

It’s that last point, the colonialism aspect, where the DSA explicitly tries to connect Palestinian liberation to its larger socialist project. So to understand why so many DSA-backed candidates hold strongly anti-Israel positions, you first have to understand that the organization doesn’t view Israel as an isolated foreign-policy question.

It views Israel through the same ideological lens through which it views capitalism, American military power, colonialism, race and oppression. It’s all one and the same, and DSA says it plainly. Its International Committee describes its work as follows:

“The fight for anti-imperialism is core to our fight for socialism in the heart of the empire. DSA’s International Committee supports the fight for anti-imperialism at home (including Palestine solidarity work and demanding normalization of relations with Cuba), houses our anti-war and migrants’ rights work, develops internationalist political education, and interfaces with left parties around the world to share lessons and learn from each other’s practice as socialists."

It’s that doctrine that provides the intellectual bridge between socialism in America and hostility toward Israel. In the DSA worldview, capitalism isn’t merely an economic system producing inequality at home. It is connected to a global system in which powerful countries, corporations and militaries exploit weaker populations.

While America sits at the center of that system. Israel, as America’s closest Middle Eastern ally and recipient of billions of dollars in U.S. military assistance, is viewed as an extension of American power. Therefore, Palestinian liberation becomes part of the struggle against American “imperialism.” It’s all interconnected.

There is, however, a second point of connection that ties the DSA movement to Israel. It’s the socialist movement’s oppressor-versus-oppressed framework. DSA literature repeatedly describes Palestinians as a colonized population and Israel as the colonizer.

Socialists side with the oppressed and describe Israel as a “settler-colonial state.” Now the situation becomes quite clearer and the policy implications become predictable. If Israel represents colonialism, then changing Israeli policy isn’t really the goal for the DSA movement. The objective is to confront Zionism itself. That helps explain DSA’s embrace of BDS.

In 2017 at their national convention, the DSA endorsed the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement. It’s been called a “historical turning point” because it marked the organization’s formal embrace of Palestinian liberation and opposition to Zionism. Two years later, in 2019, the DSA established a national BDS and Palestine Solidarity working group.

There’s yet another connection, and that is economic-based.

The argument coming from DSA is that billions of dollars are spent every year supporting Israel’s military when that money could instead finance healthcare, social services and so much more back here in America. The thinking goes as follows: why finance Israel when that money could finance the socialist transformation of America?

What happens in DSA World is that an arms embargo to Israel gets lumped in ideologically with Medicare for All in Michigan, affordable housing in New York, etc. It’s all interconnected.

Finally, there’s the anti-war politics connection. The DSA’s foreign policy is deeply skeptical of American military intervention, defense spending, and what it calls the military-industrial complex, so you can imagine how it feels about Israel, considering they are a major recipient of American weapons. That makes them, in the DSA worldview, an instrument of American power in the Middle East.

What’s the end result? Sympathy for the “oppressed Palestinians” and with it, a DSA national endorsement criteria that specifically tell chapters to consider a campaign’s position on “Palestinian liberation.” That ideological filtering helps explain the candidates emerging today.

Colorado congressional candidate Melat Kiros, New York congressional candidate Claire Valdez and New York State Senate candidate Aber Kawas have all emerged from the democratic-socialist ecosystem while taking strongly pro-Palestinian and anti-Israel positions. There are many others like them percolating in politics all over America.

So remember, the next time you hear about the growing socialist movement, it’s not just about eliminating capitalism. It’s about essentially eliminating Israel as well.