Michigan Democrat Rep. Shri Thanedar renounced his membership in the largest socialist organization in the United States after the far-Left group promoted an anti-semitic rally in the wake of barbaric terrorist attacks on Israel from Hamas.
“Today, I am officially renouncing my membership in the Democratic Socialists of America,” Thanedar wrote in a news release. “After the brutal terrorist attacks on Israel, which include the indiscriminate murder, rape, and kidnapping of innocent men, women, and children, I can no longer associate with an organization unwilling to call out terrorism in all its forms.”
The New York City chapter of the Democratic Socialists of America, which its website claims has over 92,000 members and chapters in all 50 states, promoted a rally in Times Square on Sunday alongside other organizations. At that rally, roughly 1,000 demonstrators celebrated Hamas’ deadly attacks on Israel that has so far left more 1,200 Israelis — and 22 U.S. citizens — dead, and nearly 3,000 injured.
“Sunday’s hate-filled and anti-semitic rally in New York City, promoted by the NYC-DSA, makes it impossible for me to continue my affiliation,” Thanedar continued. “I stand with Israel and its right to defend itself.”
“There is no place for moral equivocation in the face of unadulterated evil as we have seen from Hamas,” he said, in part. “My ideals have not changed at all. I strongly believe that ending my association with DSA serves my constituents’ interests as they expect me to represent them by helping to build a better, more just world, not fanning the flames of hatred.”
Thanedar’s response toward the socialist group’s demonstration joined a number of other political lawmakers who have distanced themselves from remarks that were said at the event.
“We are here in solidarity with the Palestinian people who are fighting 75 years of Israeli settler colonialism, settler violence, and 16 years of military blockade of Gaza,” Munir Atalla, a 30-year-old Palestinian Youth Movement group member, reportedly said. “What we saw yesterday was the people of Gaza breaking out of their open-air prison.”
Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY), one of the now five DSA members in Congress, reportedly called the “bigotry and callousness expressed” during the rally “were unacceptable and harmful in this devastating moment.”
“It should not be hard to shut down hatred and antisemitism where we see it. That is a core tenet of solidarity,” she said in a news release on Monday reported by POLITICO.
She added the event “also did not speak for the thousands of New Yorkers who are capable of rejecting both Hamas’ horrifying attacks against innocent civilians as well as the grave injustices and violence Palestinians face under occupation.”
DSA member and New York Assemblymember Zohran Mamdani (D-Queens) also criticized the rally.
“My support for Palestinian liberation should never be confused for a celebration of the loss of civilian life,” Mamdani said in a statement. “I condemn the killing of civilians and rhetoric at a rally [on Sunday] seeking to make light of such deaths.”
NYC Democratic Mayor Eric Adams condemned the organized rally.
“At a moment when innocent people are being slaughtered and children kidnapped in Israel, it is disgusting that this group of extremists would show support for terrorism,” Adams reportedly wrote in an X-post on Monday. “I reject this. New York City rejects this. Do not use our streets to spread your hate.”
NYC-DSA officials reportedly claimed they did not organize the rally, adding the group opposes harming and targeting civilians.
Steering Committee Member Nadia Tykulsker said the group promoted the event “at the request of a coalition partner because we believe in equality and justice for all Palestinians and Israelis, and we know that war will take more lives.”
“It is shameful that politicians in our state are exploiting this moment to target a socialist organization and divide the vibrant left in New York — whose sole aim in politics is to grow the power of working people for freedom against exploitation and oppression — instead of focusing our attention where it should be: on the atrocities and tragic loss of life in the region,” she added.