Zohran Mamdani’s DSA sponsors protest with ‘death, death to the IDF!’ war cry

WASHINGTON, D.C. — Here on the corner of 16th Street NW and H Street NW, just steps from the White House, across Lafayette Park, a war cry rippled out among a swarm of demonstrators against Israel’s military, the Israel Defense Forces.

“Death, death to the IDF, the IDF, the IDF! Death, death to the IDF!” they chanted.

They denounced Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who was meeting with President Donald Trump, as a possible ceasefire between Israel and Hamas loomed.

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Last week, British punk rapper Bobby Vylan shouted the incendiary slogan at the Glastonbury Festival, leading Secretary of State Marco Rubio to bar him from entering the U.S. Yet, his words have now crossed borders, absorbed into the militant propaganda of anti-Israel activists, including groups aligned with Hamas. The rallying cry has become the newest chant for a radical protest network spanning ideologies and continents. And despite demanding a ceasefire for months, their messaging on Monday night made one thing clear: they aren’t satisfied with a ceasefire. They want the end of the state of Israel.

According to new analysis from the Pearl Project, a nonprofit journalism initiative that is tracking the professional protest industry in a comprehensive public database, a coalition of 40 organizations – with combined annual revenues of $19.2 million –  organized the “Noise Out” protests this week against Israel, with the call for “Death, death to the IDF.”

In this network, 25 organizations — or about two of three — are self-described socialist, Marxist, Leninist, communist, or socialist-adjacent. Another 15 groups — or about one of three — are Muslim or Arab organizations.

It’s an intersectional convergence of extremist ideologies — Marxist, Islamist, and radical anti-Americanism — masquerading as “social justice.”

As the crowd chanted against the IDF, local artist Rafikki Morris, a leader in the All-African People’s Revolutionary Party — which seeks to create an “all-African socialist government” — turned toward the noise and smiled.

“Death, death to the IDF!” Morris responded to the protestors who started the chant. “They’re reading my mind, you know.” The crowd cheered.

A protestor with his face covered in a black-and-white keffiyeh held a sign high — “DEATH, DEATH TO THE 🔻 IDF 🔻” – punctuated with two inverted red triangles — a symbol used by Al-Qassam Brigades, Hamas’s military wing, to identify Israeli military targets. (The sign added the words: “Jews for Intifada.”)

One man wore the Hamas red triangle on his shirt. Another carried a sign: “RESISTANCE🔻IS 🔻JUSTIFIED.”

Hours later, the Israeli military announced Hamas fighters killed at least six IDF soldiers in an ambush near the town of Beit Hanoun, in northern Gaza.

The self-declared Marxist, socialist, or communist organizations involved in the protest include:

• Democratic Socialists of America, a 501(c)(4) political nonprofit with about $6.2 million in annual revenues; member Zohran Mamdani won the Democratic nomination for NYC mayor.
• Freedom Road Socialist Organization, a 501(c)(3) hardline Marxist-Leninist group “recruiting and building towards the creation of a new Communist Party.” Its members were at the demonstration, “FRSO” across their shirts.
• Party for Socialism and Liberation, tied to an American millionaire, Neville Roy Singham, aligned with the Chinese Communist Party; it churns out trademark black-and-white protest signs.
• American Party of Labor, which describes itself as a “Working Class Communist Party.” Its member
• All-African People’s Revolutionary Party, which seeks the “total liberation and unification of Africa under an All-African Socialist Government.”
• Diaspora Pa’lante Collective, whose founding constitution declares it “dedicated to popularizing Socialism as the correct path after national liberation” in Puerto Rico.

The Muslim organizations involved in the protest include:

• Dar Al-Hijrah Islamic Center, the “9/11 mosque,” known for ties to al-Qaeda propagandist Anwar al-Awlaki and the Muslim Brotherhood.
• Council on American-Islamic Relations, a 501(c)(3) with $7.9 million in annual revenues; its cofounder Nihad Awad said he was “happy” about the October 7 massacre by Hamas. It was founded in 1994 in a Philadelphia meeting where CAIR leaders referred sympathetically to Hamas using coded language and euphemisms, including saying its name backwards as “Samah.”
• Muslim American Society, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit with almost $1 million in annual revenues; it has been repeatedly scrutinized for its ideological roots in the Muslim Brotherhood. The Muslim American Society has promoted interpretations of Islam that are hostile to LGBTQ+ rights and women’s equality, and its members have been tied to terrorism.
• Palestinian Youth Movement, a fiscally-sponsored program of WESPAC Foundation Inc., a 501(c)(3) nonprofit; it stylizes protest with fashion-forward keffiyehs and Instagram-friendly branding, while promoting a hardcore agenda to destroy the “ongoing Zionist colonization and occupation of our homeland.”
• American Muslims for Palestine, reportedly tied to Hamas.
• Virginia is for Palestine, a decentralized, grassroots Muslim network across cities including Alexandria, Arlington, Blacksburg, Fairfax, Harrisonburg, Lynchburg, Richmond, Roanoke, Winchester, and the Shenandoah Valley.  Its model is the grassroots cell system — difficult to track, but strategically effective.

The involvement of the Democratic Socialists of America is particularly important politically. With Mamdani’s win as the Democratic candidate for mayor of New York City, the Democratic Socialists of America are poised to shape the political future of America’s largest city, as it aligns with a movement that supports Hamas, the Muslim Brotherhood, revolutionary Marxism and chants of “Death, death to the IDF.”

In front of Lafayette Park, Morris led chants of “Smash Zionism! Smash Zionism!” Earlier, a local leader of Jewish Voice for Peace — a protest co-organizer also opposed to the existence of Israel — explained that Zionism is simply the belief that Jews should have a homeland. “I’m thinking maybe we’ve reached the point where we need to be doing something we wouldn’t normally do,” Morris added cryptically. The crowd interpreted it as a call for violence — and cheered.

A white-haired man in a “STOP THE GENOCIDE” T-shirt pushed back: “Violence doesn’t work either!”

Morris snapped: “We will not stand idly by as violence is perpetuated against us!”

Nearby, demonstrators pounded pots and pans and hurled shoes at a large cutout of Netanyahu. “Oh my gosh, he deserves so much more,” said a man who identified himself only as Mohammad, after spitting on the cardboard portrait.

Another protester waved an oversized key — a symbol of the network’s demand for a “right of return,” which would allow millions of Palestinians and their descendants worldwide to move into Israel. If implemented, this demand would drastically alter Israel’s demographic makeup. Today, about seven million Jews and two million Arab citizens live in Israel. But an estimated 15 million Palestinians worldwide, including those in Gaza and the West Bank, claim the right to return. Granting this would make Jews a minority and effectively erase Israel’s identity as a Jewish state — a goal openly promoted by this protest movement.

Underscoring this demand, the crowd chanted in Arabic, “Palestine is Arab! Palestine is Arab!”

Behind the protest signs and slogans lies a broader political campaign powered by malign foreign influence — propaganda, funding, and messaging rooted in authoritarian regimes and global networks that seek to destabilize America from within.

U.S. lawmakers are now investigating three of the protest’s organizing groups — CodePink, the ANSWER Coalition, and the Party for Socialism and Liberation — for alleged financial ties to American tech mogul Neville Roy Singham, profiled by the New York Times for funding a “global web of Chinese propaganda.” CodePink, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit with $1.2 million in annual revenues, denies receiving Chinese Communist Party money, but its cofounder, Medea Benjamin, refused to answer my questions about how much she allegedly receives from Singham. 

Earlier in the day, officials from the Council on American-Islamic Relations stood at Lafayette Park, shoulder-to-shoulder with CodePink and a wider coalition of anti-Israel Muslim organizations, demanding the U.S. end its support for Israel and furthering their claim of the nation for Palestinians.

Online, their messaging is polished. On the streets, the mask comes off. One regular Palestinian American anti-Israel activist, Haitham Arafat, stormed at an international tourist inadvertently riding a scooter through the protest, shouting at her repeatedly: “Get the f— out of here!” He didn’t return a request for comment.

The night before, at a precursor event to the main Monday night protest, a man, who refused to give his name, led the crowd in chants: “There is only one solution! Globalize the revolution!”

He continued: “From D.C. to the Philippines, stop the U.S. war machine.”

As I reported on the protest, Michael Beer, director of Non-Violence International, a D.C.-based 501(c)(3) nonprofit with $3 million in annual revenues, blared his megaphone into my ears, while others shoved a Palestinian flag in my face and also shouted in my face.

Meanwhile, the crowd chanted: “It is right to rebel! Israel, Israel, go to hell!”

By Monday night, the full network was activated. 

Benjamin, the CodePink cofounder, appeared like a field marshal entering the fray — petite, stringy blond hair, ballet flats. She hugged a journalist with a Pacifica Radio press pass, while her partner, Tighe Barry, posed in a Netanyahu mask and prison uniform.

Collectively, these groups are not just agitating against Netanyahu. They are part of a long-term effort to mainstream Islamist political narratives in American discourse.

Zuhdi Jasser, cofounder of the Clarity Coalition, a group fighting political Islam, or Islamism, summarized the danger clearly: “What we’re seeing in these protests isn’t just street theater — it’s a warning. Zohran Mamdani’s Democratic Socialists of America is part of a movement that’s teaming up with radical mosques like Dar Al-Hijrah — the same mosque where 9/11 hijackers prayed.”

“His Democratic Socialists of America are marching side-by-side with Islamists and communists who hate everything America stands for. This isn’t about justice. It’s about power.”

During the protest, comrades in the Party for Socialism and Liberation passed out flyers with the headlined, “WE NEED A NEW SYSTEM.” Another friendly local comrade from the Progressive Labor Party handed out a write-up on its work with Democratic Party organizations in the recent #NoKings actions, protesting Trump. And she handed out copies of “Challenge,” the “Revolutionary Communist Newspaper” of the party, with a call-to-action: “Join the International Fight for Communist Revolution.”

The radicalism of the Marxist ideology on the left is matched by on the Islamist flank.

Among the most concerning participants is Dar Al-Hijrah Islamic Center, widely known in counterterrorism circles as the “9/11 mosque,” practicing an interpretation of Islam aligned with the Muslim Brotherhood, a political organization that seeks to establish a global caliphate. One imam, Shaker Elsayed, even publicly supported female genital mutilation. 

When I asked Benjamin about the mosque leader’s position on female genital mutilation, she paused and said: “I don’t know anything about this.” It was widely covered by the media.

When I asked her about how much the tech millionaire Singham gives CodePink, she refused to answer, saying, “Can we talk about genocide, which is what we’re here to talk about?”

In 2001, 9/11 hijackers prayed at Dar Al-Hijrah before launching their attacks on America, and a young imam, or prayer leader, Anwar al-Awlaki preached there, before decamping to Yemen and becoming a top propagandist and recruiter for al-Qaeda. His sermons radicalized a generation of extremists, some of whom later joined the Islamic State.

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The contradictions within this network are startling. 

A protest leader, Red Canary Song, describes itself as a grassroots collective of Asian and migrant sex workers, advocating for the full decriminalization of “sex workers.” Since 2021, Iranian-American eBay founder Pierre Omidyar and his wife Pam have funneled at least $400,000 to the group through Democracy Fund Inc. Red Canary Song is allied on the same protest flier as Muslim American Society and Dar Al-Hijrah, whose leaders preach strict religious codes for women.

After last year’s protests, Netanyau quipped in an address to the U.S. Congress: “Some of these protesters hold up signs proclaiming ‘Gays for Gaza.’ They might as well hold up signs saying ‘Chickens for KFC.’”

That day, the protests in D.C. against Netanyahu ended with vandalism at the Columbus Memorial at Union Station, where a leader from American Muslims for Palestine painted “HAMAS IS COMIN” in blood-red letters. A member of the Party for Socialism and Liberation stole an American flag from the flagpole and burned it to ashes. The FBI arrested both men last year for destruction of property. 

Both are now free, able to circulate again in protests like the one this week in front of the White House, where the new war cry echoed on a loudspeaker, as demonstrators twirled in dance: “Death, death to the IDF.”