Over the past two years, pro-Palestine protesters at Columbia University have faced a security crackdown, academic sanctions, attacks by politicians from both major parties and a deportation campaign.
Now, large parts of the school’s New York City campus will likely be represented in the United States Congress by an activist who helped organise the protests against Israel’s genocidal war in Gaza.
When Darializa Avila Chevalier, draped in a keffiyeh, first announced her candidacy in November of last year, few outside her immediate circle knew her name. She presented herself as an organiser working to unite families torn apart by the immigration system and against “what we all know is a genocide in Palestine”.
On Tuesday, Avila Chevalier – backed by New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani – won the race to unseat veteran Congressman Adriano Espaillat, securing the Democratic nomination in one of the biggest upsets of the election cycle.
The victory of Avila Chevalier and other candidates endorsed by the democratic socialist mayor shows the waning popularity of pro-Israel politics in Democratic circles, advocates say.
“Last night was a political earthquake in New York City, and the Democratic establishment has been put on notice,” said Beth Miller, the political director at the advocacy group Jewish Voice for Peace Action. “What we’ve shown is that unapologetic support for Palestinian freedom is not just the moral position, it is the path to victory for progressive candidates.”
Two other Mamdani-backed candidates also prevailed in US congressional races on Tuesday. Brad Lander, a former city comptroller who opposes military aid to Israel, defeated the staunchly pro-Israel incumbent, Dan Goldman, and Claire Valdez, a democratic socialist state legislator, won the nomination for an open seat.
On the local level, voters also elected several vocal critics of Israel, including Aber Kawas, who is well on her way to becoming New York’s first Palestinian state senator.
“What we’re seeing is a real transformation in what is acceptable and what is desirable in American politics,” said Heba Gowayed, a sociology professor at the City University of New York. She said Tuesday’s results represent a major defeat to the “cynical establishment politics that perceives criticism of Israel as a nonstarter”.
Public opinion polls show that support for Israel has been nosediving in the US, particularly amongst Democrats. Advocates are confident that the results in New York can translate into further victories for the Palestinian rights movement across the US.
The American Israel Public Affairs Committee and other pro-Israel groups have been spending tens of millions of dollars to defeat progressive candidates. But Miller said standing up to AIPAC, embracing calls for Palestinian freedom, and calling for a “full end to US complicity and Israeli apartheid and genocide” is proving to be a winning message in Democratic primaries.
Gowayed said it will take time to move policy, but she stressed that the elections in New York demonstrated that change is possible. Miller echoed that assessment, hoping that the winning candidates not only increase the number of legislators who support Palestinian rights, but also send a message to other politicians that “this is a winning message”.
Source: www.aljazeera.com