Far-Left Group Cheers on Houthi Attacks

The Iran-backed Islamist extremist Houthis’ attacks on shipping in the Red Sea are being cheered in the U.S. by a communist group named the Party for Socialism and Liberation (PSL). The group’s newspaper also legitimized Hamas’s massacre of Israelis on October 7 as an act of “resistance.”

The Houthis (also known as Ansarallah) is an anti-Semitic and anti-American group in Yemen that was on the U.S. government’s list of foreign terrorist organizations until the Biden Administration dropped it in February 2021. The Houthis have come to Hamas’s aid by firing missiles toward Israel and attacking shipping vessels in the Red Sea that visit Israel. The U.S. military recently sunk three Houthi boats after they fired upon a merchant ship.

The PSL is now openly encouraging the Houthi attacks, posting on X, “YEMEN, YEMEN MAKE US PROUD! TURN ANOTHER SHIP AROUND!”

PSL Support

The communist group has also joined its comrades in the far left by expressing solidarity with Hamas.

On the very day of Hamas’s massacre of 1,200 people in Israel, PSL issued a statement endorsing the violence, saying “the actions of the resistance over the course of the last day is a morally and legally legitimate response to occupation.” Without specifically naming Hamas, PSL ridiculed the labeling of the “resistance” as a terrorist group. The statement also condemned the Arab governments that signed the Abraham Accords normalizing ties with Israel and condemned Saudi Arabia for moving in the direction of peace.

PSL’s position is not one of misguided peace-seeking. It is making posts about the destruction of Israel, such as saying “The era of Zionism’s decline has begun! It will fall, and those who defended it will fall with it!”

Despite its open declaration of support for terrorism and anti-Semitic groups, PSL is still a welcomed participant in anti-Israel protests.  It was part of a coalition that disrupted a speech at Texas Christian University by Anti-Defamation League CEO Jonathan Greenblatt last month.

The “Real Left”

The group, which has over 90,000 followers on X (formerly known as Twitter), is transparently fighting for the communists and their ilk to overpower what they see as a traitorous, moderate left. In an article posted on PSL’s news site, PSL Central Committee member Ben Becker talks about building a “real left” that will ally with militant “anti-imperialist” forces like Hamas. He even denounces Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.

The PSL’s statements help explain the far left’s double standards under which some of the most illiberal forces such as jihadists are embraced, even though their agendas cannot be reconciled with long-term aims of PSL.

These far-left groups are blinded by their desire to rip down “imperialism” and “colonialism.” The longing for an international united front against the U.S. and its allies is so strong that groups like PSL can’t utter a single word to distance themselves from the ideologies and actions of those who oppose the West. To them, the world is bifurcated between the colonialists and the revolutionaries, and every human falls into one or the other.

Regrettably, little is known about PSL. Its finances are opaque. PSL solicits donations but does not appear to have an established nonprofit or a fiscal sponsor to handle its finances. Its website instructs those wishing to donate to send a check made out to Liberation News, PSL’s news outlet.

Normalizing Terrorists

By endorsing Hamas and the Houthis as anti-colonialists, the far left enables these terrorist groups to reach a new “liberal” and “progressive” audience and to expand their political support in the U.S. beyond their tiny Islamist constituencies. Extremists who would otherwise be universally denounced are instead celebrated as freedom fighters because of this anti-colonialist framework. Just look at the massive pro-Hamas protests on U.S. college campuses.