As House members most sympathetic to the pro-Palestinian left battle for their seats, the challenge for the burgeoning activist class is how to marshal and sustain national political energy. Backing electable candidates is vital for some activists, less consequential for others and entirely disregarded by a large swath of the movement. One of the more disciplined and professionalized of the far-left organizations is Jewish Voice for Peace, an anti-Zionist group that seeks to shift the Democratic Party further to the left and end its support for Israel; it established a separate PAC, Jewish Voice for Peace Action, to promote specific candidates. Certain headline-seizing protests, like the occupations last year of Grand Central Terminal and the Statue of Liberty, were Jewish Voice for Peace productions, meticulously coordinated for maximum impact.
Since October, Jewish Voice for Peace has expanded its online mailing list to more than 343,000 from 43,000 and now has more than 23,000 dues-paying members, according to Beth Miller, the political director of Jewish Voice for Peace Action. It’s impossible, in Miller’s view, to identify as a progressive and a Zionist. This, however, will not stop J.V.P. from defending Squad members like Bowman who don’t identify as anti-Zionist.
The largest volunteer-run, electoral organization committed to the anti-Zionist project is not, however, Jewish Voice for Peace Action but the Democratic Socialists of America. Not since the Sanders presidential campaigns has there been so much fresh interest in D.S.A. It is one of the few unapologetically pro-Palestinian and anti-Israel organizations to endorse candidates in Democratic primaries this year, even though some longstanding D.S.A. members have publicly recoiled at its condemnations of Israel. In the last decade, D.S.A. had made support for, or at least tolerance of, B.D.S. a litmus test for candidates. After losing volunteers for much of the Biden era, D.S.A. is now increasing its ranks. According to Chris Kutalik, a communications director for D.S.A., it has added at least 2,400 new dues-paying members since October for a total of about 78,000 members.
It would be easy to conflate D.S.A. and Jewish Voice for Peace with such Palestinian-led organizations as Within Our Lifetime and Palestinian Youth Movement: All question the legitimacy of Israel to some degree. But both Jewish Voice for Peace and D.S.A. strive to work within the Democratic Party, even as they hope to reorient it. Within Our Lifetime and Palestinian Youth Movement take a different tack. Unlike Jewish Voice for Peace, which seeks to demonstrate solidarity with Palestinians and Arab Americans, the Palestinian Youth Movement is pointedly “not a solidarity movement,” says Munir Marwan, one of its organizers. “Our elected officials, our representatives, they don’t represent us.”
Within Our Lifetime, which promoted the march past Memorial Sloan Kettering, does not concern itself with what the political establishment calls “optics.” To Within Our Lifetime, a medical institution funded by a supporter of Israel is not an innocent bystander. And the Hamas terrorist attacks can be seen as justified in the context of 75 years of colonial rule. “We are hearing the numbers decrease on what actually happened, where the Israeli government first starts off by saying 1,400 Israelis were killed, the next day we hear a lower number, and the next day we hear a lower number,” Abdullah Akl, an organizer with the group, told me. “The actions of Oct. 7,” he added, have “very little proof, very little to actually respond to.” (There is ample evidence of the Hamas attack and to support the Israeli death toll.)