What Would An Anti-Israel Mayor Mean for Jewish New Yorkers?
- Mideast Journal Staff
- Sep 30
- 3 min read
Updated: Oct 1
The Democratic frontrunner for mayor of New York City, 33-year-old Democratic socialist assembly member Zohran Mamdani, who is highly critical of Israel, has an 83% chance of winning, according to a financial exchange and prediction market Kalshi poll, after NYC mayor Eric Adams ended his re-election campaign on Sunday, just five weeks before Election Day.
Mamdani, who is looking to become the city’s first Muslim mayor, faces his chief primary rival, former Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo, who on Tuesday received the backing of Jewish groups. “We proudly endorse Andrew Cuomo for Mayor of New York City,” Crown Heights United PAC said in a statement signed by 13 rabbis and community leaders. “With extremism and antisemitism on the rise, and the city facing an unprecedented crisis, it is more important than ever to make our voices heard and vote,” according to the statement.
Accusations of antisemitism
1. Defending ‘Globalize the Intifada’
Throughout his mayoral campaign, anti-Israel Mamdani has crossed into antisemitism when he defended the use of the phrase “Globalize the Intifada” in a lengthy podcast interview with The Bulwark, saying it was a call for justice for Palestinians. The American Jewish Committee noted that “Globalize the Intifada” is a phrase using the Arabic word for “uprising” or “shaking off,” whose message encourages resistance, most prominently in the form of violence, against the Jewish state of Israel.
Two top Jewish Democrats, Gov. Josh Shapiro of Pennsylvania and Rahm Emanuel, slammed Mamdani for not condemning those who use the antisemitic slogan, “Globalize the intifada.” Shapiro, in an interview with Jewish Insider, said, “He also seemed to run a campaign where he left open far too much space for extremists to either use his words or for him not to condemn the words of extremists that said some blatantly antisemitic things.”
2. Rejection of Israel’s right to exist as a Jewish state
In a debate on June 4, when candidates were asked which foreign country they would visit after becoming mayor, Cuomo said he would visit Israel, and Mamdani, in response, said he would stay in New York. Asked whether he believed in Israel’s right to exist as a Jewish state, Mamdani replied that “Israel has a right to exist as a state with equal rights.” (About 20% of non-Jewish citizens, mostly Palestinians and other Arabic speakers, make up Israel’s population.)
New York Representative Ritchie Torres, whose district includes a large Jewish neighborhood in the Bronx, has said, “There are real concerns about Mamdani. Not among every Jewish voter, but many, and he has to address those concerns.”
3. Support for the BDS movement
As a co-founder of his college chapter of Students for Justice in Palestine from 2010 to 2014, Mamdani's pro-Palestinian policies have been pronounced throughout his mayoral campaign. His vocal support for the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) movement doesn’t just go after Israeli government policy; it seeks to economically isolate and politically delegitimize the Jewish state, which is alarming.
He is a sponsor of the “Not on Our Dime” Act, which works to ban Israeli charities from supporting the Israeli military and “settlement activity.” A letter signed by 66 state assemblymembers called the legislation “a ploy to demonize Jewish charities with connections to Israel.”
4. Promise to arrest Netanyahu
He’s pledged to arrest Jewish Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu if he comes to New York in compliance with an International Criminal Court warrant. He has not said he would seek to arrest other leaders with the same warrant, such as Russian President Vladimir Putin or Maria Alekseyevna Lvova-Belova. (This would be practically impossible, according to legal experts, and could bring the city's mayor into direct conflict with the federal government.)
5. Condemning Israel after Oct. 7 massacre
In a statement issued on Oct. 8, 2023, Mamdani condemned Israel and its government, saying “a just and lasting peace can only begin by ending the occupation and dismantling apartheid,” not mentioning Hamas, the terror group that attacked Israel the day before, igniting the Gaza war.
Wrap up
With rising antisemitic hate crimes in New York and around the US, the next mayor of the city with the second-largest Jewish population outside of Israel will need to double down on fighting antisemitism and anti-Zionism in all forms and keep all New Yorkers safe.