The Victors

It has little to do with electoral politics. I am a left-center Dem (and a so-called Oct 8 Jew who learned a critical lesson that day, when worldwide pro-Hamas celebrations began long before any Israeli retaliation in Gaza). I have never voted for a Republican and would vote for a DSA type over the most moderate Republican on a national level as long as Republicans are basically a fascist party. (The moderate Republican - are there any still? - would nonetheless go along with horrific party leadership most of the time; the DSA is still not fully in charge of Democratic politics and I and most center-left Jews also agree with many DSA priorities even if I deeply distrust the people.)

The reasons for my deep mistrust of DSA types: (1) black and white thinking with society comprising 2 sides - oppressors and oppressed - in permanent opposition, demanding which side are you on choices; (2) the oppressors are viewed as successful in good part because of their exploitation of the oppressed, (3) those who are exploited are by the mere fact of that heroic, even the worst behavior justifiable, and (4) there are racial and ethnic rules about who is grouped oppressed and oppressor; the latter are white, European in origin, the former people of color.

As such, the DSA left does not emotionally care much about Arab on Arab, Black on Black, Arab on Black, or White on White wars and slaughters (Sudan, Syria, Ukraine, Yemen, etc). No one organizes marches supporting Ukraine now (much any of those other places), yet the hostility to Israel and increasingly Jews in general (ie not just anti-Bibi policies) only grows three years after the war's beginning and nearly a year after the cease fire. Only 1st world Israelis vs 3rd world Gazans animate the Left, often openly rooting for the 3rd world Islamic Jihadists terrorists. The anti-Israel protests have been the largest and most prolonged ever, historically dwarfing every other world conflict. (BTW, the majority of Israeli deaths on Oct 7 were almost certainly people sympathetic to Palestinians and 2 states for 2 peoples solutions.) DSA ideology is simple-minded bumper-stickerism, willfully ignorant or dismissive of histories contrary to the ideology.

The extreme hostility and glorification of those committed to the extermination of Israel, reflecting the basic ideological underpinning of the DSA left, is therefore dangerous not just to Israel but to any Jew worldwide on the wrong side of those sympathies. It has been unpleasantly sobering for me and a large majority of liberal Jews.