Former Cornell Anti-Israel Student is Leading DSA Organizer

Former Cornell Anti-Israel Student is Leading DSA Organizer

This story is a reminder that one of the main draws of the DSA is being radically anti-Israel.

From the Wall Street Journal:

Last month Avila Chevalier knocked off a five-term incumbent in a Democratic primary for a congressional district that includes upper Manhattan and the Bronx. It was her first run at elective office.

“I think it changed my entire life trajectory,” Almosawi, a former Cornell student, said of the campus protests. She is now the national co-chairwoman of the Young Democratic Socialists of America, the DSA’s youth arm.

Like Avila Chevalier, Almosawi is a daughter of immigrants and, through one lens, an exemplar of the American dream. Her parents immigrated from Iraq and Indonesia, met in Alabama, and settled in Orlando, Fla. Her father drove a truck while her mother mostly worked restaurant jobs.

She landed at Cornell after the school offered her generous financial aid—a “golden ticket,” as she called it. Then came Oct. 7th during her first semester in upstate New York.

“It was just horrific,” she said of Israel’s retaliation. “It was like, you see a livestreamed genocide on your phone, and the normal reaction for any person is, like, how can I stop this?”

As at other universities, the student protesters built an encampment. They expressed disbelief that mainstream Democrats hedged over whether to call Israel’s conduct in Gaza a “genocide.”

The DSA, with a long record of pro-Palestenian activism, was a natural vessel for those who joined the protests. In places like Denver, DSA chapters ferried supplies to encampments and held meetings there in a show of support.

“With the encampments came a huge learning curve. Many young adults saw a world where socialism can be attainable,” said a July 2024 report on the national DSA’s blog. “It wasn’t a dog-eat-dog world that the bourgeoisie want everyone to think is acceptable.”

To many Jewish students, those protests unleashed antisemitism that later led to a reckoning for elite universities.

By late 2024, Almosawi faced her own reckoning. Cornell suspended her for disrupting a career fair that included defense contractors. Despite her parents’ misgivings, she has spent the past year nurturing YDSA chapters around the country while serving on the DSA’s national political committee.

“My intention was to graduate. But this is the most important time for socialism in America since the 1920s,” she said. “The iron is hot. The moment is now.”

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