Top Democrats Smear Palestinian-American Politician for Criticizing Zionism
Virginia Delegate Sam Rasoul, whose family was displaced by Israel, wrote about the ‘evils’ of Zionism, prompting a flurry of attacks from Tim Kaine, Abigail Spanberger, and other party colleagues.
A Palestinian-American politician in Virginia, whose family members have lost their homes to Israeli expansionism and colonialism, is being attacked by fellow Democrats for criticizing Zionism.
In late July, as global outrage in response to Israel’s mass starvation campaign in Gaza reached new heights, Virginia state Delegate Sam Rasoul posted a picture of award-winning Palestinian writer Omar El Akkad’s book One Day, Everyone Will Have Always Been Against This, on Instagram and wrote:
“One day, everyone will have always been against this genocide. After 22 months of the most horrific crimes, there is no doubt that Israel is conducting the most evil cleansing in human history as we fund and watch it play out minute by minute.
Much love to so many of my Jewish friends who have stood up from the first weeks of this horror to say this is not in our name. We know that this was never about religion, rather a supremacist ideology created to destroy and conquer everything and everyone in its way. This is Zionism.
Zionists yearn to be the only victim and deflect from the evils perpetuated in its name. Instead of calling for an end to genocide, Zionists have bastardized antisemitism making the world less safe for my Jewish friends.
There is no middle ground in this supremacist mess. The rights stripped from Palestinians for decades are being stripped here now. The concentration camps in Gaza are being built here. Zionism has proven how evil our society can be, and sadly we are beginning to experience it here in our great Republic.
Now is our time to rise up and stand on the right side of history.”
Rasoul, one of three Muslim members of the Virginia General Assembly, is the son of Palestinian immigrants who moved to the US around 1970. Many of Rasoul’s family members were displaced during the 1967 war, and some continue to face land seizures today.
It’s because of that reality, and what’s happening in Gaza, that Rasoul posted his late July message.
“The reality of the court of public opinion is clear that there is a genocide happening in Gaza, and even with the Israeli human rights organizations coming out and J Street now calling it a genocide,” Rasoul told Zeteo.
But earlier this week, Jewish Insider wrote about Rasoul’s Instagram post, prompting a vicious backlash from pro-Israel Jewish groups and members of his own party.
Former Virginia Speaker of the House Eileen Filler-Corn accused Rasoul of “fueling one of the oldest forms of hatred in the world, repackaged in the language of activism.”
Former Virginia Rep. and current gubernatorial candidate Abigail Spanberger said in a statement that the “horrors” of the war, on both sides, “rightly compel so many to advocate for the mass delivery of aid, the release of all Israeli hostages, and a ceasefire between Hamas and Israel,” but that “one can and must denounce these tragedies without using antisemitic language, whether intentional or not.”
Tim Kaine, one of Virginia’s two Democratic senators, declared: “I forcefully reject any claim that Zionism — the desire of Jewish people to have a state of Israel — is inherently racist or evil.”
He added: “Many Zionists in Israel, America and throughout the world are deeply concerned by the suffering of innocent Palestinians.”
In fact, a poll this week found that 79% of Israeli Jews were “not so troubled” or “not troubled at all” by the famine conditions in Gaza.
Nevertheless, officials like Virginia state Senator Schuyler VanValkenburg applauded Kaine’s statement. VanValkenburg called it “exactly right,” adding that the “current Israeli government deserves condemnation for its actions in Gaza. But the claim that Zionism is inherently evil deserves to be forcefully rejected.”
The Washington, DC, chapter of the Anti-Defamation League accused Rasoul of “using antisemitic rhetoric,” while ADL president Jonathan Greenblatt chimed in to accuse Rasoul of “Holocaust minimization” and say that the “extreme demonization of Zionism as a unique evil is downright dangerous.”
The Jewish Democratic Council of America wrote on social media that “Zionism represents the right of Jewish people to self-determination in our ancestral homeland,” adding that the “hate expressed by Del. Sam Rasoul doesn't belong in the Democratic Party.”
The backlash came as Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced his intentions to seize and control all of Gaza and the Israeli security cabinet approved plans for its military to take over Gaza City.
‘Criticizing Genocide Is Not Antisemitic’
Rasoul met the criticism from his Democratic colleagues by grounding his July comments in ongoing events. “Right now, as we speak, they are busy stealing large swaths of land in my father's town,” Rasoul told Zeteo, referring to Al-Bireh in the occupied West Bank. “And to watch what this has produced, where nearly 80% of people in Israel believe that there's not much of a problem with what's happening in Gaza? You know, we have an important conversation to have as a society about how we got here.”
Rasoul also pushed back on the conflation of his criticism of Israel with antisemitism. “These genocide deniers and apologists for the State of Israel, have nothing else but to claim everything is antisemitic,” Rasoul said. “The reality is that my Jewish friends are less safe because they've bastardized antisemitism. And prevented us from really being able to take on truly antisemitic behavior, because criticizing a genocide is not antisemitic,” he added.
“And that philosophy, as we know, is Zionist: it is not the aspirational belief that there should be a safe place for a homeland for Jews. It is the manifestation of an ethno-supremacist state that has produced not only this occupation, but an apartheid regime that now has committed the ultimate act of terror, which is a genocide on the people of Gaza.”
Zeteo reached out to the offices of Kaine and Spanberger to ask whether they believe anti-Zionism is antisemitism. Zeteo also requested their response to Rasoul and many other Palestinians’ view that Zionism does not solely represent the desire for Jewish people to have a safe homeland but has, in practice, resulted in the displacement of the Palestinian people, as well as occupation and apartheid.
Zeteo also asked whether these two officials believe that what Israel is doing in Gaza is genocide, or what they view as the difference between Zionism and the policies of the current Israeli government.
Kaine’s office was the only one to respond, with a spokesperson telling Zeteo:
“Senator Kaine has not used the term genocide to describe the war in Gaza because he hasn’t concluded that the tragedy there warrants that description. Senator Kaine strongly agrees that there should be two states with equal rights for all, as promised by the international community in 1947. Further, since Israel has made plain it will not accept Palestinian autonomy, he believes the U.S. should not condition recognition of Palestine on Israeli assent but rather on Palestinian willingness to peacefully coexist with its neighbors. He believes Zionism is the desire of Jews to have Israel as a homeland, which is separate from current policies of the Israeli government—policies that many Zionists oppose. While some anti-Zionists are antisemitic, many are not.”
Rasoul called the attacks against him on social media “ludicrous,” but said they pale in comparison to “the horrors that my brothers and sisters are going through.”
“It’s par for the course for people who are genocide deniers, who are holding on to a philosophy that produced this evil,” he said.
“I often feel so helpless," Rasoul told Zeteo, saying the least one can do is tell the truth and have a conversation about how a society, in 2025, has been able to "stomach the live-streaming of a genocide."
Now, Rasoul concluded, "is the time for us to have an honest conversation about how we got here and how we actually say ‘never again.’”
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Check out Mehdi’s interview from earlier this year with Omar El Akkad and more of Zeteo’s coverage of the genocide in Gaza:
A big FU to Tim Kaine and the other racists Dems. Zionism is a political ideology that views themselves as superior to everyone else. See the language calling Palestinians “animals” and worse.
So easy to dunk on the Palestinian American denouncing a clear and obvious genocide than denouncing Netanyahu, his right wing extremist evil regime and the IDF for committing such genocide.