Statement of Support for DSA Working Group Anti-Zionism Resolution
Dear Democratic Socialists of America,
We, the undersigned organizations, congratulate you on your 2023 National Convention. Our organizations represent thousands of strugglers, prisoners, workers, youth, students, and the masses of our people across historic Palestine and the near and far diaspora. We have closely followed the growth of your organization over the last few years, including the fierce struggle waged by your members to push the DSA towards active support for the Palestinian cause.
The struggle for Palestinian liberation finds itself at a critical juncture. We wish to mark this moment and highlight the importance of advancing international and domestic support for our struggle. Our people, wherever they may find themselves, face a U.S.-backed fascist regime of colonial occupation, ethnic cleansing, siege, statelessness, repression, surveillance and censorship.
These conditions are not stagnant, but instead reflect an entrenched system of settler-colonialism that advances its daily assault on our peoples’ lives, land, and rights. As we speak, the current Zionist regime continues to expand its settlement-building project throughout historic Palestine, dispossessing and displacing our people. The Zionist military and its footsoldiers in the settler movement, many of whom hail from the United States, continue to besiege our people, carrying out massacres and pogroms.
Despite the challenges faced by our people, we remain steadfast in our resistance to this incremental project of genocide. Our martyrs and prisoners remain our compass. Our brave resistance courageously defends our people and only increases our resolve for justice and liberation. Our communities in the refugee camps and the diaspora work tirelessly, despite ruthless repression, to advance international solidarity and the project of return.
Zionism is not simply a project localized to the land of historic Palestine. It is not simply a project of the establishment of a state on the ruins of the Palestinian people. Zionism constitutes one of the most advanced projects in the service of imperialism. Indeed, the current president of the United States, Joe Biden, once said, “If there were not an Israel, we’d have to invent one.”
Throughout the past century, the Zionist state has exported its military capabilities, intelligence services, weaponry, and counterinsurgency strategies and tactics–all of which have been tested and perfected on the Palestinian people. It has supported and backed proxies of Western imperialism from Guatemala to El Salvador to South Africa to the Philippines.
In turn, the Palestinian liberation movement has exported its revolutionary and anti-colonial philosophy, its experience and strategies of struggle, and its political support for revolutionary movements across the world. The Palestinian struggle for liberation, therefore, is not simply a struggle for Palestine but a struggle for all of humanity in the service of independence, sovereignty, justice, liberation, and dignity.
The people of the United States–the grassroot movements present within the belly of the beast–have a unique role to play in the struggle for global emancipation. For too long, political parties and organizations have discarded Palestinians at best and championed and supported Zionism at worst. Both major political parties have unwaveringly backed the Zionist project not because they are ignorant of the reality of Zionism, but precisely because they understand how that reality serves Western imperialism. Therefore, support for Palestinian liberation is not only a principled expression of revolutionary internationalism, but reflects a material analysis of the responsibility of the U.S. movements for justice.
As the working class bears the burden of sharpening economic crisis and environmental degradation, the U.S. government commits more than $3.8 billion annually to subsidizing Zionist colonization of Palestine, diverting those funds from investment in health care, public education, housing, and social security. Coupled with a $1 trillion defense budget on the horizon, support for the Zionist entity is reflective of standard U.S. government policy: reactionary wars and geopolitical interests over the safety and prosperity of our people and planet. Though the hegemonic narrative of Zionism is pervasive, the DSA, as a mass-organization committed to building a fighting working class, must soberly understand that the interests of Zionism are completely antithetical to the interests of the international working class.
Indeed, over the last few decades, we have witnessed the shift in popular consciousness around the reality of Zionist colonization of Palestine. We have witnessed how the American people from below, when exposed to the crimes of imperialism and zionism, seek a departure from this criminal legacy. The revolutionary and progressive movements in the US must build on and advance these developments.
The martyr of the Black liberation struggle and a comrade of Palestine, George Jackson, once said: “Settle your quarrels, come together, understand the reality of our situation, understand that fascism is already here, that people are already dying who could be saved, that generations more will live poor butchered half-lives if you fail to act. Do what must be done, discover your humanity and your love in revolution.” For the Palestinian people, Zionism is the fascism that is already here causing our people to die who could be saved and causing those who survive it to live poor butchered half-lives.
We urge you to adopt a firm position of anti-Zionism, not simply in word but in practice. Despite your organization’s stated support for our cause in recent years, a number of your member-politicians have not only abused their platforms to speak out against boycotting Israel, but have played a role in advancing the material interests of Zionism, voting in favor of military aid to occupation forces, supporting definitions of antisemitism intended to censor and criminalize Palestinians and our allies, and legitimizing Zionist lobby groups and their strategies of normalization. Instead of holding these members accountable, DSA leadership has wavered and given cover to these actions.
At a time when the Palestinian struggle has reached one of its strongest peaks in the last 3 decades, the largest socialist vehicle in the US: the DSA - has missed critical opportunities to embody this shift. Do not sacrifice your support for and solidarity with the Palestinian struggle in service of controlled access to centers of power. Do not allow Zionism to be normalized within your organization. We urge the DSA to truly demonstrate its commitments to revolutionary internationalism by upholding anti-Zionism and by holding its leaders and members accountable for any political or material support for Zionism.
We therefore call on the DSA to adopt the BDS working group’s anti-Zionist resolution. We salute the BDS working group and its leadership for working tirelessly to bridge the struggle for Palestinian liberation and the work of the DSA. We also call for the reinstatement of the BDS working group’s leadership whose unjust suspension caused our organizations to formally boycott the DSA. We trust your organization to take these necessary steps to advance the struggle for a more just and humane world, and we look forward to building upon it.
Palestinian Youth Movement
Palestinian Youth Organization
Progressive Student Labor Front
The Palestinian Chess Forum - Shatila Camp
Democratic Committees of Palestine - Germany
Palestinian Progressive Youth Union
Al-Awda PRRC
Sardinia Palestine Friendship Association
Union of Palestinian Communities and Organization - Europe
Samidoun Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network
Masar Badil: Palestinian Alternative Revolutionary Path Movement
Palestinian Cultural Club
Popular Palestinian Women’s Committee - Lebanon
Palestinian Feminist Collective
Arab Resource & Organizing Center (AROC)
Progressive Labor Front - Occupied Palestine
Public Service Union - Gaza
The Student Pole
National Students for Justice in Palestine
Palestinian Assembly for Liberation
Al-Awda NY
Palestine Youth Abroad Network
Youth of Sumud
US Palestinian Community Network