Democratic Socialists of America Is a Key Player in the Fight Against Israel’s Assault on Gaza
Across the country, DSA has faced attacks and slander for opposing Israel’s human rights atrocities in Gaza. It’s a testament to how effective socialist antiwar organizing, in coalition with other progressive groups, has been.
US representative Rashida Tlaib addresses the crowd as Jewish Voice for Peace holds a large rally and civil disobedience action at the US Capitol in Washington, DC, October 18, 2023.(Bill O’Leary / the Washington Post via Getty Images)
Who speaks for people of conscience at this moment? The world is watching with horror and grief as the Israeli government, with the funding and approval of our own, slaughters thousands of Palestinian children. Polls show that two-thirds of Americans want a cease-fire; support is similarly high in the international community. Yet only a handful of Democratic politicians have signed onto that demand.
Given the polls, it’s not because a cease-fire isn’t popular. Mainstream Democratic leaders’ lack of courage in the face of widespread human rights violations and the deaths of over ten thousand as of this writing has left a moral vacuum demanding peace — into which Democratic Socialists of America (DSA), along with many Arab and Jewish organizations, has stepped.
DSA (of which, full disclosure, I am a member) is demanding an end to US funding for the Israeli occupation of Palestine and calling for an immediate cease-fire. The group and its coalition partners have organized too many actions to list, oftentimes multiple on a single day. It’s worth recounting just a few of those actions to understand the role that the group has played in demanding peace in Gaza right now — which is also why a target has been put on DSA’s back by the forces opposing such peace.
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