Zohran Mamdani's Jewish Problem
The presumptive Democratic nominee for mayor of New York has repeatedly missed opportunities to forthrightly condemn antisemitic violence.
On October 8, 2023, the day after Hamas launched a barbaric attack on southern Israel that murdered more Jews than had been killed in a single day since the Holocaust, New York State Assembly Member Zohran Mamdani (D–Queens) took stock of the situation and zeroed in on what he saw as the central issue. "The path toward a just and lasting peace can only begin by ending the occupation and dismantling apartheid," Mamdani said in a statement he posted on X.
That response, which echoed the left-wing activists who immediately reacted to the appalling Hamas invasion by blaming Israel, epitomizes Mamdani's blinkered advocacy of the Palestinian cause, which is of fresh interest given his new status as the Democratic Party's presumptive nominee for mayor of New York City. In practical terms, Mamdani's loony socialist agenda may be more alarming than his hostility toward Israel, especially since the latter has little to do with the job he is seeking. But you might think his extreme views on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict would be a serious handicap in a city that is home to more Jews than any local jurisdiction outside of Israel.
Mamdani, through a combination of personal charm and canny obfuscation, nevertheless has managed to present himself as an evenhanded defender of human rights who opposes bigotry and violent aggression in all their forms. On Wednesday, Rep. Jerrold Nadler (D–N.Y.), a longtime fixture of Democratic politics in New York who calls himself a "committed Zionist," endorsed Mamdani for mayor. Nadler described Mamdani's primary victory as a "seismic election for the Democratic Party that I can only compare to Barack Obama's in 2008." Voters "demanded change and, with Zohran's triumph, we have a direct repudiation of Donald Trump's politics of tax cuts and authoritarianism," the congressman said. "I've spoken to him today about his commitment to fighting antisemitism, and we'll work with all New Yorkers to fight against all bigotry and hate."
Former Harvard University President Lawrence Summers, an economist who served as treasury secretary during the Obama administration, had a different take. "I am profoundly alarmed about the future of the [Democratic Party] and the country by yesterday's NYC anointment of a candidate who failed to disavow a 'globalize the intifada' slogan and advocated Trotskyite economic policies," he wrote on X. "I fear it is evidence that our party is following the most problematic aspects of Britain's Labor Party."
Other Jewish Democrats, including Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D–N.Y.), likewise still seem to have qualms about Mamdani, and it is not hard to see why. As The New York Times dryly puts it, "Mr. Mamdani's views go beyond disagreeing with Israel's elected government."
The Hamas attack—which targeted Jews as Jews, including many who opposed Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's government, defended Palestinian rights, and doggedly advocated the "just and lasting peace" that Mamdani claims to support—was an easy test for anyone who is avowedly committed to the fight against "all bigotry and hate." Any decent human being, regardless of his take on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, should have no compunction about condemning the mass slaughter, rape, and kidnapping that provoked the ongoing war in Gaza. Yet Mamdani conspicuously failed that test, even before the Israeli military response that he tendentiously and lazily describes as "genocide."
Here is the closest Mamdani came to expressing outrage at the Hamas invasion the day after it happened: "I mourn the hundreds of people killed across Israel and Palestine in the last 36 hours." It is sad, he conceded, when innocent people are murdered. But he gave no indication of exactly who had committed those crimes, which he thought was less important than condemning "Netanyahu's declaration of war, the Israeli government's decision to cut electricity to Gaza, and Knesset members calling for another Nakba." Those responses, he warned, would "undoubtedly lead to more violence and suffering in the days and weeks to come."
After he launched his mayoral campaign, Mamdani seemed to recognize that voters might be troubled by that bizarre take on a horrifying terrorist assault. During a recent podcast interview, he described the Hamas attack as "the horrific war crime of October 7." But he refused to criticize the rhetoric of protesters who celebrated that attack as a heroic act of resistance.
Tim Miller, co-host of The Bulwark's FYPod show, asked Mamdani if he felt "uncomfortable" when those protesters chanted slogans like "globalize the intifada" and "from the river to the sea," which in this context hardly seem like advocacy of "a just and lasting peace," unless we are talking about the peace of the graveyard. Here was another opportunity for Mamdani to make it clear that he does not favor addressing Palestinian grievances via terrorism, ethnic cleansing, or genocidal war. Instead he quibbled over various possible interpretations of those phrases.
"I know people for whom those things mean very different things," Mamdani said. "Ultimately what I hear in so many is a desperate desire for equality and equal rights." He noted that the word intifada, which literally means "shaking off" and figuratively refers to an uprising or rebellion, "has been used by the Holocaust Museum when translating the Warsaw ghetto uprising into Arabic."
The U.S. Holocaust Museum took a dim view of that comparison. "Exploiting the Museum and the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising to sanitize 'globalize the intifada' is outrageous and especially offensive to survivors," it said. "Since 1987 Jews have been attacked and murdered under its banner. All leaders must condemn its use and the abuse of history."
Mamdani also said intifada, like jihad, does nor necessarily imply violence. But in the context of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, intifada refers to the waves of terrorist attacks that Israel saw from 1987 to 1993 (the "First Intifada") and from 2000 to 2005 (the "Second Intifada"). Since the slogan "globalize the intifada" is "most closely associated with the violence of the First and Second Intifadas," the American Jewish Committee (AJC) warns, "indiscriminate use encourages targeting institutions and individuals around the world who show support for Israel, which includes the majority of Jews." The AJC adds that "widespread violent actions against synagogues, Jewish homes, cultural centers and individuals taken in the name of resisting Israel [demonstrate] the need for increased vigilance by those advocating for Palestinian rights against using potentially inciting language."
Mamdani, a Bowdoin College graduate who co-founded that school's Students for Justice in Palestine group and has derided the New York State Assembly as a "bastion of Zionist thought," disagrees. "The question of the permissibility of language is something that I…haven't ventured into," he told Miller. "To the question of language that's being used, I am someone who I would say [is] less comfortable with the idea of banning the use of certain words. And that, I think, is more evocative of a Trump-style approach to how to lead a country."
Miller, of course, was not asking Mamdani about "banning the use of certain words," let alone deporting foreign students for expressing anti-Israel opinions. He was asking Mamdani for his personal view of slogans that imply support for violence. And once again, Mamdani passed up an opportunity to unambiguously reject that understanding of what resistance means.
Mamdani did not specifically address the meaning of "from the river to the sea." But if he had, he presumably would have said it might mean nothing more than "equal rights" for everyone who lives between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea, as opposed to eliminating Israel by killing or expelling the Jews who live there—the interpretation favored by Hamas.
Mamdani, in short, is not "uncomfortable" with slogans that plausibly can be understood as endorsing murderous antisemitism. Rather, he is uncomfortable with the suggestion that such inflammatory rhetoric should be avoided.
Mamdani's reticence on that subject is coupled with support for the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) movement, which indiscriminately views all individuals, businesses, organizations, and institutions associated with Israel as complicit in the oppression of Palestinians and therefore worthy of punishment. That position is fundamentally illiberal, targeting people (typically Jewish people) for ostracism and economic retaliation without regard to their actual views or conduct.
In the FYPod interview and in a subsequent appearance on The Late Show, Mamdani said he sympathizes with New York Jews who fear violence driven by anti-Israel sentiment, noting recent examples in Washington, D.C., and Boulder, Colorado. He promised to "tackle" the problem by dramatically increasing funding for "anti–hate crime programming."
Antisemitism "is not simply something that we should talk about," Mamdani told Stephen Colbert on The Late Show this week. "It's something that we have to tackle. We have to make clear there's no room for it in this city, in this country, in this world….There is no room for violence in this city, in this country, in this world."
At the same time, Mamdani refuses to acknowledge any connection between reckless anti-Zionist rhetoric or the collectivist moral logic of the BDS movement and the animus that drives such violence. His initial reluctance to forthrightly condemn antisemitic violence even in its most vicious form likewise belies his avowed dedication to equal rights, tolerance, pluralism, and peace.
