Zohran Mamdani: A Danger to NYC

Introduction

New York City’s mayoral race is currently a two-person showdown, pitting New York State Assemblymember Zohran Mamdani—a far-left, virulently anti-Israel activist and socialist—against former New York governor Andrew Cuomo in the June 24, 2025 Democratic primary.

Since the city leans heavily Democratic, the winner is overwhelmingly expected to become NYC’s next mayor.

Cuomo is maintaining a slim lead with Mamdani posing a serious challenge. In a highly crowded field, Mamdani is the only candidate except Cuomo polling in the double digits – and his support is growing daily.

While municipal politics rarely delve into foreign policy, the issue of Israel has been central in the race. The contrast between the two front runners couldn’t be greater.

Cuomo calls himself a “hyper-aggressive supporter of Israel and proud of it.” Speaking to the extreme uptick of Jew-hatred in NYC since the October 7, 2023 attack by Hamas, Cuomo has declared antisemitism “the most serious and important issue” facing the city.

Mamdani is part of that problem. He is a full participant in the protests staged by antisemitic, anti-American, pro-violence groups, including Within Our Lifetime and Jewish Voice for Peace, that have turned NYC into a battleground since October 7, 2023.

The son of anti-Israel ideologues, he has spent his burgeoning career taking their extremist ideology to the streets.

Under his leadership, all law-abiding New Yorkers, not just Jewish residents, will face escalating danger. What follows is a detailed account of who Zohran Mamdani really is, where he comes from, and the network of extremists he empowers.

Anti-Israel Activism

Mamdani has been a regular and prominent figure in NYC’s disruptive anti-Israel protest scene that has predominantly been engineered by Within Our Lifetime (WOL), an extremist and violent anti-Israel and anti-American group whose activists have been behind multiple attacks on Jews.

Mamdani has also been a regular activist at protests organized by Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP), an antisemitic, anti-Zionist group known for inventing and promoting conspiracy theories about Israel.

After the October 7, 2023, massacre of 1,200 Israelis and the kidnapping of 250 more by Hamas, Mamdani went into action:

• On Oct. 8, 2023, just one day after the attack, Mamdani released a statement that slammed “Netanyahu’s declaration of war” and called for “ending the occupation and dismantling apartheid.”
• On October 13, 2023, less than a week after the massacre and before any substantial response from Israel, Mamdani joined a Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP) protest outside the Brooklyn home of Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer. The protest deceptively called for a ceasefire (i.e. Hamas victory) to “Stop the Genocide of Palestinians,” which was non-existent. Protesters, including Mamdani, were arrested for blocking traffic and charged with disorderly conduct.
• Fresh out of jail, on October 14, 2023, Mamdani proudly tweeted he was at yet another protest with JVP blocking the entrance to the New York Stock Exchange.
• On October 27, 2023, just three weeks after the attack, Mamdani was front and center at a menacing anti-Israel protest at Grand Central Station, which was designed to shut down NYC’s giant transportation hub. At the protest, Mamdani again called for Israel to stop a so-called “genocide.”

“I saw him at protest after protest, on picket line after picket line, rain or shine,” writes Sumaya Awad, a Palestinian-American writer and prominent BDS activist who met Mamdani in 2020.

Less than a month after the October 7 massacre, Awad received a call from Mamdani, who said, “We need to do more for Gaza. We need to organize a hunger strike for ceasefire, to pressure Biden to stop arming this genocide.”

After that conversation, Mamdani staged a five-day hunger strike in front of the White House in late November, shoring up his creds among anti-Israel activists and unions.

His anti-Israel activism continued unabated. As noted by Politico, “Mamdani … spent the year leading up to his campaign sharpening his pro-Palestinian bonafides,” which started in college when he founded a Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) chapter (see below).

Commenting on SJP’s pro-Hamas encampment movement, Mamdani said, “I’ve been proud to be the first, and to my knowledge, the only mayoral candidate to have said that I would not have sent the police onto Columbia and CUNY’s campus.”

On March 13, 2024, long after the cooperation between the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNWRA) and Hamas was proven, Mamdani feigned ignorance about UNRWA’s ties to Hamas, posting, “Israel has yet to provide any proof of these claims.”

Mamdani further lamented, “but the allegations alone have led to UNRWA having $450M in donor funding suspended thus far.”

“Zohran Mamdani is running the most deceptive, divisive, and antisemitic campaign in the history of New York City,” said NY Assemblymember Sam Berger.

Mamdani’s Anti-Israel Legislation

As part of his platform, Mamdani has pledged to cut off private charitable funding and halt arms shipments to Israel, continuing the anti-Israel agenda he pursued as a state assemblymember.

As a NY assemblymember, Mamdani has a proven record of taking action against Israel. In May 2023, he introduced into the assembly the “Not on Our Dime” Act, a bill that would essentially make it impossible for non-profit charities to send money to Israel.

The details of the bill are alarming. The bill, which comes with penalties starting at $1 million, includes:

• Giving the New York State Attorney General the power to fine charities found in violation of the law
• Allowing individuals to bring lawsuits against these charities
• Canceling the tax-exempt status of any organization found in violation

In May 2024, Mamdani reintroduced an expanded version of the bill. The new version explicitly prohibits organizations from funding Israeli military actions in Gaza and the West Bank. To date, the bill remains under consideration and has not been brought to the floor for a vote.

When Mamdani introduced the bill, 66 centrist and progressive Democratic assembly members – a majority of Democrats in the assembly – signed a letter of condemnation against it. The legislators argued it unfairly targeted Jewish charities and raised concerns about religious discrimination. Some called it antisemitic.

Supporters heralded the bill as the first of its kind in the nation and a model-setting precedent for other states. The bill’s institutional backers include the Democratic Socialists of America (an organization of which Mamdani is a member), the NYC chapters of Jewish Voice for Peace and the U.S. Campaign for Palestinian Rights (USCPR).

Other organizations in support of the bill include the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) and the Westpac Foundation.

Mamdani spoke about the bill in an extensive interview in The Nation with virulent anti-Israel activist Mohammed El-Kurd (who famously said at a London rally after October 7, "We must root (Zionism) out of the world! … We must normalize massacres as a status quo!"). In the interview, Mandani characterized the legislation as a “very modest” legal ask.

El-Kurd later joined Mamdani for a town hall promoting the bill.

Spouting classic antisemitism, Mamdani said to El-Kurd, “The idea of it as ‘radical legislation’ is only because of who it applies to. Because for so long, in New York politics and American politics, the idea of applying reasonable or modest ideas to the State of Israel, or anything connected to the State of Israel, is seen as simply beyond belief.”

Mamdani continued,

“I’m not naive [about] how long of a fight this could be,” he said. “But our aim in this legislation is not simply to pass this bill, but to use this bill as well as an organizing opportunity whose ramifications will be felt at every level of government.”

What does this mean in practical terms? In short, Mamdani hopes to create a chilling effect for pro-Israel politicians statewide and, ultimately, nationwide.

“Even if we do not pass this legislation, this becomes a place of calculus,” he explained, “where [politicians] have to realize that … if I go on this AIPAC trip every single year, or if I sponsor this legislation to give another $3.8 billion a year to the State of Israel at the federal level, there will be a consequence for it.”

The bill represents the initial step in Mamdani’s vision of ostracizing pro-Israel politicians. “What we are doing with this first-in-the-nation legislation is showing a different playbook for how we can finally be affirmative and not just forever be on the defensive,” he stated.

Mamdani’s Sponsors: Antisemites & Israel Haters

Linda Sarsour

One of Mamdani’s most prominent supporters is antisemitic, pro-Hamas activist and fellow card-carrying socialist and political operative Linda Sarsour.

Mamdani and Sarsour met in 2017 while they were campaigning for socialist Khader El-Yateem, who focused his campaign around his support for the Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) movement.

Sarsour has asserted that “Israel … is built on the idea that Jews are supreme to everyone else” and that “Jesus was a Palestinian.” In 2012, she tweeted, "There's nothing creepier than Zionism." The tweet remains on her feed to date. In 2018, she referred to Israel as an oppressor and told Muslims to stop "actually trying to humanize the oppressor." Her associations and speaking engagements include a bevy of antisemitic Islamists from the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA) to Louis Farrakhan.

Like Mamdani, she is a purveyor of the antisemitic “Deadly Exchange” conspiracy theory (see below).

A long-standing proponent of BDS, Sarsour is playing a “huge role” in Mamdani’s election bid – from fundraising for him on her large social media platforms to pushing her followers who previously joined the “Uncommitted National Movement” and “Leave it Blank NY” – in which Mamdani took part – to register as Democrats so they can vote for him.

“I know some of us aren’t feeling any political parties right now but in New York State we have closed primaries and this unfortunately is how it works here! Only Democrats can participate in our primary!” Sarsour posted on Jan. 25 on her Instagram account. “Tell everyone! Let’s shock the whole system and send Zohran to City Hall!”

Speaking to the New York Post, Hank Sheinkopf, a longtime Democratic consultant, said Sarsour and the rest of the “anti-Israel far left” see Mamdani as a “great opportunity” to seize control of NYC.

“This is their moment to try and capture the city’s government and turn it into what they want, which is less about progressive politics and more about Jew-hating than anything else,” he said.

“Linda Sarsour is not running him because he’s a great progressive and believes in some kind of redistribution of wealth. She’s running him because he’s a great antisemite,” Sheinkoft added.

Rashida Tlaib

Further leaning into his antisemitic, anti-Israel bona fides, Mamdani tapped Hamas-sympathizer Representative Rashida Tlaib to fundraise for him by sending out a text blast to potential donors. The blast mentioned Mamdani’s support for “Gaza” and also condemned Cuomo for being on “the legal team defending [Israel] Prime Minister Netanyahu for war crimes…”

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez

Mamdani's most high-profile endorsement came from fellow Democratic Socialist of America (DSA) member Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY), who not only endorsed him as her top choice for mayor but marched with him at the Puerto Rican Day Parade.

In her June 5th endorsement, AOC urged "the left to unite to defeat Andrew Cuomo" and ranked Mamdani first on her ballot. AOC praised Mamdani's "real ability on the ground to put together a coalition of working-class New Yorkers," conveniently ignoring how his anti-Israel extremism would alienate Jewish voters who make up a significant portion of that working class.

Hasan Piker

On April 7, 2025, Mamdani sat down for an extensive livestream with Hasan Piker, a virulent antisemite. In the interview, Mamdani pronounced his support for Mahmoud Khalil, a foreign national at Columbia University, who was arrested by immigration authorities for having “led activities aligned to Hamas, a designated terrorist organization."

After that interview, NY Assemblymember Sam Berger had had enough. Speaking to Politico, Berger said,

“On October 8th, 2023, while Jews were still being butchered, Zohran Mamdani condemned Israel and couldn’t even bring himself to mention Hamas. Zohran just spent 3 hours sipping espresso with an influencer who has used his platform to refer to Jews as bloodthirsty pigdogs, Orthodox Jews as inbred, and has said it doesn’t matter if rape happened on October 7th.”

Sumaya Awad

Conducting a fawning interview with Mamdani for The Nation was none other than Sumaya Awad, a leading figure in the anti-Israel movement who has made a career of demonizing the Jewish state.

Awad co-founded a Students for Justice in Palestine chapter at Williams College, serves as a speaker and trainer for the U.S. Campaign for Palestinian Rights (USCPR) and is the director of strategy and communications for Adalah Justice Project.

In her interview, Awad gave Mamdani a platform to promote himself as "the first Muslim elected running for mayor" while promoting his "Not on Our Dime Act” to strip organizations giving money to Israel of their charity status.”

Most tellingly, Awad actively downplayed Mamdani's radical agenda, claiming that, "In many ways your platform isn't actually very radical. Free childcare, free buses, a rent freeze," while conveniently ignoring his calls to arrest Israeli officials, implement BDS policies and fundamentally reshape New York City's relationship with Israel at a time when antisemitic hate crimes are soaring.

Mamdani’s Platform: Where Socialism Meets Anti-Israel Activism

Mamdani’s platform offers socialist solutions to common concerns of New Yorkers. However, his socialist answers to crime – which include significant increases in attacks on Jews in recent years – are particularly alarming. Mamdani is committed to:

• Slashing the budget of the police department
• Deincarceration, including the closing of NY’s iconic jail complex on Riker’s Island

Ironically, Mamdani’s socialist creds took a hit in mid-May 2025 when pictures from his “secret wedding” – a lavish affair in Dubai – leaked out.

Democratic Socialists of America

Mamdani is a proud member of the anti-American Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) and was the keynote speaker at the DSA’s national convention in Chicago in 2023.

The DSA Liberation Caucus, which is part of the DSA, recently posted their support for Elias Rodriguez, who is accused of shooting two Israeli embassy workers in Washington, D.C., on May 21, 2025.

DSA's position on Israel has undergone a dramatic transformation from supporting a two-state solution (1982-2017) to adopting an anti-Zionist, one-state position that rejects Israel's right to exist (2017-present). The organization fully supports BDS; in fact, support for the movement has become a "litmus test for political purity" within the group.

DSA describes both the United States and Israel as "settler states built upon genocide."

NYC DSA, the New York City chapter that is supporting Mamdani, requires all candidates seeking their endorsement to pledge not to travel to Israel on sponsored trips and to endorse BDS.

On October 8, 2023, one day after the Hamas attacks on Israel, NYC DSA promoted a rally in "solidarity with the Palestinian people and their right to resist."

Keeping with the accepted narrative of socialist and other intersectional anti-American groups, Mamdani views “Palestine as being a central part of the struggle” for “liberation.”

This follows the playbook of Within Our Lifetime leader Nerdeen Kiswani and her activist allies, which promote “Palestinian liberation” (i.e., the destruction of Israel) as the quintessential kingpin to world liberation. If Israel is abolished, they claim, all other injustices in the world will cease to exist.

Indeed, Mamdani “has made his anti-Israel activism a cornerstone of his political career.”

On May 14, 2025, Mamdani, along with four other socialist members of the Democrat party, declined to sign onto a state assembly resolution recognizing Israel on the 77th anniversary of its founding. Four months earlier, he failed to sign a resolution marking Holocaust Remembrance Day in NY.

Mamdani’s Antisemitic, Anti-American Roots

Undergrad Days: SJP Founder

Mamdani credits his foray into political activism to his undergrad days at Bowdoin College in Maine, where he co-founded the school’s first Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) chapter and organized a push for an academic and cultural boycott of Israel.

“It’s not that everything changed in college, but I went from having Facebook arguments and long back and forths with friends about it, never making any headway, to realizing that just an active group of 10 people can totally change the discourse on a campus and realizing what the power of organizing is,” Mamdani remembers.

During his SJP days at Bowdoin, Mamdani invited and hosted virulent antisemite Ali Abunimah, co-founder of Electriconic Intifada, which provides an endless source of defamatory and false news about Israel.

“Through organizing around Palestine and Palestinian solidarity issues, I saw a very different side of the administration. That was a very formative experience in understanding how things work when you’re trying to push for demands that are not popular with the people in power,” he said.

Mamdani says taking the concrete step of co-founding an SJP chapter at Bowdoin was what eventually led him to run for NY’s State Assembly. “I realized that the key is not simply to possess politics, but to actually do something with that politics …”

Most recently, he sent a message of encouragement to Bowdoin anti-Israel activists involved in a fight to pass a BDS referendum.

Anti-Israel, Anti-American Parents

Mamdani was born to a Muslim family of Indian descent in Kampala, Uganda. His father, Mahmood Mamdani, is a Marxist and a professor at Columbia University who teaches about “colonialism.” In a recent course, “Settlers and Natives,” Mahmood promotes “the necessity of violence in anticolonial struggle.”

In April 2024, Mahmood, a long-standing promoter of the BDS movement against Israel, participated in Columbia’s pro-Hamas encampment, speaking in solidarity with the students and comparing the anti-apartheid movement in South Africa to the one for “Palestinian liberation.”

“Zionism in Israel – like Jim Crow racism in the U.S. or apartheid in Israel – is not just a state project but also a social project … ,” he added.

In 2011, Mahmood delivered a keynote address at the first national Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) conference, which was hosted by Columbia. At the conference, SJP adopted “points of unity,” including “ending Israel’s occupation” and calling for the “right of return” (i.e., the destruction of Israel).

In 2002, Mahmood delivered the keynote address at the first conference of the U.S. Campaign to End the Israeli Occupation, which rebranded itself as the U.S. Campaign for Palestinian Rights (USCPR) in 2016. USCPR is the fiscal sponsor of 329 different pro-BDS organizations, including the Palestinian BDS National Committee, which counts as members five different U.S. designated terrorist organizations, including Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad.

During the now infamous pro-terror encampment that took place at Columbia University in April 2024, Mahmood donned an orange vest with other faculty members who made a human barrier to prevent Jewish students from entering the encampment.

Zohran Mamdami’s mother, Mira Nair, is a well-known filmmaker originally from India. This year, Nair was one of 100 “film workers” who signed an open letter calling on the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to forbid Israeli actress Gal Gadot from attending the Oscars.

In July 2013, Nair declined an invitation to the Haifa International Film Festival as a "guest of honor" to protest Israel's policies toward Palestinians.

In multiple tweets, Nair first stated, “I will not be going to Israel at this time. I will go to Israel when the walls come down. I will go to Israel when occupation is gone.” She then tweeted, “I will go to Israel when the state does not privilege one religion over another. I will go to Israel when Apartheid is over.”

Finally, she tweeted, “I stand w/ Palestine for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel (PACBI) & the larger Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) Mov’t.”

Childhood: South African Apartheid and Palestine

When Mamdani was five years old, his family moved to South Africa for two years. Mamdani claims to remember that “It was right around the time when apartheid had just fell and there was a lot of solidarity with Palestinians. Growing up in that context and seeing how prominently understood it was that these were interconnected struggles is something that remained with me.”

The family then moved to the U.S., where, at 7 years old, Mamdani also claims to remember that “Palestine continued to be a topic of discussion in the apartment.”

He graduated from Bank Street School for Children, a private, progressive K-8 elementary school whose tuition now reaches upwards of $66,000 per year. He then attended Bronx High School of Science.

In his PR material, Mamdani describes himself as “a graduate of the NYC Public School System.”

He continued his education at Bowdoin College in Maine, where he graduated in 2014 with a bachelor's degree in Africana Studies. (Bowdoin’s tuition was also upwards of $66,000 per year).

Post-College Anti-Israel, Anti-American Activism

Before finding his footing in politics, Mamdani worked as a foreclosure prevention counselor and rapper under the name “Mr. Caramom.”

His political career began in 2017 when he volunteered to work for socialist Khader El-Yateem, a Palestinian Lutheran minister running in a primary for the New York City Council. El-Yateem centered his campaign around his support for the BDS movement. Although El-Yateen lost, the experience was a pivotal moment for Mamdani.

“That campaign changed my life,” he said. “I came into contact with a political movement that understood Palestine as being a central part of the struggle, which is something that I had often struggled with … all of these politicians I had admired … found every way to not address Palestinians when it came to their seemingly universal struggles.”

For Mandani, “Palestine” is an essential component of the “full framework of what liberation means and what it means to be a socialist.”

In 2018, Mamdani worked as the campaign manager for journalist Ross Barkan's bid for the New York State Senate, another unsuccessful run. The following year, he joined socialist Tiffany Cabán's unsuccessful campaign for Queens District Attorney, working as a field organizer.

In 2020, he mounted his own campaign for the NY State Assembly and won. Running on a socialist agenda, his platform centered around passing a “homes guarantee” (the right to a home for every person), public control of energy companies and, taking from the playbook of Cabán’s campaign, decarceration and criminal justice reform.

His platform also advocated for reducing the power and presence of the police, decriminalizing sex work, ending cash bail, banning solitary confinement and passing elder parole. Although the city council primarily decides on the New York Police Department’s budget, he made it clear that his campaign was part of a movement to defund the NYPD by at least $1 billion in the upcoming year.

Mamdani was re-elected in 2022 and 2024.

History of Spreading Antisemitic Conspiracies

Speaking at an anti-Israel protest in NYC in February 2024 (eight months before he declared his candidacy), Mamdani railed against the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) during part of his speech, saying, “We are here today because AIPAC is suppressing American public sentiment! We are here today because they are subverting American democracy!”

However, when he posted the speech on his Instagram account, he edited out his remarks about AIPAC. Canary Mission called him out on X for his deceit, posting his unedited speech and writing, “LOOK what NY State Assembly Member @ZohranKMamdani left out of his speech when he posted it on his Instagram feed ... A blatant antisemitic lie that a Jewish lobby group is controlling the US.”

On May 18, 2025, a two-year-old video resurfaced in which Mamdani falsely claimed that NY taxpayers were footing the bills for NY lawmakers’ trips to Israel. The remarks came at a May 11, 2021, pro-Palestinian, anti-Israel protest, where he also led chants for “BDS.” Clearly proud of his stance, Mandani posted the video on his Facebook page.

Pro-Israel New Yorkers bristled at Mamdani’s false insinuation that Jewish politicians were swindling New Yorkers to benefit Israel at their expense and accused Mamdani of spewing an antisemitic trope.

Also in 2021, Mamdani invoked the “Deadly Exchange” antisemitic conspiracy theory, a lie concocted by Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP) that claims the Israeli military trains U.S. police in racist and violent tactics to use against black and brown communities.

Finally, just weeks ago, after outraging his anti-Israel backers by stating Israel has a “right to exist,” Madani reiterated his support for BDS and pointedly refused to say that Israel has a right to exist as a Jewish state. (He later admitted that he opposes Israel's right to exist as a Jewish state.)

Mamdani’s Rise in the Polls

Using an “army” of volunteers from the Democratic Socialists of America, Mamdani successfully primaried a well-liked, establishment Democrat to win his seat in the NY Assembly in 2020. That “army,” which is busily canvassing for him now, successfully primaried eight other state legislative seats from the New York Democratic Party establishment since 2018.

Since he announced his mayoral candidacy on October 23, 2024, Mamdami's numbers have been on an upward surge.

While Cuomo enjoys support from the establishment base of the Democrat party, he has significant vulnerabilities stemming from his term as NY governor – from mishandling the COVID pandemic to sexual misconduct allegations, the latter of which ultimately brought down his governorship.

Brutal attack ads against Cuomo highlighting these flaws are expected in the last month of the campaign. Mamdani’s camp hopes they will be enough to swing the election.

Fundraising Success

By mid-July 2024, which is considered the first fundraising cycle for the NYC mayoral race, Mamdani had brought in more money than any other candidate. Reports indicate that 95 percent of Mamdani’s funds were from small donations. By the end of March 2025, he had reached the maximum limit in matching funds for the June primary.

To date, Mamdani has raised $1.5 million with $6.7 million in matching funds. New York City’s Campaign Finance Board, an independent and nonpartisan city agency, estimates that he has close to $7.5 million in the bank.

How Mamdani Carved Out Support

Noting the city’s rightward swing in the 2024 presidential election, Democrats—including front-runner Cuomo—distanced themselves from far-left policies. This left the lane open for Mamdani, who proudly positioned himself as the only purveyor of “progressive” ideology and, along with it, anti-Israel dogma.

As a member of the DSA, America’s largest socialist organization, Mamdani is courting NYC’s intersectionalist voters and upwardly mobile yuppies. As a Muslim from Uganda with Indian roots, he hopes to pull in New York’s vocal anti-Israel crowd as well as various ethnic groups, particularly South Asians with whom he has a history. (In 2021, Mamdani successfully advocated for debt relief for taxi medallion holders, joining a 15-day hunger strike of taxi drivers, many of whom are South Asian.)

Mamdani also got a break when current Democrat NYC Mayor Eric Adams bowed out of the Democratic primary on April 3, 2025, and decided to run as an independent.

Adams was dogged by accusations of corruption and condemnations for cooperating with the federal Republican administration. Even though a judge dismissed the corruption charges, Adams remained unpopular and is today polling between four and eight percent.

The Electable Extremist

Zohran Mamdani’s last-minute, carefully crafted concession that Israel has a right to exist – but not as a Jewish state – sent shockwaves through his extremist base and exposed the precarious balance he has tried to maintain between his political ambition and his ideological extremism.

While some of his supporters defended the statement as a calculated move for electoral viability, others, like Within Our Lifetime (WOL) leader Nerdeen Kiswani, see such pragmatism as a betrayal.

Mamdani’s Strategy: Calculated Alliances

What’s most revealing about Mamdani are his calculated affiliations. While Mamdani was once an active participant in WOL’s extremist rallies, he never publicized those appearances.

Recently, he has distanced himself from WOL, instead repackaging the group’s radical agenda through more palatable channels—such as partnering with Jewish groups or expressing support for Columbia’s student protesters.

Specifically after the October 7 attack, Mamdani very publicly began embracing Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP), joining their “civil disobedience” protests. JVP also acted as a co-sponsor on his failed BDS legislation, the “Not on Our Dime” Act.

This cynical positioning has allowed Mamdani to maintain his essential – and extremist – anti-Israel ideology while using the Jewish makeup of JVP as a shield against accusations of antisemitism. This strategy has allowed Mamdani to become “just palatable enough” to get by electorally while maintaining his fundamental positions.

(Less than two months after declaring his candidacy for mayor, he admitted in an interview with Mehdi Hasan, "If I had dreams of being a politician in this country, I wouldn't have co-founded a Students for Justice in Palestine chapter at my college.")

Kiswani bitterly commented on Mamdani’s noticeable distance from Within Our Lifetime, posting on X, “Maybe one day people will be ready to hear the real stories about the campaigns you hold up as ‘proof’ of Zohran’s greatness, and how they were built on our labor, vision, and exclusion.”

In another scathing post on X written after his statements about Israel, Kiswani continued, “I’ve … seen organizers and campaigns, including ones I helped build, get co-opted by people like Zohran, who now get praised as champions while cutting out the grassroots orgs that gave them their base in the first place.”

Kiswani accused Mamdani of “adopt[ing] our campaigns without acknowledgment or collaboration.”

A quick look at the “campaigns” of Kiswani is instructive as a precursor to what a Mamdani mayorship might look like for New Yorkers.

Chaos for NYC’s Streets

In 2021, Kiswani stated, "We … have a right to take over this city and shut this city down and force the city to hear us."

Again, in November 2023, she said, "We have shut down New York City & we will continue to shut this city down." And then, more ominously, she declared, "Over 2,500 officers resigned this year [because of our protests]. A record number...How many of ya'll would come out on Christmas Day & ruin their Christmas?"

Kiswani's "campaigns" dovetail perfectly with Mamdani’s previous activism (shutting down streets, shutting down Grand Central Station) and his platform of defunding the police and decarceration.

WOL’s explicit goal has always been to make NYC "ungovernable." As Kiswani has stated, "We know this game. We've played it … we're choosing not to play by its rules anymore."

The Danger of Mamdani's Calculated Silence

The real danger lies not in what Mamdani says, but in what he refuses to condemn. While he has superficially “distanced” himself from WOL, he has never criticized the group’s "ungovernable" strategy.

As mayor, Mamdani's response to WOL's disruption tactics would be critical to the city’s residents. Would he turn a blind eye when WOL promises to "disrupt every single day?” Would he hamstring police when WOL declares, "We're done begging for people to join our side. We are going to make you support the liberation of Palestine."

His careful positioning of himself as radical enough to maintain credibility while moderate enough to get elected suggests a politician who will accommodate and even enable extremism.

A vote for Mamdani is a vote for a pro-Hamas, anti-American disruptive agenda for NYC, including the antisemitic violence that historically has accompanied it. It is a vote for the failed policies of decarceration and defunding the police, policies that have been proven to increase crime in cities across America, particularly against Jews and other minority communities.