Lies and the Language of Violence
Seth Mandel, Commentary
Abe Greenwaild's July 15 newsletter discussed a bizarre scene in which Rep. Ro Khanna, an anti-Israel demagogue testing a run for president, was repeatedly badgered by left-wing podcasters to say that Palestinians have a right to kill Israelis, which they did on October 7.
The Dropsite podcasters were precisely the sort of company Khanna has been keeping lately—anti-Zionists obsessed with violence. As Abe wrote:
“Khanna came face to face with the lunacy of the mob that he’s been trying to please with tweets, speeches, stunts. And he let [Jeremy] Scahill down by refusing to speak the monstrous words that would have admitted him into the esteemed ranks of the radicals. Khanna instead called October 7 a terrorist attack, denied Hamas’s right to kill Israelis, and offered some mush about nonviolent resistance.”
To progressives, the logical endpoint of their rhetoric about the evils of the Jewish state is violence against the Jewish state, and Khanna can’t pretend otherwise without getting himself called out for the contradiction.
Now it turns out that the very day Khanna went on the Dropsite show, the Democratic Socialists of America—the intellectual force behind the progressive coalition of which Dropsite is a part—released its updated national platform. And coincidentally, their platform also made explicit the group’s support for violence against Israel.
The wording of the DSA platform was slightly less overtly violent than the Dropsite crew’s on Tuesday. But not less-violent enough to leave any doubt. Under the Free Palestine subheading in the section on “a working-class foreign policy,” the DSA writes:
“Recognize the rights of the Palestinian people, including the right of return, the right to resist military occupation, and the right to self determination in a free Palestine with Jerusalem as its capital. End all military and economic aid to Israel. Prosecute U.S. and Israeli leaders responsible for the genocide in Gaza.”
In politics, when there is a mass coordinated campaign to sell a lie, that lie has a specific purpose. We would do well to get used to asking ourselves what might be the purpose of the lies we come across. The purpose of the “genocide” lie is clear if you just listen long enough to the people spreading it. The reason they falsely accuse Israel of genocide is that they want to justify violence against Israelis.
The same is true for the “occupation” lie. Both the DSA and the Dropsite folks know Israel left Gaza 20 years ago. They are not ignorant of the fact that the occupation is long over. They just don’t care, so they use it to pressure a congressman (unsuccessfully) to say that murdering Israelis is permitted. And the DSA uses the same lie to support Palestinian “resistance.”
As Dropsite and others have made clear, October 7 is included in “resistance.” That word, resistance, is the key to understanding how all this incitement works in broad daylight. “Resistance” is meant to substitute for “self-defense.” But because what these activists are describing is not actually self-defense, they generally don’t use that phrase. They use “resistance” to evoke the concept.
The next step is to expand the targets of resistance beyond Israelis. Violent anti-Semitic incidents in Canada in 2026 have more than doubled the number of such incidents in 2025, and the year is barely half over. Why are people attacking Jews in near-record numbers, 6,000 miles away from the conflict? Because the resistance ideologists have expanded the definition of culpability: The people being attacked in 2026 for a war that ended in 2025, which was launched by Palestinians in 2023, “are complicit,” the extremists tell us.
So are politicians. I wrote yesterday about Adam Smith, the ranking Democrat on the House Armed Services Committee, who was bullied into changing his vote on an Israel-related bill by Hamasniks in America. We talked about the case further on the podcast this morning. The gist of it is that Smith voted against his own beliefs and principles because he was giving in to a campaign of intimidation. As Smith himself said after the vote:
“I am deeply concerned about the tactics used by those on the far left to advocate for cutting off aid to Israel. To date, my family and I have had our home vandalized, a fire has been set in my driveway, my neighbors’ lives have been disrupted by demonstrations in the middle of the night, town halls meant to be forums for dialogue have been shut down, and a staff member has been physically assaulted. Those who engage in this type of behavior model a dangerous form of corrosive politics that seeks to intimidate those who disagree with them. We must be able to have civil discourse if we want to solve difficult problems, and I remain committed to open, respectful engagement.”
Smith had already flipped on a different anti-Israel amendment after pressure last month. It has clearly been a difficult six weeks for him. His statement sounds like a plea for mercy. But the DSA and the rest of the Hamasniks have made it equally clear that whatever happened over the past six weeks is a prelude to more.
