Democratic Socialists of America (DSA)

Key Points

• The Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) is the largest socialist organization in the United States, with over 120,000 members and 220 chapters nationwide as of July 2026. 
• DSA was founded in 1982 as a Zionist organization. It has since repudiated that history, and in 2025 adopted anti-Zionism as a core principle of membership. Anti-Zionism is antisemitic, in intent or effect, as it opposes the movement for the self-determination and statehood of the Jewish people in their ancestral homeland, the land of Israel.
• Rhetoric from some DSA leaders has at times crossed the line from criticism of Israel into overt antisemitism and support for terrorist organizations. 
• Many DSA-backed candidates have translated their anti-Israel and anti-Zionist agenda into political power, achieving a historic string of electoral victories in 2025 and 2026, including the election of New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani. 
• Over 250 DSA members across 40 states serve in elected offices as of 2025.
• Several DSA chapters explicitly support the Hamas-led October 7, 2023, terror attack against Israel.
• DSA’s youth and student wing, YDSA, has over 150 chapters across the country and has been a key co-organizer of anti-Israel protests and university encampments nationwide since the spring of 2024.

Introduction

A marginal political force for decades, popular support for DSA has surged since late 2024, with the organization now counting over 120,000 dues-paying members as of July 2026. Over 250 DSA members across 40 states serve in elected offices as of 2025.  

In 2025 and 2026, DSA-backed candidates achieved a string of significant electoral victories. Though the organization has a contentious relationship with the Democratic Party, many within DSA recognize the utility of running candidates on the Democratic Party line as a vehicle for building independent political power.

Central to that electoral agenda is an explicitly anti-Israel platform. DSA formally endorsed the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) movement against Israel in 2017 and has increasingly adopted a hardline anti-Zionist stance. It has declared Zionism — the belief in the self-determination of the Jewish people in their ancestral homeland — to be “a racist, imperialist, settler-colonial project.” 

At its 2025 national convention, DSA passed a resolution demanding that DSA-endorsed candidates refrain from any affiliation with the Israeli government or “Zionist lobby groups.” The resolution provided criteria for expulsion of members in “substantial disagreement” with the organization, which included opposing BDS and supporting the statement “Israel has a right to defend itself.” 

DSA bodies and chapters, as well as committee members, have also openly engaged in rhetoric supportive of the Hamas-led terror attack on Israel on October 7, 2023, and “resistance” by Palestinian terrorist organizations.

What was once a fringe ideological movement has become a meaningful force in American electoral politics. This shift, which coincides with a hardening of anti-Zionist and anti-Israel positions taken by DSA, has direct consequences for Jewish Americans and other communities targeted by their extremist rhetoric.

Anti-Zionist Litmus Tests

DSA passed Resolution 22, “For a Fighting Anti-Zionist DSA,” by a narrow margin at its national convention in August 2025, establishing anti-Zionism as a binding organizational litmus test for candidates seeking DSA endorsement and for members who wish to remain in good standing.

The resolution requires that DSA-endorsed candidates and members pledge to oppose legislation deemed harmful to Palestinians, back legislation that “supports Palestinian liberation,” and support the BDS movement. It includes “expellable” offenses, according to DSA, such as making “statements or legislation equating anti-Zionism with antisemitism,” opposing “BDS and the Palestinian cause,” or maintaining affiliation with the Israeli government or with named organizations including AIPAC, J Street, and the Democratic Majority for Israel. 

Since March 2025, 54 DSA chapters have adopted iterations of a similar resolution titled “Make DSA an Anti-Zionist Organization in Principle and Praxis,” which also condemns Zionism and sets expectations for political candidates seeking DSA endorsement. For example, the Northeast Pennsylvania DSA chapter’s iteration of this resolution demands that expelled members submit a public statement demonstrating to the chapter’s satisfaction that they understand “Palestinian issues and Zionism,” as well as apologize “for past anti-solidaristic behaviors with a commitment to putting their new anti-Zionist principles into practice.”

The DC DSA chapter's anti-Zionist resolution "denounces DSA’s Zionist roots" and demanded that endorsed candidates refrain from participating in "any event whose content or purpose contravenes DSA's stated platform and positions on anti-Zionism, apartheid, occupation, or BDS." The questionnaire for candidates seeking the group's endorsement asks candidates to refrain from "any and all affiliation" with groups that "support the occupation and apartheid regime" or "obfuscate the reality of the occupation."

DSA's Anti-Israel Agenda in Office and at the Ballot Box

Candidates supported or endorsed by the DSA have seen notable recent electoral successes while leaning into anti-Israel talking points. The organization counted 250 DSA members who serve as elected officials in the United States as of August 2025.

The most prominent recent example is New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani. Mamdani received support nationally and locally for his campaigns over the years since 2019, first for assemblyperson and then for mayor. Mamdani’s mayoral campaign inspired the national DSA body to pass a resolution at its August 2025 convention encouraging the organization to run a presidential candidate in the 2028 election.

On his first day as NYC mayor, Mamdani revoked two executive orders: one that has directed city agencies since 2016 to use the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) Working Definition of Antisemitism, the most widely adopted definitional tool for identifying antisemitism globally, and one that had provided safeguards against anti-Israel procurement practices and pension divestment by city officials, effectively opening the door to BDS-aligned decision-making by city government. 

Mamdani also vetoed legislation in April 2026 that required the New York Police Department (NYPD) to develop security perimeters around educational facilities to protect students from obstruction and intimidation. Though it eventually passed, the mayor made this decision at a time when ADL tracked a record 976 antisemitic incidents in New York City in 2025, the highest of any U.S. city in over 40 years. Many of those incidents occurred at or near educational institutions. By vetoing this bill while simultaneously revoking the city's IHRA-based antisemitism definition and its protections against BDS-aligned procurement, Mamdani removed multiple layers of protection for Jewish New Yorkers in a single series of executive and legislative actions. His separate decision not to sign the companion bill protecting houses of worship reinforces that pattern: that legislation only took effect because it passed with a veto-proof majority, not because of any action Mamdani chose to take.

In June 2026, Mamdani delivered a rally speech in which he described AIPAC as "monsters" who "move millions in dark money to accomplish a single goal: to preserve their power, so that they can turn us against one another." The remarks drew swift condemnation from Jewish leaders and organizations, who said Mamdani was invoking antisemitic tropes about Jewish power and hidden influence that have been "peddled by antisemites for centuries." Mamdani defended the remarks and declined to apologize. Over 700 Jewish clergy signed an open letter calling the language "an act of dehumanization."

(Michael M. Santiago/Getty Images)

Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) and New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani raise their hands during a Get Out the Vote (GOTV) rally at Kings Theater on June 18, 2026, in New York City.

Mamdani made those remarks just days before the June 23, 2026, Democratic primaries, where he was campaigning for three DSA-backed congressional candidates, two of whom won their races that night.

DSA-backed candidates have made statements like:

• Saying the October 7 massacre was “the inevitable consequence of apartheid”
• Claiming that the September 11, 2001, terror attacks were the inevitable consequence of U.S. foreign intervention
• Denouncing “Zionist lobbies”
• Claiming “Zionism is racism”
• Alleging that "European Zionists" created a state through ethnic cleansing
• Stating that they will "not attend events focused on obfuscating the realities of occupation or promoting Zionism and apartheid."

At least one candidate campaigned with Hasan Piker, a prominent Twitch streamer and political commentator with a history of rhetoric that sanitizes violence and denigrates Jewish people, who has also expressed support for designated terrorist organizations. 

Piker has increasingly engaged directly in political activities, on-the-ground organizing and campaigning for DSA since 2025. He has expressed support for several DSA-backed or aligned candidates, including Sen. Bernie Sanders [IND-VT] and Mayor Mamdani.

Following the candidate's win, the DSA celebrated on social media, writing that the group will support this candidate "every step of the way in the fight to abolish ICE, free Palestine and win Medicare for All."

Young Democratic Socialists of America

DSA’s youth wing, the Young Democratic Socialists of America (YDSA), focuses on building the student movement of DSA and sees Palestine as a key organizing issue. For years, campus chapters have co-organized anti-Israel protests, training, and built coalitions, especially with Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP).

YDSA has been a prominent co-organizer of anti-Israel protests across the U.S., particularly the spring 2024 encampments on college and university campuses. 

Both DSA and YDSA have falsely declared Zionism to be “a racist, imperialist, settler-colonial project that has resulted in the ongoing death, displacement, and dehumanization of Palestinians everywhere.”

At its July 2024 convention, YDSA passed a resolution endorsing the “Student Intifada” — an organizing movement whose participants have engaged in harassment, targeted protests, and vandalism in an effort to pressure universities to divest from Israeli companies and organizations, companies that do business in Israel, and increasingly, call for the complete shunning of “Zionist” organizations from campus.

As of 2026, YDSA has over 150 chapters listed in the national directory.

Anti-Israel, Anti-Zionist, and Antisemitic DSA Activity and Statements

In May 2026, the DSA released a statement to commemorate Nakba Day, when many Palestinians mourn Israel's establishment and the displacement of Palestinians during the 1948 events surrounding the creation of the state. In recent years, some activists have used Nakba Day to demonize Israel and question its legitimacy as the Jewish national homeland.

The statement framed Israel's founding as an ongoing “catastrophe” requiring active reversal and rejects recognition of Israel's legitimacy or right to exist in any form. It also railed against “Zionism and U.S. imperialism,” claimed "no country in the world will find peace in Zionism’s pursuit of domination,”  and called on socialists to "dismantle the empire from within," expressing "solidarity with Palestinian resistance" until a "liberated Palestine, FROM THE RIVER TO THE SEA" is achieved. 

The phrase "from the river to the sea" refers to the territory between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea, encompassing the entirety of modern-day Israel, the West Bank, and Gaza, and is widely understood as a call for the elimination of Israel as a state. According to one local news report, Mamdani attended a DSA victory party in June 2026 during which chants of “from the river to the sea” could be heard. 

“Palestinian resistance” is often a euphemistic reference to the armed violence against Israel and the various terrorist groups, including Hamas, responsible for violent attacks.

The National Political Committee and Members

DSA's primary decision-making body is the National Political Committee (NPC), which consists of 25 elected DSA members and the two co-chairs of YDSA. Its primary function is to shape and implement DSA’s organizational and political goals.

Several NPC members have engaged in highly problematic rhetoric.

• Amy Wilhelm, a 2025-2027 NPC member, reposted a quote from then-mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani on the second anniversary of the October 7 attacks, adding, “at least a third of those killed were by any measure legitimate targets and we still don’t know - and probably never will - how many of the Israelis killed on October 7 were murdered by the IDF.” The post not only characterizes some of the almost 1,200 people killed in the terror massacre, including women, children, and elderly people, as ”legitimate targets,” but also amplified the unfounded conspiracy theory that Israeli forces intentionally fired on and killed their own civilians.

• NPC member Ahmed Husain, who also coordinates DSA’s national BDS campaigns, lamented the killing of Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar in an October 2024 post on X, writing, "The imposter, son of an imposter, has placed me between two choices: the sword and humiliation. But we will not be humiliated."

• Current NPC co-chair Megan Romer urged X followers to “read on to learn why we do not, in fact, condemn Hamas and why no socialist should," in a May 2024 X post quote-tweeting a statement by her caucus, the Marxist-Leninist Red Star Caucus, that was titled, “We Do Not Condemn Hamas, and Neither Should You.”

• In an October 12, 2023, joint statement, the Red Star Caucus and Marxist Unity Group, both communist caucuses, wrote, “We support the right of the Palestinian people to defend themselves from harm and to determine their own fate." In a different October 2023 newsletter, the Red Star Caucus described the October 7 terror attacks simply as, ”Palestinian resistance fighters launched a major attack against Israel.”

Caucuses

DSA contains several internal caucuses, ranging from Marxist, Marxist-Leninist-Maoist, to more moderate positions, which run events, submit proposals to national conventions, and field candidates for national body elections.

• The Liberation Caucus is among the more extreme. A Marxist-Leninist-Maoist caucus that launched in the spring of 2025, it signed onto a statement publicly supporting the alleged shooter in the May 2025 killings at the Capital Jewish Museum in Washington, D.C. They also posted a graphic of the alleged killer with the caption: "It is right to rebel against the enemy."

• In A Guide to DSA Politics published in 2025 by the DSA Libertarian Socialist Caucus, the organization's anti-Zionist position is defined as rejecting Zionism as "a colonial and racist ideology" and Israel as an illegitimate "apartheid regime built on ethnic cleansing and genocide." The guide dismisses any argument for Israel's "right to exist" or "right to defend itself" and frames the preferred resolution as a single democratic state "from the river to the sea.” 

• The Emerge Caucus, a “multi-tendency communist caucus,” has also engaged in problematic anti-Zionist sentiment. In an April 2026 article, the caucus claimed to oppose any affirmative votes for Iron Dome funding because “any legitimation of the Iron Dome is by definition a legitimation of Zionism. And any material support for the Iron Dome-whether through funding, financing, or sales – is by definition material support for Zionism.”  

• Springs of Revolution, another organizing group that functions as a caucus, posted a statement in October 2025 saying the Hamas-led October 7 attacks" manifested as a courageous break from a concentration camp in an attempt to once again train the gaze of the world on the people of Palestine and their struggle for liberation.”

Local Chapters 

Some DSA chapters explicitly supported the Hamas-led October 7 terror attack in its immediate aftermath.

• On October 7, 2023, DSA Salt Lake City (Utah) published a “Statement on Palestinian Liberation,” expressing its “unwavering solidarity with the people of Palestine in their decades long fight for national liberation” and urging Americans “to stand up against settler-colonial, Zionist apartheid.” The statement proclaimed the group’s full support for the attack on Israeli civilians, writing that “it is not terrorism or anti-semitism [sic] to fight against this injustice.”

• On October 9, 2023, the DSA San Francisco (California) chapter published a statement endorsing the October 7 massacre: “Violent oppression inevitably produces resistance... This weekend’s events are no different. Decolonization is the only path towards peace.”

• On October 10, 2023, the DSA Pittsburgh (Pennsylvania) chapter published a statement expressing “continued full and unequivocal support for the Palestinian struggle for freedom.” The statement continued: “Violent opposition is the inevitable response to the conditions imposed by Israeli occupation. The conflict can only end if the apartheid regime is lifted from the river to the sea.”

• In the days following October 7, the YDSA chapter at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill characterized the terror attack against Israeli civilians as “decolonial action in real-time.” It said the group “stands in solidarity with the palestinian [sic] people in the pursuit of their liberation from colonization and apartheid.”

Local chapters also continue to express support for the October 7 terror attacks. For example, a May 2026 Nakba Day rally, co-sponsored by DSA Seattle, Nidal Seattle, and SUPER UW, featured a chant of "death, death to Zionists!" and Hezbollah, Hamas, PFLP, and Abu Obaida flags. Protesters carried a large banner featuring an image of Leila Khaled with a gun and the text "Power grows from the barrel of a gun!" and "Long Live Operation Al Aqsa Flood!" Al Aqsa Flood refers to Hamas's name for its October 7, 2023, attacks. Attendees also chanted, "Zionists go to hell" and "Death to the IDF!" A speaker expressed support for the "Axis of Resistance."

(Screenshots/YouTube)

A May 2026 Nakba Day rally, co-sponsored by DSA Seattle and other groups, featured Hezbollah, Hamas, PFLP and Abu Obaida flags. Protesters also carried a large banner featuring an image of the PFLP's Leila Khaled with a gun and the text "Power grows from the barrel of a gun!" and "Long live Operation Al Aqsa Flood!" which is Hamas's name for its October 7 attacks.

Individual DSA chapter leaders and members have made similarly troubling statements, including some that have included support for Hamas and its violence.

In December 2025, the Southern New Hampshire DSA posted a call to action to protest and boycott a local bakery in Manchester, New Hampshire, because the owner is a Jewish man who served in the Israel Defense Forces. In a petition demanding the bakery close, DSA wrote, “We will continue this boycott campaign until [the family] publicly denounce the genocide against Palestinians or until they go out of business - whichever comes first.” 

In February 2025, Tabitha Arnold, a prominent leader of Chattanooga DSA, reposted images on X of Hamas members, quipping, “Go Birds.” (The Philadelphia Eagles, like Hamas members, have green uniforms).

(Screenshot/X)

A February 2025 X post by Tabitha Arnold, of Chattanooga DSA, reposting images of Hamas members with the caption, “Go Birds.”

Prominent Philadelphia DSA member James Ray, also a member of Philadelphia’s DSA International Solidarity Committee, expressed support for Hamas in an October 7, 2025, X post that included an image of a Hamas flag, and the caption, “I love Philadelphia.” In September 2025, Ray posted an article on Substack titled, “Zionists Should Not Feel Comfortable in Our Spaces,” in which he wrote: “From our book clubs to our political organizations, Zionists should be run out of every space available and isolated from the public sphere at every opportunity.”        

In August 2025, at an anti-Israel rally at the office of U.S. Rep. Mark Alford [R-MO] organized by DSA, YDSA, and SJP, protesters displayed signs with messages that included: “Zionism means genocide,” “Israel lied about Oct. 7; No babies killed,” and “Hamas will stand down when Israel is forced to leave Gaza alone.”

DSA Committees and Groups

DSA has a number of working groups and committees, with separate organizing interests and mandates. These include the International Committee (IC), which has, since the October 7 attacks, glorified the Palestinian “resistance” and other U.S.-designated terror organizations supported by Iran, and endorsed the Hamas-led massacre. 

Chris Winston, an IC member, has repeatedly praised Hamas. In a 2024 X post, Winston wrote, ”If you say shit like ’I don’t support Hezbollah/Hamas’ and call yourself a leftist you lame [sic]. All power to the resistance. Peace through the sword.” 

He has also mocked those who expressed concern about using rhetoric that glorifies terrorist organizations.

(Screenshot/X)

Chris Winston, a member of DSA's International Committee, mocks concern over using rhetoric that glorifies terrorist organizations in a post on X in January 2026.

In 2023, the IC also signed onto “The Gaza Resolution,” promoted by left-wing activist group Progressive International, which called for the removal of Palestinian parties, including Hamas, from the U.S. Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) terrorism sanctions program.