We have failed Palestinians. But not in the way that you are probably imagining: the hostility that BDS experienced at DSA’s recent convention is tragic, but not what I have in mind as our principle failure. It is true that the convention voted to postpone its deliberation on resolution 12 when presented with that opportunity, (effectively kicking it up to the NPC due to time constraints, where it will almost certainly fail) and that it approved the NPC’s recommendation to move the BDS working group within the International Committee, effectively ending its autonomy & independence—but how should we interpret the significance of these votes? Despite frantic reminders from BDS WG that 26 Palestinian organizations were closely observing the convention’s decisions, why did DSA members fail to deliver these votes for BDS? It would be one thing to point to DSA’s leadership & electeds defying membership, but these decisions were made by nearly a thousand of DSA’s own delegates: are DSA’s members just fundamentally Zionist?
What I intend to demonstrate is that this is the wrong question, and asking it distracts us from our own problems. Supporters of BDS (myself included) believed that the choice before convention was as simple as “does DSA support BDS?” While I had hoped this would be the debate prior to convention, as a delegate I witnessed something completely different: an obscure and arcane drama which required several speakers to relate various histories, rely on personal experiences, and put pathos over everything else. What we got at convention was not the referendum on BDS that we (and Palestinians) deserved—it was an exceedingly dramatic forum thread acted out in real time. DSA members did not have the opportunity to vote on practical action to support BDS, because the substance of the issue was entirely hidden. Instead, they witnessed a spectacle, and they did what we should expect them to do: they told it to go away.
My point is this: to save the work of BDS in DSA, we must put that question before members directly, as a question of political strategy. It is only under those circumstances that we will be able to force DSA’s right to openly explain its aims: that it wishes to remain subservient to DSA’s electeds; that it uses the international struggle opportunistically; and that it genuinely does not want a revolution. We must not give the right the opportunity to turn to members and say (with some truth) “DSA is already anti-Zionist—this is committee drama!” When DSA members feel uneasy about a structural problem in the organization, it is not persuasive to reply “but look how much they are suffering in Gaza!” In that debate, an appeal to emotional gravity will appear, correctly, as entirely pathetic. We must make them say what they mean, and reveal to members the actual stakes of what they are deciding. We believe in the working class because we have seen that under those conditions, they make the right choice—not because they are morally upright, but because to workers it is the only choice.
How do we know this will work, if we try it today? How do we know there is an actual internationalist majority in DSA ready to vote for anti-imperialism as soon as it can? Because, very simply, it did! Amendment C to this year’s IC consensus resolution was a resounding success for the very political strategy I am describing. If DSA’s members truly were Zionists in sheep’s clothing, or otherwise anti-imperialist frauds, then they would absolutely leap at the opportunity to vote for Amendment C, which sought to leave loopholes in the IC’s consensus resolution so that DSA could continue supporting US military aid to foreign countries (the IC’s resolution, as written, prevents such support). While right opportunists are highly skilled at obscuring political debate, the overwhelming clarity of the IC’s original resolution and the clear arguments that comrades were able to make in favor of a genuine anti-war position forced the right to very explicitly explain what it wanted. The right’s delegates rose to the mic and clearly demanded that DSA support sending arms to Ukraine and align itself openly against various foreign nation-states. Letters and email chains were circulated to this effect. Flyers demanding that DSA allow the US to send arms to Ukraine littered the convention hall. Despite this forceful campaign, the amendment was handily voted down by a large majority of delegates. In the subsequent debate on the IC’s resolution itself, the right demanded that DSA members vote down the entire consensus resolution (and therefore condemn the whole work of the IC) now that it was tainted in their eyes, further displaying their weakness and helplessness when confronted with forceful political opposition (needless to say, the IC’s resolution was overwhelmingly approved). While the struggles of BDS and DSA’s whole international program are not identical, they rely on the support of this same majority of members.
In the coming weeks, and especially as the drama of the BDS-IC merger unfolds, you are going to hear numerous calls to leave DSA, that DSA itself is fundamentally broken and its members entirely Zionist in character. Segments of membership may threaten a split, or pull various stunts in an attempt to reignite previous votes. As supporters of BDS prepared to continue this struggle, we must reject the temptation to continue any further into this dead end. We need a new strategy—we need to put the question before DSA in the simplest terms, and make the right explain itself just as clearly.
On a practical level, the path forward is simple: if you are a DSA member who supports BDS, you must consider organizing a caucus to advocate for this position in clear political language, or you must join a caucus which is already doing so. The referendum that we got was on whether it was or was not a winning strategy to treat a committee or working group as a political agent—the result is a resounding no. You must distance yourself from this approach, regroup with like-minded comrades, and launch a new strategy to win over DSA members with clarity and precision. Without fetishizing debate for its own sake, we must recognize that DSA’s greatest strength is the room it allows for this kind of political organizing, and the chance it gives us to build trust with the working class. We must make our case to DSA’s members in the clearest terms, which is only possible with the amplified voice of a disciplined caucus. Start one or join one. Until we can stand behind an organized political body, we will continue to fail the Palestinian people. They deserve so much more from us.
-Yossarian
