electoralism

ZOHRAN MAMDANI: Yes, they have. And you know, when we won the primary election, I said on that stage that I know millions of New Yorkers care deeply about what happens in Israel and Palestine. I’m one of those New Yorkers. And I commit to reaching even further, to understand disagreement, to wrestle with the complexities of those differing viewpoints, because what this city deserves is a mayor that looks not only to represent the close to 600,000 New Yorkers that voted for me, but rather the 8.5 million people that call this city home.

In the meetings I’ve had since that moment, I’ve met with Jewish elected officials, with rabbis, with community leaders. And there was one rabbi who spoke to me about how that phrase, for her, brought back memories of bus bombings in Haifa, of restaurant attacks in Jerusalem. I knew from what she was sharing with me that she had a fear, as she said, that that could come home to New York City.

So, in having that conversation with her, I understood that the gap between the intent I’ve heard some New Yorkers share with the use of that language—of calling for the end of the Israeli occupation of Palestinian land—was disconnected from the impact it was having in that same conversation I was having with that rabbi.

And so I have said, after having that conversation, that this is language I would discourage.