Speaking at a New York University event in September 2023, Democratic socialist state lawmaker Zohran Mamdani made one of his most despicable, antisemitic remarks yet. He said, “We have to make clear that when the boot of the NYPD is on your neck, it is been laced by the IDF.”
Although several of Mamdani’s past statements have surfaced since he rose to prominence in July, this one stands out as especially vile. It reflects a tendency among his allies to blame nearly every societal ill on Jewish people. This narrative is frequently repeated at pro-Palestinian rallies, often by individuals who cannot identify the river or the sea they are invoking.
If we lived in a sane world, a revelation like this so close to Election Day would be a game-changer. Voters are paying attention. The stakes are high. Yet in deep blue Manhattan, it will probably be greeted with a shrug.
This indifference is even more puzzling given New York City’s enormous Jewish population. The Jewish Chronicle notes that the city is home to the largest Jewish community in the world outside Israel.
Given Mamdani’s history of anti-Jewish rhetoric, it seems remarkable that he would garner any Jewish support at all. Yet a recent Fox News poll shows him with 38% among Jewish voters, putting him nearly neck and neck with former Governor Andrew Cuomo at 42%. [Thirteen percent supported Republican Curtis Sliwa.]
Contemptible as Mamdani’s dubious connection between the NYPD and Israel is, it was not original. He was merely parroting a talking point from the long-running, anti-Israel “Deadly Exchange” campaign, which was created by the anti-Zionist, left-wing advocacy group, Jewish Voice for Peace. Legal Insurrection has covered this topic extensively.
Though the Deadly Exchange campaign had begun years earlier, “it became an important talking point among anti-Israel activists” during and after Hamas fired rockets into Israel in May 2021 initiating 11-days of fighting.
At the time, LI’s Samantha Mandeles noted that the campaign, which sought “to blame American Jews and Israelis for alleged U.S. domestic police violence against minorities,” played a large role in “bringing the Middle East conflict to the streets of Los Angeles, New York, and elsewhere.”
She explained:
The conflict provided a new opportunity for ‘intersectional’ anti-Israel agitators to portray Israel as the common denominator in oppressions all over the world, including racism in the United States. This rhetoric was engaged in not only by street thugs, but also by several members of Congress.
She described the anti-Zionist agit-prop as a “variation” of the Deadly Exchange campaign.
[It was] a popular political warfare trope that seeks to turn Blacks and other ethnic minorities against Jews by blaming Israel and American Jewish groups for domestic police violence and other policing problems. Indeed, a key Deadly Exchange assertion is that educational exchanges between American and Israeli police involve Israeli forces teaching American law enforcement to single out and brutally attack people of color.
However absurd the connections were, antisemites seized on these narratives and amplified them, and as with anything repeated often enough, some people eventually accept them as truth.
Rabbi Elliot Cosgrove of the Park Avenue Synagogue on the Upper East Side of Manhattan told the New York Post that up until ten days ago, he had never advocated for a political candidate from his pulpit. But, during a recent sermon, he told congregants, “I believe Zohran Mamdani poses a danger to the security of the New York Jewish community.”
He urged them to support Cuomo instead. Cosgrove cited Mamdani’s repeated refusal to denounce the phrase “Globalize the Intifada,” his pledge to arrest Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu should he set foot in New York City, and his “’thrice-repeated accusations of [Israel’s] genocide’ in Gaza at last week’s mayoral debate.”
Apparently, many Jewish voters in New York City do not see what the rabbi sees. Drawn to Mamdani’s smile and charismatic persona, and unwilling to back either a Republican candidate or a former governor who resigned in disgrace four years ago, they appear to have made up their minds.
Sadly, barring something truly unexpected, Mamdani will be elected New York City’s next mayor in just one week.
They will get exactly what they voted for. As H. L. Mencken warned more than a century ago, “Democracy is the theory that the common people know what they want, and deserve to get it good and hard.”
Elizabeth writes commentary for Legal Insurrection and The Washington Examiner. She is an academy fellow at The Heritage Foundation. Please follow Elizabeth on X or LinkedIn.
CLICK HERE FOR FULL VERSION OF THIS STORY