In Focus delivers deeper coverage of the political, cultural, and ideological issues shaping America. Published daily by senior writers and experts, these in-depth pieces go beyond the headlines to give readers the full picture. You can find our full list of In Focus pieces here.On Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas carried out the largest massacre of Jews since the Holocaust. More than 1,200 people were murdered, 250 taken hostage, civilians deliberately targeted at a music festival, in kibbutzim, and inside their homes. Hours later, the Democratic Socialists of America issued a statement describing the attack as “a direct result of Israel‘s apartheid regime.” The statement never condemned Hamas. It explained the murders.That response was not an aberration. It reflected an ideological transformation years in the making, one that helps explain not only the DSA’s foreign policy but the organization it has become as it accumulates influence inside the Democratic Party.
Michael Harrington would have recognized very little of it.Harrington, the Catholic-born founder of the DSA, described himself as a “Labor Zionist.” He rejected the Soviet-backed 1975 U.N. resolution equating Zionism with racism, arguing it drained “the concept of racism of any serious meaning.” His democratic socialism rested on an explicitly anti-totalitarian foundation: He believed liberal democracy and socialism were inseparable, and he opposed authoritarian movements whether they called themselves Left or Right. Thirty-six years after his death, the organization he founded adopted a resolution making support for Israel’s right to defend itself an expellable offense.Anti-Israel protesters, including members of the communist Workers World Party and Democratic Socialists of America, march on Oct. 9, 2023, in New York City. (Lev Radin/Pacific Press/LightRocket via Getty Images)
