U.S. ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee lashed out at New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani on Wednesday, calling him an “evil antisemite” in the wake of his recorded message branding Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as a “war criminal.”
“Would be easy to say NY Mayor is just an ignorant bigot, but he is not dumb,” Huckabee tweeted.
“He’s an evil anti-Semite who deliberately lies about serious things like ‘genocide’ to stoke Jew hate. If anyone should be arrested, it’s the Mayor of NY for incitement. NYC should be ashamed,” the diplomat said.
Would be easy to say NY Mayor is just an ignorant bigot, but he is not dumb. He's an evil anti-Semite who deliberately lies about serious things like "genocide" to stoke Jew hate. If anyone should be arrested, it's the Mayor of NY for incitement. NYC should be ashamed. https://t.co/II04aOSzJU
— Ambassador Mike Huckabee (@GovMikeHuckabee) July 22, 2026
The vociferously anti-Israel mayor released a video on Tuesday in which he said that New York City does not have the authority to arrest Netanyahu, a campaign promise that he had made when running for mayor.
Benny Polatseck, a Chassid and a former multimedia producer in the mayor’s office under Mamdani’s predecessor, Eric Adams, told JNS that Mamdani’s video was “red meat” for his democratic socialist base.
“That’s all this is about. Part of why he wanted to be mayor was to do this,” Polatseck said. “This is what he believes, and he doesn’t really care about the consequences for the Jewish community.”
