New York City Mayoral elect Zohran Mamdani previously called for the boycott of Cornell Tech over its public-private partnership with Technion — Israel Institute of Technology not long after he won a seat in the New York State Assembly in 2020, according to reporting in The New York Post.
As per the reporting, Mamdani allegedly discussed the boycott in a podcast called “Talking Palestine,” hosted by democratic socialist Sumaya Awad, citing Technion’s ties to the Israeli Defense Force in the Israeli-Palestine conflict and weapons development program.
“If you were to look at the lens of [the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement] and how it applies here in New York City, you would say that Cornell-Technion is something you would be talking about,” Mamdani reportedly said on the podcast, according the The New York Post.
“I’m sure that if we look close enough, there are either municipal subsidies or state subsidies granted to a project such as this on Roosevelt Island,” Mamdani said.
As Mayor-elect, Mamdani was asked by the Roosevelt Islander at a press conference whether he “currently support[s] a boycott of Cornell Tech [or if] has he ever supported a boycott [of Cornell Tech].” While Mamdani did not explicitly say he would no longer boycott Cornell Tech, he did not think the partnership was out of compliance with international law.
“Wherever the [Eric] Adams administration and previous administrations have taken us out of compliance with international law, we’ll return the city back into that compliance,” Mamdani said.
Upon further questioning from the reporter, Mamdani elaborated that he does not “think that [Cornell Tech] applies to what the Adam’s administration’s done,” appearing to say that he does not support a boycott of Cornell Tech
