Los Angeles City Councilmember Nithya Raman in February 2023. (Photo by JC Olivera/Getty Images for the National Wildlife Federation)
By Louis Keene
January 31, 2024
A member of the Los Angeles City Council who called for a permanent cease-fire in the Israel-Hamas war won the support of a pro-Israel group, sparking infighting in the leftist organization that helped put her into office four years ago.
The local chapter of the Democratic Socialists of American voted Wednesday to censure the council member, Nithya Raman, for seeking the backing of Democrats for Israel, a liberal Zionist group. But the group also voted to retain its own endorsement of Raman, infuriating some of the organization’s members and laying bare the bizarre political pretzeling involved when the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is injected into local races.
In its statement, the local Democratic Socialists’ group said it sees Raman’s endorsement by Democrats for Israel “as an attempt at dividing the broader movement for a permanent ceasefire.”
“We know that the real opposition to workers in Los Angeles and in Palestine are far-right forces fighting to break our solidarity,” the statement read.
Raman, whose Fourth Council District represents an area that includes some heavily Jewish neighborhoods in the San Fernando Valley, could not be reached for comment Wednesday night. She was one of several DSA-backed candidates nationwide to win high-profile elections in 2020, defeating an incumbent through record turnout, and remains one of the movement’s biggest stars.
The LA chapter of Democrats for Israel opposes expansion of settlements in the occupied West Bank and backed last year’s pro-democracy protest movement in Israel. Two of its employees co-authored a January 22 op-ed calling for the ouster of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
Raman and the man challenging her, Ethan Weaver, both received a “support” rating on the pro-Israel group’s long list of endorsements for LA’s March 5 primary elections. (Other candidates earned “strong support.”)
Gregg Solkovits, president of DFI-LA, said the organization supported Raman despite her Nov. 28 call for a ceasefire because she opposed BDS and because she had made efforts to engage the Jewish community in her district and throughout Los Angeles.
“She has not been the kind of hostile ideologue that other people elected with DSA support have been,” Solkovits said in an interview. He said the matter of a ceasefire was not raised in candidate questionnaires, and added that he believed Weaver would also be an ally if elected.
As for the DSA, the LA chapter’s decision to censure-but-still-back Raman comes amid a broader reckoning in the national movement over how central Palestinian advocacy should be to its agenda.
The organization supports the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement against Israel and has helped lead pro-Palestinian protests across the country during the current Israel-Hamas war.
Raman publicly rejected a statement issued by the national DSA following the Oct. 7 attacks, saying it “failed to reckon with the horrors committed by Hamas and was unacceptably devoid of empathy for communities in Israel.” Six weeks later, she adjourned a City Council meeting in memory of civilians killed in Gaza.
Weaver, Raman’s primary opponent, has called on her to disavow the DSA, noting that the Anti-Defamation League considers the group antisemitic.
One DSA member called the group’s decision to maintain its endorsement of Raman despite her support from DFI a “disgrace” in a social media post, while another said the move was accommodating “racist supporters of genocide.”
“Members have been told not to comment or discuss Raman as this mess continued to spiral in order to preserve DSA-LA’s ‘leverage’ and ‘power’ over her,” he wrote on X. “Instead we get whatever this is” — referring to the organization’s statement — “on top of chilling politically clarifying discussion for DSA’s electoral strategy.”
Solkovits said he found it “interesting” that was such strong pushback from DSA about Raman’s support from DFI.
“I guess they’re not interested in elected officials that really try to represent everybody in their district,” he said.
