Zohran Mamdani has called the Palestinian cause “central to my identity,” and says so in high-profile settings across New York City, such as when he takes the stages with Mahmoud Khalil, the anti-Israel activist at Columbia University who was detained by the Trump administration.
Israel’s right to exist
Mamdani says that Israel has a right to exist, but not as a Jewish state. “I’m not comfortable supporting any state that has a hierarchy of citizenship on the basis of religion or anything else.”
Boycott, divestment and sanctions movement against Israel
“My support for BDS is consistent with the core of my politics, which is nonviolence. And I think that it is a legitimate movement when you are seeking to find compliance with international law.”
Academic boycott of Israeli universities
While a student at Bowdoin College in 2014, he wrote:
“Israeli universities are both actively and passively complicit in the crimes of both the Israeli military and the Israeli government in all its settler-colonial forms.
“Israeli universities give priority admission to soldiers, discriminate against Palestinian students, and have developed remote-controlled bulldozers for the Israeli Army’s home demolitions.
“A professor from the University of Tel Aviv can still present research at an ASA conference, provided that he or she does so as an individual scholar and not expressly as a representative of Israeli academic institutions or of the Israeli government.”
Oct. 7 and the war in Gaza
On Oct. 8, 2023, Mamdani mourned “the hundreds of people killed across Israel and Palestine in the last 36 hours.”
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s “declaration of war” will “undoubtedly lead to more violence and suffering. . . . The path toward a just and lasting peace can only begin by ending the occupation and dismantling apartheid.”
Since then, Mamdani has consistently referred to Israel’s retaliatory actions in Gaza as a “genocide” — a word he had used to describe previous Israeli military conflicts, long before Oct. 7.
He has also said that the United States, through its support of Israel, is “subsidizing a genocide.”
At a rally in Times Square on Oct. 8, 2023, some local members of the Democratic Socialists of America — of which Mamdani is a member — celebrated Hamas, who killed close to 1,200 Israelis and abducted hundreds more on Oct. 7. Mamdani condemned the rally on Oct. 10, telling Politico: “My support for Palestinian liberation should never be confused for a celebration of the loss of civilian life. I condemn the killing of civilians and rhetoric at a rally seeking to make light of such deaths.”
‘Globalize the intifada’
Mamdani has in multiple interviews declined to condemn the term “globalize the intifada.”
“The role of the mayor is not to police language.”
The term is “not language that I use.”
“The language that I use and the language that I will continue to use to lead this city is that which speaks clearly to my intent, which is an intent grounded in a belief in universal human rights.”
Mamdani used similar language in an interview with The Bulwark posted on June 17. That led Jonathan Greenblatt, the CEO of the Anti-Defamation League, to write in a post on X, “Globalize the Intifada is an explicit call for violence. Globalize the Intifada celebrates and glorifies savagery and terror.”
Attacks on Jews in Washington, DC and Boulder, Colorado
“My thoughts are with the victims and their families — as well as all those who must contend with the appalling rise in anti-Semitic violence.”
“I am heartbroken by the news from Colorado where Karen Diamond, a victim of the vicious attack earlier this month, has passed away. May Karen’s memory be a blessing and a reminder that we must constantly work to eradicate hatred and violence.”
Anti-Semitism
Just before the Democratic primary, Mamdani appeared on “The Late Show with Stephen Colbert” and said that New York City is experiencing a “crisis of anti-Semitism.”
“Anti-Semitism is not simply something that we should talk about — 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.”
The Holocaust
Mamdani has commemorated the Holocaust on social media. He took heat for declining to sign onto a resolution memorializing the Holocaust in the state assembly in May.
Mamdani said in a town hall that would like to see more Holocaust education in New York City schools.
Palestinian issues
The son of two India-born parents — filmmaker Mira Nair and and Columbia University professor Mahmood Mamdani — Mamdani spent his early years in Uganda and South Africa before migrating to the US at the age of seven.
“Specifically growing up in South Africa post-apartheid, it felt as if one of the most natural things to wear around my body was a keffiyeh.”
Mamdani calls discussing Palestinian issues “entirely taboo” in US politics and criticizes “PEPs” — politicians who he says are “progressive except for Palestine.”
The US has put Palestinian lives “in jeopardy” for “decades.”
Arresting Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu
“As mayor, New York City would arrest Benjamin Netanyahu,” Mamdani said to former MSNBC host Mehdi Hasan in December. “This is a city that our values are in line with international law.”
Earlier this month, he said the same thing at B’nai Jeshurun, a large synagogue in Manhattan.
“My answer is the same whether we are speaking about Vladimir Putin or Netanyahu. I think that this should be a city that is in compliance with international law.”
The International Criminal Court, headquartered in The Hague, issued an arrest warrant for Netanyahu last November, accusing him of war crimes. The US is not party to the ICC.
The Holy Land Five
Before his political career, Mamdani released rap songs under the monikers Young Cardamom and, later, Mr. Cardamom.
In one 2017 song, “Salam,” he praised the “Holy Land Five” — the heads of a former Islamic charity organization founded in the US who were convicted of aiding Hamas.
In 2001, the US government designated the Holy Land Foundation for Relief and Development a terrorist organization and seized its assets.
“My love to the Holy Land Five. You better look ’em up,” Mamdani raps in the track.
‘Not On Our Dime!’ act
Mamdani is the lead sponsor of the “Not On Our Dime!: Ending New York funding of Israeli settler violence act,” which he proposed in the New York State Assembly in May, 2023. Its goal is to “prohibit not-for-profit corporations from engaging in unauthorized support of Israeli settlement activity.”
Sixty-six lawmakers, a majority of the Democratic state caucus, signed onto a letter condemning the proposal. “Its purpose is to attack Jewish organizations that have wide ranging missions from feeding the poor to providing emergency medical care for victims of terrorism to clothing orphans,” the letter read.
Mamdani highlighted the act in campaign pamphlets during the primary campaign.
