Jonathan Greenblatt, CEO and national director of the Anti-Defamation League, accused New York state assemblyman Zohran Mamdani of antisemitism on Tuesday over resurfaced footage of the Democratic mayoral nominee saying that the Israel Defense Forces is responsible for American police violence.
“There is a word for this kind of twisted fear-mongering and conspiratorial thinking: antisemitism,” Greenblatt wrote. (JNS sought comment from the Mamdani campaign.)
In the video, which was taken at the 2023 national convention of the Democratic Socialists of America, Mamdani explains how he connects local politics to international issues.
“We have to make clear that when the boot of the NYPD is on your neck, it’s been laced by the IDF,” Mamdani said.
Mamdani, who was the keynote speaker at the convention, was speaking on a panel titled “Socialist internationalism: the solution to the crisis of capitalism.”
“I talk a lot about Palestine,” Mamdani said at the convention. “Palestine is what got me into politics and organizing.”
Left-wing groups frequently accuse Israel of complicity in American police violence because police forces from the two countries sometimes train together or share training methods.
The American Jewish Committee has called that argument the “deadly exchange trope.”
“This false equivalence appeared in demonstrations in the summer of 2020 when protesters chanted ‘Israel, we know you, you murder children, too,’” the AJC wrote. “Accusing Israel or Zionists of complicity in the murder of black people is malicious, perpetuates antisemitism and blames Jews for societal ills.”
Mamdani, who polls suggest he will likely be the next mayor of New York City, has faced significant criticism throughout his campaign over his anti-Israel activism and refusal to condemn the phrase “globalize the intifada,” which many people understand as a call to murder Jews. He has repeatedly denied that he is antisemitic.
