July 28, 2026
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President Trump is hosting Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu at the White House – the same leader that NYC Mayor Mamdani has spent more than a year promising to have arrested if he comes to NY. Mamdani recently acknowledged that city attorneys concluded he had no legal authority to arrest Netanyahu when he is expected to attend the United Nations General Assembly in NY in September.
The mayor has focused on Netanyahu with speeches and statements condemning the Israeli leader while the city faces significant infrastructure problems, housing shortages and rising prices. Mamdani has trained his attention on one foreign country and one foreign leader, leaving many of the city’s roughly one million Jews to fear being targeted and victimized by increasing antisemitic acts, many violent.
Mamdani has no power over America’s foreign policy, but he does have every obligation to protect the safety of all New Yorkers.
‘A Mayor Playing President’
Mamdani recently released a video, viewed by millions, falsely branding Netanyahu a ‘war criminal’ and called for protests at the UN against the Israeli prime minister in September. The protest call drew anger from the Jewish community and other New Yorkers. The president of the NYPD Police Benevolent Assoc. called Mamdani’s promotion of protests at the UN a permission slip for “violent agitators” and that “the mayor’s heated rhetoric could push demonstrations over the edge into chaos.” U.S. Sen. John Fetterman mocked Mamdani as a “clown,” saying a mayor can “fix a pothole and take out the trash” but has no power to order arrests. NBA star Kyle Kuzma called Mamdani “a mayor playing president.”
The mayor’s fixation on the world’s only Jewish state extends to his administration’s attempts to meet with leaders of adversarial countries. Mamdani’s international affairs commissioner arranged a meeting with Iran’s ambassador to the UN – the representative of a regime in open conflict with the U.S. that kills it own citizens who oppose the government. Iran’s leaders have spent decades chanting “Death to America” and vowing to destroy Israel. The State Dept. intervened to prevent the meeting, calling it “unconscionable.” The federal government previously blocked Mamdani’s planned meeting with Colombia’s president – who posted “Heil Hitler” on social media.
The day after he posted his video, Mamdani’s official message marking Tisha B’Av – the Jewish day of mourning – mentioned neither Israel nor the destruction of the two Jewish Temples in Jerusalem the date commemorates. As the day’s fast was observed, an assailant shouting “Allahu Akbar” – Arabic for “God is the greatest” – stabbed two men, one of them a Jew leaving a synagogue after prayers and an Asian man. The attack underscored that violence against Jews does not end with Jews.
The Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations called the Netanyahu video “outrageous, slanderous and dangerous.” Its statement continued: “Mayor Mamdani has repeatedly demonstrated an obsessive hostility toward Israel that is wholly incompatible with his obligation to represent all New Yorkers. He has neither the authority nor the expertise to conduct foreign policy from City Hall. He must end this dangerous political theater and focus on governing a city confronting serious challenges, including the persistent threat of antisemitism.”
Even after the stabbing, Mamdani has refused to engage with calls to tone down his anti-Israel rhetoric. Eric Goldstein, CEO of UJA-Federation of NY, stated that “Mamdani is contributing to a climate in which Jewish New Yorkers are increasingly targeted and unsafe.”
‘Not An Activist Anymore’
Mamdani has a history of anti-Israel activity. He co-founded a Students for Justice in Palestine chapter at Maine’s Bowdoin College and is one of the most prominent Democratic Socialists of America politician in office. Mamdani refuses to recognize Israel’s right to exist as a Jewish state, supports the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions Movement and criticized Israel just a day after the horrific Oct. 7 massacres.
He has professed his “love” for five men convicted of sending $12 million to Hamas and repeatedly refused to condemn “Globalize the Intifada” – a call to attack Jews worldwide. Running for office, Mamdani promised Jews that they would be safe in the city under his administration.
On his first day in office, Mamdani revoked two executive orders – one directing city agencies to use the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance definition of antisemitism and another that prevented boycott campaigns against Israel. Months later, Mamdani vetoed a bill requiring NYPD security perimeters around schools and declined to sign a companion bill protecting houses of worship.
The City Council overrode Mamdani’s objections with a veto-proof majority – in a year the ADL recorded 976 antisemitic incidents in NYC, the highest in four decades.
None of his actions are accidental. At its 2025 convention, the DSA made antizionism a condition of membership. National co-chair Megan Romer recently appeared on national TV, confirming the DSA platform that calls for abolishing the American two-party system and backing Palestinian “resistance” – even if it results in violence against Israelis and Jews. Romer is a member of the DSA’s Red Star, a “revolutionary Marxist-Leninist caucus” that published an article: “We Do Not Condemn Hamas, and Neither Should You.”
Should I Stay or Should I Go?
Mamdani has pointed to falling crime numbers as evidence his approach is working. While it is true that NYC reported the lowest number of murders and shootings on record through May, a majority of the city’s hate crimes target Jews – even though they comprise 12% of the city’s population.
The Jewish stabbing victim, Moshe Grunhaus, was already preparing to move his family to Florida – one of a number of Jews leaving NY because of antisemitism. Martha Tabachnikova, who fled Soviet Ukraine as a child, stated: “I have no doubt in my mind that my children should be planning their lives elsewhere.”
Some Jewish leaders are urging residents to stay. Orthodox Rabbi Chaim Steinmetz called leaving “an enormous mistake,” urging Jews to stand up for themselves and build non-Jewish alliances rather than quit the city. Jews have lived in NY since 1654.
Prophetic Warning on Mamdani
Rabbi Elliot Cosgrove of NYC’s Park Avenue Synagogue spoke two weeks before New Yorkers elected Zohran Mamdani about the dangers he posed to the security of NY’s Jewish community:
“To be clear, unequivocal, and on the record, I believe Zohran Mamdani poses a danger to the security of the New York Jewish community.
“Mamdani’s refusal to condemn inciteful slogans like ‘globalize the intifada,’ his denial of Israel’s legitimacy as a Jewish state, his call to arrest Israel’s prime minister should he enter New York, and his thrice-repeated accusation of genocide – for these and so many other statements, past, present, and unrepentant, he is a danger to the Jewish body politic of New York City.
“This is an antizionist rhetoric that, as we have seen time and again – in Washington, in Colorado, in ways small and large, online and in person – has given rise to deadly antisemitic violence.
“This past summer, at the Glastonbury Music Festival in England, the crowd erupted into chants of ‘death to the IDF.’ What exactly would a Mamdani administration do should that happen next summer in a concert on Governors Island or in Central Park?
“I am not one to play the politics of fear. The entire thesis of my career is to play offense, not defense. But today I’m throwing a flag on the field and calling out a threat to the Jewish people five minutes early rather than risk being five minutes too late.
“What business does an American mayoral candidate have weighing in on foreign policy unless it scores points at the ballot box?
“I would love nothing more than our mayoral contest to be focused solely on affordability, education, policing, sanitation – the everyday issues that shape our great city’s life.”
Click here to watch Rabbi Cosgrove’s entire speech.
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This content is developed by The Focus Project in partnership with MERCAZ USA. The Focus Project distributes weekly news and talking points on timely issues concerning Israel and the Jewish people, including antisemitism, anti-Zionism and the delegitimization of Israel. It represents a consensus view across a spectrum of major American Jewish organizations. MERCAZ USA recognizes and respects the diversity of views on these issues among its readers and the community at large.
