A group of Virginia Jewish organizations have called on State Delegate Sam Rasoul to resign from his position in response to anti-Israel and anti-Zionist rhetoric he posted to social media.
In a joint statement on Dec. 11, the organizations asserted that Rasoul, the chair of the Virginia House of Delegates’ Education Committee, has “repeatedly failed” to provide local children with a supportive learning environment and ensure that students are safe in their classrooms due to his posts condemning Zionism.
“Delegate Rasoul used his position and platform to regularly spew vitriol towards the Jewish people — calling Israel ‘depraved’ and ‘evil’ while re-defining Zionism to falsely disparage it as a ‘supremacist ideology,’” read the statement cosigned by the Jewish Community Relations Council of Greater Washington, the JCRC of the United Jewish Federation of Tidewater, the Jewish Community Federation of Richmond’s JCRC, and the JCRC of the Virginia Peninsula.
Rasoul, a Democrat from Roanoke, is currently the longest-serving Muslim state lawmaker in the United States, according to The Guardian. He is also a Palestinian American who has been outspoken against Israel’s actions in the Gaza war.
“After 22 months of the most horrific crimes, there is no doubt that Israel is conducting the most evil cleansing in human history as we fund and watch it play out minute by minute,” Rasoul wrote in a July Instagram post.
He referred to Zionism as a “supremacist ideology created to destroy and conquer everything and everyone in its way.”
“Delegate Rasoul’s words are precisely the type of destructive rhetoric that fuels antisemitic attacks,” the joint statement read.
Virginia is among the states with the highest rates of antisemitism in the country, with more than 60% of incidents last year related to Israel, the Jewish organizations said. “But rather than easing tensions and bringing people together, Delegate Rasoul seeks further division by fanning the flames of hatred,” they said.
Vicki Fishman, the director of Virginia government and community relations at the JCRC of Greater Washington, said this rhetoric is nothing new from the Virginia state delegate, who assumed office in January 2014.
“We’ve been watching [Rasoul’s] social media for a while,” Fishman told Washington Jewish Week. “We’ve been hearing from constituents and community members [who had] concern about it.”
She described this monitoring as an “ongoing discussion” that recently hit a breaking point. In August, Rasoul posted a graphic to Facebook titled, “Absurd things Zionists say,” which uses the word “Xio” — shorthand for “Zionist” often used by antisemites, according to the American Jewish Committee.
“Our concern is both with what he’s saying about Israel, but also the way he’s using the term ‘Zionist,’ so that he’s really demonizing Jews in general,” Fishman said. “It’s not to say that every Jewish person considers themselves a Zionist, but the vast majority are supporters of Israel.”
Fishman added that Rasoul’s words could have broader consequences impacting the Jewish community. “We’ve seen so much antisemitism in the school system in Virginia and around the country, and for him to be propagating the rhetoric that leads to such violence … doesn’t set him up to fairly oversee things such as campus protests and how they’re managed by schools,” she said.
“[It] doesn’t set him up as a fair arbiter of where is the line between free speech and safety,” Fishman said.
Rasoul, who is considering a bid for Congress next year, responded to the criticism of his comments on Israel.
“When Israeli human rights organizations are calling it a genocide, when mainstream [organizations], J Street here in the United States is calling it a genocide, when the whole world is seeing minute by minute what’s playing out, it’s clear what history is going to say about this moment,” Rasoul told Radio IQ, Virginia’s public radio network.
Commenters on social media had sharply differing opinions about Rasoul and his posts. While some thanked him for sharing “stark, abhorrent truths,” others wrote him off as biased and uncredible.
Fishman said she hopes that Rasoul changes course. “He doesn’t need to become somebody who advocates for Israel, but we would very much like to see him change his hateful rhetoric and stop his hateful rhetoric,” she said.
