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Zohran Mamdani, the man most likely to be New York City’s next mayor, has said: “Antisemitism 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, in this world.”
That doesn’t sound so bad, but there is so much else on Mamdani’s record that calls it into question. He said in 2021 that the Palestinian jihad against Israel made him a socialist: “I sincerely believe in this political project. I sincerely believe in socialism. For me, it was Palestine that brought me into this movement.”
He maintained, on the other hand, that this did not mean that he was in favor of violence against Israelis or Jews in general. When a pro-Palestinian gunman murdered two Israeli Embassy staffers in Washington on May 21, 2025, Mamdani wrote the next day: “We owe it to one another to confront hate with the urgency and solidarity it demands, and to ensure our Jewish neighbors can live safely and free of fear. May the memories of both victims be a blessing.”
Once again, it sounded good, but Mamdani has also accepted money from the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), a group with ties to Hamas. Along with money from Soros-linked far-left groups, Mamdani’s New Yorkers for Lower Costs PAC also collected $100,000 from the Unity & Justice Fund, a creation of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR). In 2007, the Justice Department named CAIR an unindicted co-conspirator in the Holy Land Foundation (HLF) Hamas funding case. When CAIR and other Muslim organizations, the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA) and the North American Islamic Trust (NAIT), appealed this designation, Judge Jorge Solis ruled on July 1, 2009 that “the Government has produced ample evidence to establish the associations of CAIR, ISNA and NAIT with HLF, the Islamic Association for Palestine (‘IAP’), and with Hamas.”
CAIR’s regard for Hamas has not dimmed over the years. When Hamas brutally massacred 1,200 Israelis on Oct. 7, 2023, Nihad Awad, CAIR’s cofounder and longtime executive director, expressed his happiness: “The people of Gaza only decided to break the siege, the walls of the concentration camp, on October 7. And yes, I was happy to see people breaking the siege and throwing down the shackles of their own land, and walk free into their land, which they were not allowed to walk in.”
Why CAIR would want to help Mamdani get elected was clear. On November 1, 2024, he declared: “I will always be clear in my language and based in facts: Israel is committing a genocide.” This is, however, simply political grandstanding. John Spencer, chair of urban warfare studies at the Modern War Institute (MWI) at West Point, analyzed the IDF’s actions in Gaza and reported in late March 2024 that “Israel has implemented more precautions to prevent civilian harm than any military in history—above and beyond what international law requires and more than the U.S. did in its wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.”
The facts, however, were of little importance. Mamdani’s opposition to Israel is so thoroughgoing that he has said he would treat Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as if he were a criminal (which Mamdani no doubt thinks he is). On November 25, 2024, Mehdi Hasan, the former MSNBC host, interviewed Mamdani and asked him if he would “welcome Prime Minister Netanyahu to New York City for the — for whatever he comes for, given the U.S. is not a signatory to the ICC, so he can travel to the U.S., unlike a lot of other countries? Would a Mayor Mamdani welcome Benjamin Netanyahu to this city?”
Hasan was referring to the fact that the International Criminal Court’s chief prosecutor, Karim Ahmad Khan, had issued an arrest warrant for Netanyahu, despite the fact that not only the U.S., but Israel also does not accept its jurisdiction. Nevertheless, Mamdani replied readily: “No. As mayor, New York City would arrest Benjamin Netanyahu. This is a city that our values are in line with international law. It’s time that our actions are also.”
The arrest warrant for Netanyahu was another exercise in political grandstanding and more of the left’s fetishization of victimhood. Netanyahu had not, in reality, violated any international laws or done anything to justify an arrest warrant; he had simply pursued an increasingly unpopular war, in which his enemies manipulated international public opinion with deceitful propaganda about civilian casualties.
Those casualties were either altogether fake (as evidenced by Hamas walking back its casualty figures in April 2025) or the result of Hamas deliberately staging attacks from civilian areas, so that it could use retaliatory fire for propaganda purposes. Hamas even situated its command-and-control centers underneath or within hospitals and schools, so that any Israeli action against the Hamas center could be represented, with eager help from the establishment media, as the Israelis destroying a hospital or school with callous disregard for civilians and their needs.
Netanyahu himself was dismissive of Mamdani’s threat. “I’m not concerned about that,” he said in July 2025 during a meeting in Washington with President Trump. “There’s enough craziness in the world, but I guess it never ends. This is folly and it’s silly in many ways. I’m going to come there with President Trump and we’ll see.” Trump chimed in with “I’ll get him out.”
Given Zohran Mamdani’s long record of audacity, he may one day have to do that.