As representatives of the national leadership body of the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA), we believe it’s always unfortunate when members choose to leave the organization. When they tell us why they’re leaving, we seek to give them a respectful hearing and learn any lessons that we can.

This week, longtime DSA member Maurice Isserman used an article in The Nation to explain why he was quitting our organization. We want to thank Isserman for his years of dedication to the organized left, and for his scholarship that has contributed to a better understanding of the history of social movements for liberation. It is regrettable that he felt he had no other choice but to end his association with DSA.

However, while everyone is entitled—even encouraged—to express their views about the decisions we make, we fundamentally disagree with Isserman’s portrayal of DSA, and we want to set the record straight about several of his assertions and analyses.

The central argument of Isserman’s piece is that DSA’s growing consensus on our solidarity with Palestinian liberation is a result of the organization’s being “captured by left sectarian ‘entryists.’” This is not true. DSA’s political commitment against the Israeli occupation is just one small part of a broader generational and cultural shift in the way the public understands the conflict. The moral case for ending Israeli apartheid has never been clearer. Our taking a strong stance isn’t due to organized entryism but the result of years of dedicated organizing by anti-occupation activists across the globe—and a robust internal democratic process within DSA.

On October 7, a coalition of armed Palestinian groups entered Israel, killed more than a thousand people, and took hundreds of hostages. Israel responded by launching an indiscriminate bombing campaign against Gaza. As we write this, Gaza is now under massive bombardment from the Israel Defense Forces (IDF). Over 7,000 Gazans have been killed—nearly 3,000 of them children. Millions are displaced. As anti-war activists call for a cease-fire and de-escalation of violence, the IDF and the United States prepare for a potential ground invasion in which many more will surely be killed.

Isserman accuses DSA’s position on the conflict—demanding a cease-fire and calling attention to the history of occupation and apartheid in Palestine—of being “politically and morally bankrupt.” Let us be clear: we do not seek to justify or excuse the killing of any civilian. As we have said publicly, we abhor the deaths of Israeli and Palestinian civilians alike. Every life is precious.

What we are also determined not to do, though, is abandon our calls for Palestinian liberation, and for an end to Israeli apartheid. There is no contradiction in our eyes between recognizing the tragedy that has befallen too many innocent people in both Israel and Palestine and understanding that the root cause of that tragedy lies in Israel’s occupation and discriminatory policies.

The history of this conflict did not begin on October 7, despite the simplistic narrative being driven by much of the media. Since Palestinians were driven out of their homes en masse in the 1948 “Nakba” (Arabic for “catastrophe”), Israel has increased its control over the territory, including with the occupation of territories captured in the 1967 Six-Day War such as Gaza and the West Bank. This occupation has been a humanitarian crisis for the Palestinian people, with Gaza being turned into an “open-air prison,” and increasing settlement in the West Bank becoming an explicit political priority of the Israeli state in recent years.

DSA’s position in solidarity with the people of Palestine reflects a broader shift in public opinion about the occupation, as conditions across the occupied territories continue to deteriorate and the viability of a “both sides” approach to the conflict becomes less tenable. A March 2023 Gallup poll showed that net sympathy for Palestine (42 percent) had eclipsed support for Israel (40 percent) among US millennials surveyed. And in the wake of the recent conflict, a majority of Americans oppose sending military aid to Israel, according to CBS.

The shift has impacted developments within DSA, as the organization has grown considerably from its pre-2016 size and come to better represent the United States’ multiracial working class. The massive influx of members since 2016 has not been without contention. As DSA has grown we have faced a myriad of challenges and conflict about how best to integrate each new cohort, but with each of these, the organization has also matured.