As Jewish organizations linked New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s rhetoric about Israel to an antisemitic stabbing in Manhattan, the Council on American-Islamic Relations defended the mayor without mentioning the attack, which one Jewish group described as “gaslighting.”
In a statement issued on July 24, CAIR and its New York chapter “expressed solidarity with Mayor Zohran Mamdani and condemned Israel advocacy groups for their ‘dishonest and dangerous’ conflation of Benjamin Netanyahu and his genocidal government with the American Jewish community.”
“Israel advocacy groups have spent the past week falsely claiming that criticism of Benjamin Netanyahu is somehow the same thing as criticizing the Jewish community,” CAIR stated.
The statement did not reference Thursday’s stabbing or the recent spike in antisemitic violence in New York.
Jewish leaders criticized both CAIR’s defense of Mamdani and its silence on the attack.
Morton Klein, national president of the Zionist Organization of America, told JNS that CAIR’s statement is an example of why the group is “on the terrorist list” in states like Texas and Florida.
“CAIR’s latest defense of terrorist-enabler Mamdani, one day after Mamdani’s reckless Jew-hating lying screed inspired two ‘Allahu Akbar’ terrorist attacks, is despicable and grotesque and dangerous,” Klein said.
“No wonder CAIR was formally labeled an unindicted co-conspirator of the murderous group Hamas,” Klein said.
Federal prosecutors named CAIR an unindicted co-conspirator in the 2007 Holy Land Foundation terrorism-financing case, a designation the organization has long disputed and which later became the subject of due-process litigation.
Daniel S. Mariaschin, B’nai B’rith International honorary CEO and senior advisor, told JNS that “CAIR’s reckless and irresponsible parroting of Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s campaign against Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, built on bogus charges, is simply a cover for Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s deeply held hatred and obsession with the state of Israel.”
“Mamdani’s rhetoric has helped create an environment of hatred that is endangering the Jews of New York City—the largest Jewish population outside of Israel—yet he has shown no interest in quelling this outbreak of hatred directed at the city’s Jewish residents,” Mariaschin told JNS.
“Shame on Mamdani and those who continue to parade this dangerous rhetoric,” he said.
‘Hostile rhetoric’
Alyza Lewin, president of U.S. affairs at the Combat Antisemitism Movement, said CAIR’s statement is “not surprising given its history.”
“It is disturbing to see a self-proclaimed ‘civil rights’ group like CAIR issue a press statement today about New York that first, ignores an act of antisemitic violence that took place only yesterday on the streets of America’s largest city and second, legitimizes the rhetoric that fuels the hatred and targeting of Jews,” Lewin told JNS.
She said antisemitism historically follows a familiar pattern.
“First, Jews—or Israel treated as a ‘Jewish collectivity'—are falsely scapegoated and libeled,” Lewin said. “Then, once antisemitic tropes and conspiracy theories take root in society, people act against Jews, like we saw yesterday in Manhattan.”
“Hostile rhetoric, including some of Mayor Mamdani’s recent statements, fosters an environment where the targeting of Jews is not only permissible but encouraged,” she told JNS. “With ‘civil rights’ groups like CAIR legitimizing the rhetoric that normalizes hate against Jews, it is no wonder antisemitism is exploding across the country.”
Roz Rothstein, co-founder and CEO of StandWithUs, said that “while it is true that criticizing the Israeli government is not the same thing as attacking Jews, that is not the issue.”
“The issue is that CAIR and Mayor Mamdani relentlessly spread lies, invert reality by falsely accusing Israel of atrocities that have actually been committed by Hamas, fan the flames of antisemitism with their hateful rhetoric and seek to eliminate the world’s only Jewish state,” she told JNS. “Most American Jews see Israel as an important part of Jewish identity, and many have friends and loved ones who live there. Demonizing and spreading blood libels about Israelis harms all of us, as we see all too clearly in the many violent attacks targeting Jews in New York and across the United States.”
Jewish advocacy group EndJewHatred is organizing a rally titled “Blood is on Mamdani’s Hands,” scheduled for Sunday on the Upper West Side, near the site of the stabbing attack. Promotional material for the event features the mayor with blood dripping from one hand as he swears the oath of office with the other.
Jayne Zirkle, communications director for EndJewHatred, told JNS that CAIR’s statement is “gaslighting in its most blatant form.”
“Mamdani urged New Yorkers to use ‘every tool they have’ to oppose Israel,” she said. “Yesterday, a man used a screwdriver to stab a visibly Jewish man while yelling ‘Allahu Akbar.’”
“Leaders have a responsibility to reject rhetoric that fuels hatred rather than inflames it,” Zirkle said.
