Why some pro-Palestine activists have turned their backs on Mamdani
New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani is arguably the most pro-Palestinian mayor in New York City's history. He campaigned heavily on the issue of Palestine, repeatedly condemning Israel and labelling its war on Gaza a genocide.
Once in office, he used his power to rescind two pro-Israel executive orders imposed by his predecessor, Eric Adams.
The first was New York City's adoption of the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance's definition of antisemitism, which critics say conflates criticism of the state of Israel with antisemitism.
The second executive order he rescinded prohibited New York City employees from participating in the Palestinian-led Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement, which, according to the campaign, "works to end international support for Israel's oppression of Palestinians".
Mamdani also used his first, heavily publicised, White House meeting with President Donald Trump to request the release of Palestinian activist Leqaa Kordia.
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Flanking the president in the Oval Office, Mamdani doubled down on his constituents' demands to keep New York tax money invested in the city and divested from Israel.
So nearly a year later, why are some of New York City's activists and organisers turning their backs on Mamdani?
Netanyahu
Before he became mayor, Mamdani made a few campaign promises he is now struggling to keep.
Mamdani vowed to fulfil the International Criminal Court’s (ICC) warrant and arrest Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu if he visited New York City, calling him a war criminal.
In July, Mamdani sat down with The New York Times for an interview, where he was asked whether he would arrest Netanyahu. Mamdani said Netanyahu “belongs in The Hague” and that his legal team was pursuing active conversations to determine whether arresting the Israeli leader was legal, and he would do whatever the law allowed.
Just three days later, Mamdani posted a video saying he lacked the legal authority to carry out the ICC arrest warrant.
The Israeli leader eventually came to New York in September to speak at the United Nations General Assembly. Netanyahu was given a warm welcome and was also provided a police escort by the New York City Police Department.
But outside the UN, thousands of civilians, organisers, actors, and politicians participated in protests across the city condemning Israel and Netanyahu for the genocide in Gaza, where over 74,000 Palestinians have lost their lives.
Inside the UN, member states walked out during Netanyahu's speech. Many politicians who previously endorsed Mamdani or had been endorsed by him participated in a Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP) protest that took place outside of UN headquarters and were ultimately arrested.
Those arrests included high-profile figures such as congressional candidate Darializa Avila Chevalier, New York City Council member Chi Osse, former city comptroller Brad Lander, and Aber Kawas, a candidate for New York State Senate.
Mamdani did not participate in the protests or arrest Netanyahu; instead, he posted a wordless video on social media, planting an olive tree at Gracie Mansion with families from Gaza.
Mamdani was on the receiving end of a barrage of criticism for pledging to arrest Netanyahu, but instead, under his watch, those who were protesting against the Israeli leader were arrested.
7 October 2023 vigil
This month marks three years since the Hamas-led attack on southern Israel and Israel's subsequent genocidal war that has killed at least 74,000 Palestinians in Gaza, the majority of whom are women and children. Around 300 of those killed in the attack on Israel were attending the Nova music festival near Gaza.
Israeli Voices for Peace, a group that describes itself as “anti-occupation” and says it believes in a “safe future for both peoples”, held a vigil to mourn the lives lost at the Nova music festival and those killed since, touting the slogan, “NOT ONE MORE LIFE.”
Mayor Mamdani stood shoulder to shoulder with the group at the vigil in Union Square in New York City.
Meanwhile, Cuny’s Students for Justice in Palestine marched from City Hall to Union Square, remembering the tens of thousands killed in Israel's genocide in Gaza.
Protesters came head to head with vigil attendees, where the pro-Palestine group jeered at Mamdani, chanting “traitor” and saying Mamdani had “blood on his hands”.
Leading the protest with a megaphone in hand was a former intern for Mamdani, Hadeeqa Malik, who told Middle East Eye that Mamdani's participation in the vigil is the “normalisation of the Zionist regime. This is normalising settler colonialism”.
Hadeeqa has been organising for the last three years, centring her mission around getting Cuny to divest from companies that aid Israel’s military. She is demanding that Mamdani “abolish Cuny’s board of trustees”, who dictate the university's investments.
“Instead of investing into Cuny students and workers, they have decided to invest over one million dollars in weapons manufacturers. And Zohran Mamdani is one of the two people, alongside the governor of New York State, responsible for the board of trustees. So we are demanding that he abolish the board of trustees today,” Malik told MEE.
Disband Strategic Response Group
The Strategic Response Group, or SRG, is a highly trained unit of the NYPD that specialises in cracking down on citywide mobilisations and civil disorders by utilising crowd control tactics and committing mass arrests of protesters.
The New York Civil Liberties Union previously called them “notoriously violent”, saying that officers “escalate situations and injure New Yorkers who are exercising their First Amendment rights”.
Shortly after announcing his 2024 mayoral bid, Mamdani vowed to disband the SRG in a post on X, but he has yet to do so.
Calls to disband the SRG only grew stronger last week after a US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officer shot a man in the Bronx. SRG was deployed against anti-ICE protesters following the incident.
Jewish Voices for Peace is one of the groups calling for the SRG to be disbanded.
“Abolish ICE. Free Palestine. Disband SRG. Fire Tisch,” they wrote in a post. That last line refers to the billionaire heiress and current police commissioner, Jessica Tish.
Mamdani has been criticised for being the first New York City mayor in eighty years not to appoint his own police commissioner. Instead, he retained self-proclaimed "proud Zionist" Tisch, whom his predecessor, Eric Adams, appointed.
“Jessica Tisch’s virulent Zionist politics, connection to big tech surveillance, and commitment to sharing tactics between the NYPD and Israeli military should have led to her immediately being fired at the start of the new mayoral administration,” JVP said in a recent statement.
Democratic Socialists of America, a group that platformed Mamdani during his campaign, also demanded the disbanding of the SRG and Tisch's firing in an open letter last week.
On Tuesday, Mamdani defended Tisch and said he would not fire her.
“Over the last ten months that we have worked together, we delivered the lowest recorded number of Murders in our city's history,” Mamdani said, defending his choice.
On Monday, after the backlash, Mamdani ordered the first comprehensive review of NYPD's use-of-force policies in a decade, along with new measures to strengthen police accountability.
Mamdani's recently unveiled Strategy to Combat Antisemitism also faced backlash from pro-Palestinian activists, primarily because they say it provides “funding for Zionist propagandist groups”, including the Jewish Community Relations Council of New York.
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