Students: Read This Before Joining Democratic Socialists of America

Recently, I received an email from a fellow Occidental College student advertising the possibility of a Youth (DSA) chapter coming to campus.

Occidental College has a reputation for being a very left-leaning campus, an environment that I quite enjoy most of the time. However, Occidental also has a history of Anti-Zionist activism. This anti-Zionism manifests in everything from Israeli Apartheid Week to a talk given by Steven Salaita — a known anti-Semite — just a few years ago.

The petition to bring the DSA to campus is yet another example of the many times that Occidental has encouraged Anti-Zionist ideology, but I am especially concerned it has already received 74 signatures — four percent of the student body.

There are certainly many ways we can engage critically with the DSA’s politics — college campuses are just one venue — but we must be clear-minded about the organization when we do so. To be clear, I do not take issue with the concept of Democratic Socialism. Rather, it is some anti-Semitic parts of the organization’s platform with which I have tensions. If you are a student attending college in Los Angeles, you can and should join any association with which you identify. However, before deciding whether or not to join DSA, there are a few things you should keep in mind:

In 2015, DSA carried the motion to endorse the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) campaign against Israel. BDS is a blatantly anti-Semitic organization; one of its founders, Omar Barghouti, claims the Jews are not a people and denies the equal moral claim of both Jews and Palestinians to the land of Israel.

In August of 2020, DSA released their application for political endorsement. In this application, DSA asked New York City Council candidates if they would support BDS and if they would pledge not to visit Israel if elected to City Council. The candidates’ answers to these questions would determine if the New York City DSA would endorse them.

There are multiple issues with the questionnaire. First, promoting the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions Campaign against Israel, but no other country, is a blatant double-standard against the only Jewish state. Countries such as Turkey, China, Iran, and Russia all have lengthy records of human rights abuses, yet the questionnaire mentions none of them.

According to the International Holocaust Remembrance Association (IHRA) Working Definition of Antisemitism, denying the Jewish people their right to self-determination and applying double standards (by expecting from it a behavior not demanded of any other nation) is anti-Semitic. Twenty-seven countries around the world agree with the IHRA and have formally adopted this definition.

The questionnaire ignores the fact that singling out Israel, and only Israel, is an attempt to smear and delegitimize the Jewish state. This all-or-nothing mindset, common in social justice frameworks, pushes supporters of Israel completely out of progressive spaces, thus alienating the vast majority of the world’s Jews.

The questionnaire ignores the fact that singling out Israel, and only Israel, is an attempt to smear and delegitimize the Jewish state.

The second issue with the questionnaire is the DSA’s request that Jewish City Council candidates not visit a land that has religious, cultural, and historical significance to them. This request is flagrantly anti-Semitic, as it only requests this of Israel and not of other countries. Asking this question not only encourages non-Jewish candidates to adopt problematic Antisemitic attitudes for the sake of gaining an endorsement, it also serves as a litmus test for Jewish candidates.

Based on this “test,” Jewish candidates who agree not to travel to Israel become “progressive,” and those who refuse are not. In implementing this test, DSA promotes the “Good Jew/Bad Jew” trope, which defines a “Good Jew” as one who assimilates, rejects Israel, and excuses Antisemitism when they see it. A “Bad Jew” is someone who does not forgo parts of their identity, stands up for Israel, and does not excuse anti-Semitism when they see it. The “Good Jew/Bad Jew” trope has been exploited by non-Jews in an attempt to point fingers at the “Good Jews” and subsequently justify their own anti-Semitism.

DSA’s intended purpose of asking public officials not to visit Israel is to silence Israeli and Jewish voices, but it also silences vital Palestinian voices in the process. For many candidates, trips to Israel — such as the state-sponsored trips led by the Jewish Community Relations Council (JCRC) — are the only opportunities to meet Israelis and Palestinians and hear their stories. These state-sponsored trips bring New York public officials to Israel to meet with leaders of all religions, nationalities, and creeds. Alexandra Ruiz, the founder of Immigrant Advancement Matters, recalls meeting with Dr. Khalil Shikaki at the Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research, and U.S. Representative-elect Ritchie Torres remembers visiting Israelis and Palestinians, Arabs and Jews on the JCRC trip. Trips to Israel and support for Palestinian people are not mutually exclusive. Arguing otherwise is nothing more than an anti-Semitic attempt to wrongly painting Jews and Zionists as bigots.

It is important to recognize the emerging and rapidly growing anti-Semitism in the Democratic Socialists of America, and it is even more important to be critical of the organizations we support as a result. Organizations like DSA, which are celebrated for their commitment to social justice, often have anti-Semitic tropes woven into the fabric of their platforms. In a time as volatile and polarized as now, just days after an election, we must be vigilant in our self-education and stand up against all forms of bigotry and prejudice. This means understanding how anti-Semitism presents itself in communities even as progressive as Occidental College. If you are a student considering joining DSA, you have every right to do so. However, eventually, you may have to decide: are you willing to work with your Jewish peers to fight anti-Semitism, or will you choose to tolerate it?

Alissa Bernstein is a senior at Occidental College and a Foreign Policy Intern at the American Jewish Committee in Washington, D.C.