Zohran Mamdani, an anti-Zionist who claimed Israel is 'committing a genocide' in Gaza, wins NYC mayoral primary

Zohran Mamdani, a member of the Democratic Socialists of America, has won the Democratic primary for New York City’s upcoming mayoral race.

“We have won because New Yorkers have stood up for a city they can afford,” Mamdani said in his victory speech. “A city where they can do more than just struggle.”

Mamdani said his voters were seeking a city “where the mayor will use their power to reject Donald Trump’s fascism, to stop mass ICE agents from deporting our neighbors,” and to “govern our city as a model for the Democratic Party, a party where we fight for working people, with no apology.”

Mamdani defeated former New York Governor Andrew Cuomo, who conceded the race on Tuesday night.

“I want to applaud the assemblyman for a really smart and good and impactful campaign,” Cuomo said of Mamdani. “Tonight is his night. He deserved it. He won.”

Hoping to be New York City’s first Muslim mayor, Mamdani is part of the Twelver branch of Shia Islam.

Mamdani is vocally anti-Zionist and has called Israel’s actions in Gaza a genocide.

“I will always be clear in my language and based in facts: Israel is committing a genocide,” he wrote in a post on 𝕏 last year.

Asked by talk show host Stephen Colbert about Israel’s “right to exist,” Madani said that “like all nations, I believe it has a right to exist, and a responsibility also to uphold international law.”

Additionally, he said there is “a crisis of antisemitism,” and that “there is no room for violence in this city, in this country, in this world.”

In a recent interview with The Bulwark, Mamdani was asked how he feels about the prevalence of the slogans “globalize the intifada” and “from the river to the sea” among left-wing activists.

While condemning the Hamas attack on Oct. 7, 2023 as a “horrific war crime,” Mamdani said that “I know people for whom those [phrases] mean very different things.”

“Ultimately, what I hear in so many is a desperate desire for equality and equal rights in standing up for Palestinian human rights,” Mamdani continued. “And I think what’s difficult also is that the very word [intifada] has been used by the Holocaust museum when translating the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising into Arabic. It’s a word that means struggle. And as a Muslim man who grew up post 9/11, I’m all too familiar with the way in which Arabic words can be twisted, can be distorted, can be used to justify any kind of meaning.”

“What we need to do is focus on keeping Jewish New Yorkers safe, and the question of permissibility of language is something that I haven’t ventured in,” he concluded.

The U.S. Holocaust Museum publicly responded to Mamdani’s comments.

“Exploiting the Museum and the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising to sanitize ‘globalize the intifada’ is outrageous and especially offensive to survivors,” the museum posted on 𝕏. “Since 1987 Jews have been attacked and murdered under its banner. All leaders must condemn its use and the abuse of history.”