Democratic Socialists of America (DSA)

Key points

• The Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) is the largest socialist organization in the U.S., operating as a political and activist non-profit 501(c)(4) with close to 80,000 members and about 250 chapters, as of 2023.
• Though DSA was founded with core organizing principles that supported Zionism and Israel, its committees and chapters have since denounced that history and declared themselves explicitly anti-Zionist.
• DSA’s overseeing National Political Committee encourages chapters to adopt anti-Zionism as an endorsement standard.
• Following October 7, some chapters and bodies supported the attack and glorified the Palestinian “resistance” and other U.S.-designated terror organizations backed by Iran.
• DSA’s youth and student wing, YDSA, has over 100 chapters across the country and has been a key co-organizer of anti-Israel protests and university encampments nationwide since spring 2024.
• DSA is a dues-paying organization, with members paying monthly or annual dues on a sliding scale. It also receives backing through an associated 501(c)(3) organization and donor-advised funds.

Introduction

The Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) is the largest socialist organization in the United States with a declared mission to "weaken the power of corporations and increase the power of working people.” DSA operates as a 501(c)(4) non-profit political and activist organization and has reported close to 80,000 members and about 250 chapters and organizing committees (groups in the process of becoming chapters) as of 2023.

Though support for Zionism and Israel were core organizing principles when DSA was first established in the early 1980s, it has since denounced this history and declared itself an anti-Zionist organization. It now regularly expresses virulently anti-Zionist positions, engages in anti-Zionist activism on the ground and online, endorses the boycott movement against Israel and promotes anti-Zionist orthodoxy among members and bodies.

Since the October 7 Hamas terror massacre in southern Israel, DSA bodies and chapters, as well as committee members, have also openly engaged in rhetoric supportive of the attack and of “resistance” from Hamas and other U.S.-designated terror organizations.

DSA’s youth wing, Young Democratic Socialists of America (YDSA), has been a prominent co-organizer of anti-Israel protests across the U.S. since October 7, particularly the spring 2024 encampments on college and university campuses. In July 2024, YDSA voted to define Zionism — the belief in the self-determination of the Jewish people in their ancestral homeland — as “a racist, imperialist, settler-colonial project.”

History

DSA was founded in 1982 following the merger of the Democratic Socialist Organizing Committee (DSOC) and the New American Movement (NAM). Support for Israel and Zionism were core principles — somewhat of a rarity with the emergence of the New Left at the end of the 1960s and early 1970s. Michael Harrington, one of the Democratic Socialist Organizing Committee’s leading members and DSA co-chairman, was an ardent Zionist and supporter of a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

For many years the group was a marginal political force but saw a resurgence after the 2016 presidential election.  As of 2023, DSA as a membership organization had reported about 78,000 members — down from a high of 95,000 in 2020, though more than the 6,200 it reported having in 2015. DSA’s youth and student section, YDSA, has over 100 chapters across the country. 

In recent years, DSA has seen increased electoral success, backing political candidates that have secured seats ranging from city council to Congress. It is also known for its robust political campaigns, protests and community organizing, including anti-Zionist and anti-Israel activism.

In 2017, activists with the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement within DSA proposed a resolution to formally endorse the international campaign to delegitimize Israel. It passed with an overwhelming majority.

In 2019, DSA voted to establish a BDS and Palestine Solidarity National Working Group (BDSWG), which has had run-ins with the organization’s leadership over certain stances.

As of July 2024, at least 26 local DSA chapters passed resolutions declaring themselves explicitly anti-Zionist.

DSA Committees and anti-Zionist message discipline

DSA has several working groups and committees subordinate to its National Political Committee (NPC). The International Committee (IC) is one of these national-level committees that seeks to further the organization’s work on international issues and organize national campaigns.

The NPC has struggled for some time to harmonize the desire for an independent committee and working groups and with the need for organizational message discipline.

In 2022, the NPC de-chartered and disciplined the BDS Working Group — allegedly due to its intransigence regarding handing over the login information to their X/Twitter account — following months of bitter infighting about soon-to-be former Congressman Jamaal Bowman (who was backed by DSA) and the controversy over whether he should have been expelled from the organization after he voted to fund Israel’s Iron Dome and took a trip to Israel with left-wing Zionist organization J Street.

The NPC later reversed the decision to de-charter the BDS Working Group, though its members were barred from seeking leadership positions elsewhere in the organization.

In the summer of 2023, the organization attempted to reckon with its stance on Zionism and the BDS Working Group, which pushed to adopt anti-Zionism as the official stance. The NPC controversially voted to subsume the BDS working group into the International Committee, something both groups fiercely opposed.

A year later, the NPC passed a resolution denouncing the organization’s Zionist roots, falsely accusing the United States of having troops in Gaza who were participating in hostilities against Hamas and declaring itself to be an explicitly anti-Zionist organization. The final version of the resolution requires all local chapters to include a question about BDS on candidate questionnaires, encourages chapters to adopt anti-Zionism as an endorsement standard and makes it impossible for a Zionist to receive an endorsement from DSA National.

DSA’s International Committee, meanwhile, has taken many controversial positions on foreign affairs, including the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Since October 7, the committee has glorified the Palestinian “resistance” and other U.S.-designated terror organizations that are supported by Iran and endorsed the attack.

• In an October 7 tweet, while Hamas terrorists were still actively murdering civilians in Israel, the committee wrote: “DSA IC urges all DSA members to stand with the people of Palestine. Attend a demonstration in your area. Long live the resistance!”
• In April 2024, the IC released a statement supporting “Iran’s right to self-defense” following Israel’s April 1 strike on the Iranian embassy complex in Damascus.
• In July 2024, the IC posted a statement condemning the assassination of Hamas terror leader Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran. It later deleted the statement about Haniyeh after the NPC began the voting process to erase/expunge it.
• The IC has also written in support of the Houthis, also known as Ansar Allah, an Iran-backed terror group operating out of Yemen.

Individual IC members have expressed support for the October 7 attack and Hamas more broadly and have shared Hamas propaganda on social media. For example:

• Mirah Wood, the co-chair of DSA’s Middle East & Africa Subcommittee, expressed support for the October 7 attack, tweeting “long live the resistance.”
• IC member James Ray expressed support for the attack and Hamas in a tweet and, separately, in an op-ed for anti-Zionist site Mondoweiss titled “Do you condemn Hamas?”
• Jorge Rocha, an IC co-chair, shared Hamas propaganda in a May 2024 tweet, followed by support for Houthi terrorism in a July 2024 tweet.

Additionally, during a webinar organized by the IC on November 12, 2023, guests Nerdeen Kiswani from Within Our Lifetime (WOL), Charlotte Kates from Samidoun and Bikrum Gill -- a virulently anti-Zionist assistant professor in the Department of Political Science at Virginia Tech -- condoned the October 7 terror attack and other forms of armed “resistance” against Israelis.

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 OFAC terrorism sanctions program.

Young Democratic Socialists of America

YDSA focuses on building the student movement and sees Palestine as a key organizing issue. For years, campus chapters have co-organized anti-Israel protests, encampments, training and coalitions, especially with Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP).

Since October 7, YDSA has been a prominent co-organizer of anti-Israel protests and encampments on university campuses.

In its July 2024 convention, the group 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 “Zionists” organizations from campus.

In another resolution in July 2024, YDSA voted to define Zionism as “a racist, imperialist, settler-colonial project that has resulted in the ongoing death, displacement, and dehumanization of Palestinians everywhere (i.e., in Palestine and in diaspora around the world).”

YDSA reported 126 chapters nationwide as of 2023.

DSA chapters’ support for the 10/7 terror attack

Some DSA chapters have explicitly supported the Hamas-led October 7 attack and denounced Israel as a “colonial regime.” For example:

• On October 7, 2023, DSA Salt Lake City (UT) 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 (CA) chapter put out 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 (PA) 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.”

Protests and events co-sponsored by DSA

• In March 2024, Maine DSA co-sponsored a protest of Jewish reggae singer Matisyahu. A speaker sarcastically said, “I’m so glad that our tax dollars are going to work here to keep Zionist musicians safe just as our tax dollars are going to work to kill Palestinians in Gaza.”
• In April 2024, DSA Houston co-sponsored the Houston Al Quds Day where a speaker said, “It should be clear now to all people... That there can be no communication, no collaboration, and no normalization with the Zionist settler state that calls itself ‘Israel.’” A poster at this protest equated Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu with Hitler and the Star of David with the swastika. These are explicit antisemitic tropes.
• In May 2024, at Colorado State University Encampment’s “Rally for Rafah” that DSA Fort Collins co-sponsored, protesters displayed stickers that included depictions of Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) terrorist Leila Khaled as well as messages that included: “Zionism is terrorism,” “Resist colonial power by any means necessary” and “Intifada.” Protesters also chanted, “There is only one solution; Intifada, revolution.”
• In April 2024, at an anti-Israel encampment at Rice University co-organized by DSA, protestors painted the phrase “long live the resistance” on a structure. They also displayed signs reading: “We must divest from Zionism,” “Zionists stay mad” and “Ugly Zionist says what?”
• At an anti-Israel encampment at the University of Minnesota during April and May 2024, also co-organized by YDSA, protesters displayed a flag for the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) and wrote a quote from PFLP leader Leila Khaled in chalk that read: “Someone came and took our land, forced us to leave, forced us to live in camps. I think this is terrorism. Using means to resist this terrorism - this is called struggle.”
• At an anti-Israel rally on the Auraria Campus of the University of Colorado, Denver; Community College of Denver; and Metropolitan State University of Denver, protesters chanted, "Smash the settler Zionist state" and "No justice, no peace; No Zionists on Denver streets."

In this May 2024 screenshot at Colorado State University Encampment’s “Rally for Rafah” that DSA Fort Collins co-sponsored, protesters displayed stickers that included depictions of Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) terrorist Leila Khaled as well as messages that included: “Zionism is terrorism.”

Funding

DSA is a dues-based organization, with members paying monthly or annual dues on a sliding scale. As a 501(c)(4) organization, donations to DSA are not tax-exempt. Some DSA regional chapters have additional separate bank accounts and solicit donations for their activities.

In 1978, the Democratic Socialists of America Fund was established, under the moniker Institute for Democratic Socialism (IDS), as an associated 501(c)(3) organization of the Democratic Socialist Organizing Committee. Its charge was to “support the exchange of information, experience, and ideas among democratic socialists.” The organization changed its name to the Democratic Socialists of America Fund in the mid-1990s, though its mission has largely remained the same.

The 501(c)(3) is prohibited from using its resources to endorse or oppose political candidates. The DSA Fund finances a number of projects, such as YDSA’s annual student conferences and “DSA committees for need-based travel reimbursement for speakers at conferences.”

The fund also gives money to organizations for ballot initiatives with grants ranging from $1,000 to $10,000.

Public records show that in 2022, the fund received $27,170 from the Schwab Charitable Fund, $10,000 from the One World Fund, $25,942 from the American Online Giving Foundation, $10,000 from the Arc of Justice and $71,198 from the Fidelity Charitable Fund.

Donors giving through donor-advised funds, such as those managed by Schwab and Fidelity, are not required to make their identities known.