‘Not helpful’: New York Jewish Democrats slam Netanyahu for saying Hamas and Mamdani are ‘buddies’

New York Jewish Week via JTA — Some prominent New York Jewish Democrats are defending New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called him “anti-Semitic” and said he was “friendly” with Hamas.

Netanyahu’s speech to the United Nations General Assembly on Thursday, and Mamdani’s outsized role in it, was the culmination of escalating criticism of Mamdani from Israeli officials in recent weeks.

Mamdani is an avowed anti-Zionist who, during his campaign for mayor, pledged to stop Netanyahu. Over the summer, he admitted he did not have the authority to do so, despite criticizing the Israeli government over Gaza in the run-up to the prime minister’s visit.

But while his harsh criticism of Israel alarmed some local Jewish leaders, many felt that Netanyahu’s attacks on Thursday from the UN plenum went too far.

“It is outrageous to suggest that the mayor expresses support for Hamas,” Manhattan Borough President Brad Hoylman-Sigal, who is Jewish, said Friday in an interview with the Jewish Telegraphic Agency.

City Council Speaker Julie Menin, also a Jewish Democrat, opposed Mamdani on some laws related to protests outside houses of worship — a sensitive issue in the wake of demonstrators demonstrating outside synagogues where Israeli real estate events were taking place. Menin told a news conference Thursday that Netanyahu’s remarks were “not helpful at all” because “we need to lower the temperature.”

“This idea of ​​what the prime minister said can really incite violence. We can’t have that,” Menin said.

Mamdani, a staunch defender of the Palestinians, condemned Hamas as “a terrorist organization” and denounced anti-Semitic hate crimes committed in New York.

The mayor responded with a personal statement, saying Netanyahu “used his speech to repeat baseless lies intended to sanitize his genocide of the Palestinians.”

“Yet no lie can change the fact that he remains the subject of an arrest warrant from the International Criminal Court for war crimes and crimes against humanity,” Mamdani said. The United States is not a party to the ICC and has no obligation to execute its mandates on American soil.

Netanyahu’s remarks at the U.N. General Assembly came amid a re-election campaign in which Netanyahu’s Likud party has cast Mamdani as a villain. Hoylman-Sigal called Thursday’s speech a “political ploy” and “a misappropriation by someone who is experiencing a lot of domestic turmoil, political and otherwise.”

“Clearly, Netanyahu is fighting for his political life,” Hoylman-Sigal said.

Netanyahu’s arrival in New York sparked a wave of protests in Manhattan on Thursday, including several organized by Israeli expatriate groups who insisted on the October 27 date of Israel’s elections. Rally participants chanted “Vote him!” » during a demonstration organized by the Israeli anti-Netanyahu group UnXeptable.

Even before her visit, Governor Kathy Hochul pushed back on Netanyahu’s comments. Calling Mamdani a “supporter of the Hamas monsters” was false and “damaged his own credibility,” Hochul said in an interview with radio station WNYC earlier this week.

Morton Klein, president of the American Zionist Organization, which supports Netanyahu and has harshly criticized Mamdani, called Netanyahu’s remarks “Churchillian” and his “greatest speech.”

“Importantly, he also called Mamdani a dangerous anti-Semite who put Jews in danger in New York,” Klein said in a statement.

The UN speech comes as Israeli officials intensify their rhetoric against Mamdani.

Last month, Ofir Akunis, the Israeli consul general in New York, compared Mamdani’s support of the Israel boycott movement to Nazi Germany. A spokesperson for Mamdani told JTA the comparison was “offensive, completely unbalanced and detached from reality,” and said Akunis “should be ashamed of himself.”

It was the first time Mamdani attacked the Israeli consul general, who had accused Mamdani of being directly responsible for anti-Jewish hate crimes in the city.

Inna Vernikov, a Republican city council member who is Jewish and a staunch critic of Mamdani, took issue with the mayor’s response.

“When Mamdani cleans his own house, then he can criticize Jewish leaders,” Vernikov said, pointing to Mamdani’s wife’s anti-Israel views and his veto of a bill on school protests.

Brad Lander, the progressive Jewish Democratic candidate for New York’s 10th Congressional District, blasted Akunis and Netanyahu’s attacks on Mamdani.

“Netanyahu and Akunis are cynically using accusations of anti-Semitism to serve their own narrow and selfish political goals,” Lander, one of Mamdani’s most important Jewish allies, said in a statement to JTA. “They make Israelis, American Jews, Palestinians and the entire world less safe. »

Lander himself was compared to Nazi Germany when Bruce Blakeman, the Republican candidate for governor of New York, said that Lander “would be a camp guard in the concentration camp if he could.”

Hoylman-Sigal called the comparisons “scandalous” and said he was more concerned about the rise of far-right parties, including the AfD in Germany.

“We have to be very careful, regardless of where we come from, to make such extreme comparisons,” he said.

Phylisa Wisdom, who heads Mamdani’s office to combat anti-Semitism, told JTA it is “appalling that some leaders are resorting to comparing their political opponents to Nazis.”

“We can and should disagree – sometimes profoundly – ​​but we must be able to do so without devaluing public discourse,” she said.

Amy Spitalnick, executive director of the Jewish Council for Public Affairs, a group that conducts outreach to non-Jewish community organizations, told JTA in an email that comparisons to Nazis should be prohibited.

This is “particularly concerning given that our own community frequently, and rightly, denounces those who resort to dehumanization and/or make inappropriate comparisons to the Holocaust,” she said.

As an example, Spitalnick cited the Anti-Defamation League’s article on inappropriate comparisons to the Holocaust, which includes COVID-19 vaccine requirements and complaints about free speech.

The ADL did not respond to a request for comment on Akunis’ comparisons to Nazi Germany.

“I don’t agree with the mayor on his policies or his rhetoric – I certainly do – but comparisons like this are deeply offensive and wrong, in addition to undermining the very relationships and engagement necessary to keep Jews safe in New York and beyond,” Spitalnick said.