Zohran Mamdani, NYC mayoral hopeful, heckled for recognizing Israel’s right to exist
Mamdani, who is Muslim, supports BDS and has a long history of criticizing Israel
Zohran Mamdani, New York City mayoral candidate, on May 17. Photo by Michael Nagle/Bloomberg via Getty Images
By Jacob Kornbluh May 21, 2025
Zohran Mamdani, polling in second place in the Democratic primary for New York mayor, is under scrutiny from his hard-line anti-Israel base for saying the country has a right to exist.
The Democratic Socialist’s campaign is already drawing attention – and derision from some pro-Israel precincts – for not apologizing for his unabashed past criticism of Israel while insisting that he can still get a substantial portion of Jewish votes. Now he is getting pushback for clarifying his support for Israel’s existence.
Mamdani, a state assemblymember, has argued that his social safety net policies, addressing poverty, elder care and public safety, will trump disagreements over Israel in the city with the largest bloc of Jewish voters outside of Israel.
As he surges past every contender except for front-runner former Gov. Andrew Cuomo, Mamdani’s views on Israel are garnering increased attention. Confronted over his failure to co-sponsor resolutions marking Israel’s independence, Mamdani last week said he supports Israel’s “right to exist as a state.”
Those remarks outraged a pro-Palestinian activist who on Tuesday confronted Mamdani at a party in Brooklyn for Acacia, a progressive Muslim magazine.
“Don’t be hypocritical and say ‘Free Palestine’ when you’re also defending the right for Israel to exist,” the unidentified heckler told Mamdani. “It does not have the right to exist. It’s not your land to say it has the right to exist.” Mamdani nodded and listened to the remarks but didn’t respond. A video of the exchange was posted online Wednesday morning.
Mamdani, who is Muslim, has a long history of criticizing Israel and leans left on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. He supports the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions movement — which some in the pro-Israel community see as an assault on the legitimacy of the Jewish state’s existence — and has accused Israel of committing genocide in Gaza. Recent polls show Mamdani in second place, behind former Gov. Andrew Cuomo, in the crowded June 24 Democratic primary for mayor, and in third place among Jewish voters.
Mamdani last week came under fire for declining to co-sponsor resolutions recognizing Israel’s independence and commemorating the Holocaust earlier this year. In addition to saying that he supports Israel’s right to exist as a state, Mamdani said that he has condemned the atrocities of the Holocaust in public statements and had voted for the resolutions in the State Assembly.
The clip of Mamdani backing Israel’s right to exist sparked online backlash from some of his staunchest allies on the left. Progressive and pro-Palestinian advocates responded to the post on X, calling his stance a betrayal of the movement’s anti-Zionist principles.
Mamdani has not walked back his remarks and declined to comment.
The Palestinian Authority, established under the Oslo Accords in 1993, recognized Israel’s right to exist. In 2009, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu added recognition of Israel’s right to exist specifically as a Jewish state as a condition for mutual recognition of an independent Palestinian state in peace talks. More recently, Saudi Arabia restated its willingness to recognize Israel as part of a broader regional peace agreement.
Israel looming as issue in the mayoral stakes
Mamdani’s comments come amid heightened scrutiny of his stance on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, given his growing momentum in New York’s progressive circles and his inclusion in joint endorsements with Brad Lander and other progressive candidates under the ranked-choice voting system.
The city’s more than 700,000 Jewish adults make up about 16% of the electorate in the Democratic primary.
The Met Council on Jewish Poverty expressly did not invite Mamdani to its annual breakfast this month, accusing him of “fanning the flames of antisemitism.” Earlier this month, Mamdani drew criticism after he attended an annual legislative breakfast in Flatbush, a heavily Orthodox neighborhood in Brooklyn with a politically conservative electorate.
In a recent interview with the Forward, Mamdani doubled down on his support for BDS, guided by his belief in international law and “ending complicity with the violation of it.”
Lander, the city’s comptroller who is also running for mayor, recently delivered a speech in which he distinguished his own liberal Zionist views from those on “both the left and the right” who have either excused the Oct. 7, 2023 Hamas attacks or minimized Palestinian suffering. He added that since the massacres “many days, I feel torn apart myself” over the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
Lander, who is Jewish, has been unapologetic about his criticism of the Israeli government, his calls for a permanent ceasefire and what he described as “the ongoing apartheid of life in the West Bank.”
Michael Blake, a former state legislator who is polling below one percent, walked back on Sunday his statement, made on Oct. 13, 2023, that Israel was committing genocide in Gaza.
Cuomo, the frontrunner, has made Israel – and fighting antisemitism – a focal point of his candidacy. He has repeatedly targeted Mamdani, Lander and Council Speaker Adrienne Adams for their stances on Israel.
