Newsletter
Newsletter Support JNS

Former ADL head: Dem leaders must decry those in their party who embrace ‘globalize intifada’

Abraham Foxman stated that it’s not enough for Sen. Chuck Schumer and other members of Congress to just condemn the hateful phrase.

Abraham Foxman, then-national director of the Anti-Defamation League, in 2009. Photo by Miriam Alster/Flash90.
Abraham Foxman, then-national director of the Anti-Defamation League, in 2009. Photo by Miriam Alster/Flash90.

Democrats in Congress, including Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.), must do more than just condemn the phrase “globalize the intifada,” according to Abraham Foxman, the former longtime national director of the Anti-Defamation League.

“It is not enough for Sen. Schumer and other Democrats to condemn the phrase ‘globalize the intifada,’” he stated. “They need to condemn those especially in their own Democratic Party who not only do not condemn it but embrace and defend it.”

Zohran Mamdani, the party’s nominee for New York City mayor “not only embraced this call for violence against Jews in the past, but when he had several opportunities to refute this phrase, he ducked, refusing to ‘police’” others, Foxman stated.

Mamdani has drawn criticism for defending “globalize the intifada” as a legitimate expression of Palestinian rights, later defending it by claiming that the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum used the word “intifada” to describe the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising. He drew a reprimand from the typically apolitical institution.

A Holocaust survivor, Foxman, 85, was national director of the ADL from 1987 to 2015.

Sam Raskin, a spokesman for the mayor, said that Mamdani talked to shoppers at Eichler’s and “heard directly from community members about the issues facing the neighborhood and how the administration can best support its residents.”
The diplomatic move comes as Israel presses for Hezbollah’s disarmament.
The Israeli defense chief vowed strikes on critical infrastructure, noting economic troubles could push Tehran into desperate measures after repeated defeats.
“Gloria was iconic,” Ruth Messinger, a former Manhattan borough president, told JNS. “This is a sad day for women.”