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Pictured are DFI-LA's President Gregg Sokovits and Executive Board Member Mihran Kalaydjian at the March 2025 Democratic Party of the San Fernando Valley General Assembly with Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass and newly elected Assemblymember Nick Schultz. Also, a group shot of all the attendees.

Colleen Henry Schwab honored as outstanding volunteer of the year by DPSFV on January 25, 2025.

On his passing (12/29/2024) at the age of 100, DFI-LA remembers President Jimmy Carter as a principled leader who loved America and celebrates his monumental achievement of the first ever peace agreement between Israel and one of its neighboring Arab states. President Carter dedicated an enormous amount of focused time to this one issue during the 13 days of the Camp David Summit (September 5–17, 1978). Rarely had an American President devoted as much sustained attention to a single foreign policy issue as Carter did over the summit's nearly two-week duration. That peace treaty remains in place to this very day, and for that DFI-LA thanks him immensely.

An interesting post this week by Rabbi Benjamin Kelsen (@bgkelsen) who stated how this pretty much makes it clear that a Trump/Vance Administration is not one Israel could rely on, despite Bibi’s love for Trump:

To those members of the Jewish community still supporting the Trump-Vance ticket, please see this most recent interview which was given by Senator Vance earlier this week.

He openly states that he doesn’t believe that the United States should support Israel if its interests do not overlap with those of the US. He also stated that he does not believe that the US should support Israel in military action against Iran.

He states that his belief as to what would make it “worthwhile” for the US to be involved in military action against Iran is how much money it would cost the US to be involved and how much money would be saved by staying out of the conflict.

Given his statement a moment or two before regarding Vladimir Putin, one must seriously question the wisdom of relying on a Trump-Vance administration to have Israel’s back.

Don’t rely on my assessment. Watch the video for yourself: Sen. JD Vance on the Tim Dillon Show #414: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QPlqID3zv4k

• “Obviously, Israel has the right to defend itself, but America’s interest is sometimes going to be distinct, like sometimes we’re going to have overlapping interests, and sometimes we’re going to have distinct interests,”
  
  
• “Our interest, I think very much, is in not going to war with Iran, right? It would be a huge distraction of resources. It would be massively expensive to our country.”
  
  
• “In the reaction to it, what I noticed is that American pro-Israel people, or people who fashioned themselves as pro-Israel, were actually much more militaristic than the Israelis who were living in Israel,”
  
  
• “The Israelis were like, OK, Hamas just attacked us. We’re gonna go really screw Hamas up. But of course, yeah, there’s a humanitarian side of that, and we want to try to minimize civilian casualties. But you had Americans saying, ‘Oh … This attack happened on Putin’s birthday, right? So we need to go to war against Russia, and obviously the Iranians funded part of this. We need to go to war with Iran.’”
  
  
• “Now, I don’t want Iran to get a nuclear weapon and I think we should be very strongly encouraging the Iranians and using all the influence that we have to encourage them to not have a nuclear weapon. I think nuclear proliferation is just a bad idea. Enough people have nukes, and the more people that have nukes, I think the greater the risk of nuclear war. But we just have to be smart about it,”
  
  
• ”Again, I’m not saying we stick ourselves into the Middle East and start a war here, but look, we recognize [that the] Israelis, Gulf Arab states don’t like Iran, so let the Israelis and the Gulf Arab states provide the counterbalance to Iran,”
  
  
• “America doesn’t have to constantly police every region of the world. We should empower people to police their own regions of the world. One, we would save a lot of money. Two, we’d save a lot of focus,”

April 27, 2024 - Democrats for Israel - Los Angeles (DFI-LA) condemns the level of vicious anti-Jewish hate being promoted by anti-Israel tent “encampments” on a growing number of American college campuses, including UCLA.

Led by college radicals and outside supporters, the demonstrators are spewing hate messages such as “by any means necessary”, “intifada resistance”, “from the river to the sea”, “ashkenormativity”, along with a collection of anti-Zionism expressions that are clearly antisemitic.

These encampments are the latest in an ongoing onslaught of hateful anti-Israel and antisemitic activity at universities across the country. This is not an issue of First Amendment right to freedom of expression. DFI-LA strongly supports that right for any student on any campus. But that freedom of expression does not include the promotion of bigotry, discrimination, or violence against any individual or group based on ethnicity, religion, national origin, or otherwise. Nor is it acceptable for hate groups to deny any student full access to educational opportunities by physically blocking access or by making people feel unwelcome and/or unsafe.

In coordination with other pro-Israel organizations, DFI-LA calls on university administrations nationwide to take all necessary steps to ensure a safe learning environment for ALL students, including enforcing all applicable school policies regarding conduct and safety. It is unthinkable that Jewish students are the ones being instructed to leave their campuses, while anti-Israel extremists and Hamas supporters are taking control of campus property and wreaking havoc on campuses locally and nationally. 

To those students participating in these misguided encampments, our message is one of education: On October 7, 2023, Hamas terrorists murdered, raped, burned alive, dismembered, brutalized, and tortured thousands of people. Hamas continues to hold 133 hostages in captivity. The U.S. Secretary of Defense has referred to the crimes of Hamas as “worse than ISIS,” and on April 24 – last Thursday -- these same terrorists praised the student protests now shamefully being promulgated across America.

Make no mistake: if genocidal terrorist organizations like Hamas, PFLP, and the Supreme Leader of Iran have your back, you are on the wrong side of history. Your actions and vocalizations in support of violence and hatred do nothing but fuel more division and conflict on your campuses and in the Middle East. DFI-LA hopes that those protesting students would learn the history of the worldwide attempts to create a two-state solution giving both the Jewish people and the Palestinian people homelands, and the ability to live in peace side by side. This was the goal of the United Nations in 1947 when it passed a resolution creating the two-state plan, and was promptly rejected by the Palestinians and the Arab nations in the region who chose instead to attack the State of Israel in the hope of driving the Jews into the seas. A two-state solution has been the goal of Israel since that War of Independence, Israel has actively sought a peaceful resolution with its Palestinian neighbors and surrounding Arab nations. Israel came to agreements in 1979 with Egypt, in 1993 with the Palestinian leaders in the Oslo Accords, in 1994 with Jordan, and in 2005 unilaterally withdrew from Gaza. Israel has made many genuine attempts to make peace with its neighbors.

Israel has also agreed to NUMEROUS ceasefires with Hamas and the Palestinian Islamic Jihad – ceasefires that both organizations have willfully and repeatedly violated, most recently last October 7 in the most heinous attack on the Jewish people since the Holocaust.

Let all lovers of freedom continue to stand tall and strong, rejecting the hate and the fear being promoted by the campus extremists leading the encampments. Do not let any radical force or voice distract us from what matters most: defeating the terrorist organization Hamas and helping the Palestinian people establish an independent state that lives peacefully alongside the Jewish State of Israel.

4/13/2024 - The Israel Defense Forces have announced that the theocratic Islamist government of Iran has launched a multi-pronged attack on Israel from Iranian soil. Initial reports indicate that drones, cruise missiles and ballistic missiles from Iran are heading for Israel.

The Israeli missile defense systems will be the first line of defense for this attack, while American missile defense systems are also in position in the region to intercept incoming attacks on Israel, reflecting the strong partnership between the two countries. Jordan is also expected to attempt to shoot down any drones or missiles from Iran that violate its airspace.

The U.S. Secretary of Defense and National Security Advisor spoke with their Israeli counterparts earlier today (4/13/2024), and the White House has issued a statement affirming American support for Israel in the face of these attacks. Democrats and Republicans in Congress have already issued statements supporting Israel and condemning the Iranian regime.

Democrats for Israel – Los Angeles recognizes and appreciates the strong support of President Joe Biden and the bipartisan leadership of Congress for Israel. Never before has the Iranian government attempted to attack the Israeli homeland from its own soil, and an unprecedented red line has now been crossed by the Iranian regime.

Our thoughts are with the people of Israel, who are now confronting this dangerous attack from Iran. DFI LA, its members and its supporters will continue to urge the President and Congress to make sure that Israel has the resources and support it will need to defend itself.

On March 12, 2024, the Los Angeles County Democratic Party (LACPD) passed a resolution calling for an immediate ceasefire between Israel and Hamas in Gaza. The resolution was crafted in part by several members of the LACDP who are members of Democrats for Israel (DFI) – Los Angeles. Those DFI–LA members were acting as individuals, as Democrats for Israel – Los Angeles has not taken a formal position in favor or in opposition to a ceasefire. The LACDP reported that DFI–Los Angeles co-authored the resolution. That was not accurate. Furthermore, the resolution omitted several critical items.

We remind LACDP and others that it was Hamas that started this conflict by violating a ceasefire with Israel with its October 7, 2023 brutal assault on innocent Israel civilians, the single worst massacre of Jews since the Holocaust. Moreover, Hamas terrorists continue to use the Palestinian civilians in Gaza as human shields while they hide in tunnels underneath Gaza, or use hospitals as staging grounds. DFI–LA decries the casualties among the civilian population of Gaza, and holds both Hamas and its Iranian benefactors as the primary responsible parties for this crisis. But any ceasefire that does not include the release of all hostages, the return of the bodies of all victims of Hamas’ October 7 surprise attack, and the removal of Hamas’ control of Gaza, is both unacceptable and counterproductive. Hamas’ repeated commitment to continue attacks such as the October 7 massacre makes it clear there can be no lasting peace between the Palestinian people and the people of Israel so long as Hamas remains in power in Gaza.

Furthermore, Democrats for Israel – Los Angeles calls for the LACDP, and the California Democratic Party, to acknowledge the continued rape and abuse of female victims and female hostages by Hamas and its allies, both on the day of the October 7, 2023 attack, and during the many months that they have been held in captivity in Gaza.

Democrats for Israel – Los Angeles is hopeful that a lasting, if not permanent, ceasefire in Gaza becomes possible. Indeed, DFI–LA is also hopeful that a lasting peace WILL emerge, allowing both Israelis and Palestinians to live in peace and prosperity, rather than in constant conflict.

DFI-LA's David Alpern and Mihran Kalaydjian penned an op-ed: How to Get a Palestine State? Stop Hating the Jews - https://www.citywatchla.com/world-watch/28512-how-to-get-a-palestine-state-stop-hating-the-jews

The local chapter of the Democratic Socialists of America censured council member, Nithya Raman, for seeking the backing of Democrats for Israel Los Angeles. DSA also voted to retain its own endorsement of Raman, infuriating some of the organization’s members and laying bare the bizarre political pretzeling involved when the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is injected into local races. Read: https://forward.com/news/578358/nithya-raman-dsa-censure-dfi-endorsement