New Octagon Project promotes civic engagement in response to ‘erosion of truth’ following October 7

On the day after Hamas's October 7, 2023 attack on Israel, David Christopher Kaufman witnessed a different battle unfold in the United States. While families were still searching for loved ones and the full extent of the killings emerged, activists on American campuses and city streets were blaming Israel before a single Israeli soldier had been deployed to Gaza.

Kaufman, a Jewish, Black, and gay journalist and founder of the Counterintuitive newsletter on Substack, was shocked but also found the response clarifying. In his own words, "I was always Zionistic, always pro-Israel, always, I would say, sort of center of the road," but "October 8th radicalized me."

Now, as he prepares to launch The Octagon Project, Kaufman is transforming that moment of realization into a campaign focused on defending truth, confronting intimidation, and encouraging Jews who have retreated to the sidelines to speak again. The Octagon Project is an educational initiative designed to counter disinformation, promote civic engagement, and help Jews and supporters of Israel speak publicly with greater confidence.

Kaufman's concern centers on the erosion of shared factual ground following the October 7 attack, which he describes as an "accelerating collapse of shared factual ground." He points to lies such as the "genocide lie," "Israeli apartheid lie," and the assertion that "antisemitism is not a problem in the US." These falsehoods, he says, have resulted in fear, timidity, and violence among Jews and supporters of Israel.

Kaufman believes that the public narrative has been taken over by an organized and amplified minority, drowning out the voices of the majority. He emphasizes that while most Americans are not interested in Gaza or America, they are concerned about the organized and amplified minority's influence. The Octagon Project aims to help these individuals find their own voice, particularly Jews.

Central to the project's mission is Kaufman's worry about the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA), a political organization that supports candidates with democratic-socialist views.

Kaufman rejects the notion that the danger lies solely in the possibility of antisemitism within the DSA, stating that there is "no question" that the group has antisemitic values. He contends that candidates backed by DSA face disproportionately strict ideological tests, with a double standard not applied to any other group. This double standard, he believes, is a form of antisemitism.

One alarming example Kaufman cites is a New York congressional race where a Democratic Socialist candidate won by just 2,000 votes in a district of over 750,000 people. He argues that this outcome demonstrates a failure in the political system and calls for action to address it. Kaufman uses the term "radicalized" to describe his own shift from a center-of-the-road position to a more pro-Israel stance, emphasizing that it was a political and moral awakening.

For him, radicalization includes a new voting standard: any politician who has publicly used the "genocide lie" and libel will not receive his vote, regardless of their political affiliation.