Inflammatory tweets by NYC political staffers point to growing normalization of anti-Zionism

NEW YORK — In December, New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani named Catherine Almonte Da Costa to a top post in his incoming administration.

The appointment was short-lived. Mamdani accepted Da Costa’s resignation a day later, after antisemitic comments she made more than a decade earlier surfaced on social media.

Similar incidents have continued to pile up since, reflecting hardline views among some New York political staffers, who play a key role in shaping city policy.

Da Costa’s posts that led to her resignation, dated to 2011 and 2012, referred to “money hungry Jews,” “rich Jewish peeps,” and called a subway line to a Jewish area as “the Jew train.”

She apologized immediately after the statements came to light. Mamdani accepted her resignation, said he would not have hired her if he had known about the comments, and vowed to change his administration’s vetting process.

Days later, though, the Anti-Defamation League reported that other Mamdani appointees had made comments that supported Palestinian “resistance,” backed the antisemitic Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan, said that “Zionism is racism,” called Zionism a “genocidal ideology,” said “Zionists are never Jews,” and stated that Zionists are worse than Nazis.

Another Mamdani appointee, Mamdani’s Brooklyn borough director, referred to women tearing down posters of Israeli hostages as “heroes.”

Mayoral appointees began deleting their X accounts before coming into office, apparently to head off any controversies.

The controversies didn’t stop, though, including in the past week.

Jewish Insider reported on Wednesday that a founder of the popular “Hot Girls for Zohran” campaign, Kaif Gilani, shared posts on X that supported Hamas, downplayed antisemitism, and propagated conspiracies about Israeli involvement in the September 11, 2001, terror attack, the assassination of former US president John F. Kennedy and Jeffrey Epstein.

Gilani was the highest-paid consultant for US Congressional candidate Brad Lander when the posts surfaced. Lander’s team said it had been unaware of the posts, cut ties with Gilani and condemned the statements.

“Hot Girls for Zohran” was a volunteer effort that was independent of Mamdani’s mayoral campaign, although Mamdani appeared in at least one photo with Gilani. The initiative received widespread media coverage and celebrity endorsements.

Other inflammatory comments from political staffers did not involve Israel, but focused on other targets, including homeowners, white people, police and women.

The extreme comments from political operatives are not confined to the left.

Late last year, New York State’s Young Republicans organization disbanded after leaked group chats showed members joking about gas chambers, praising Adolf Hitler, and using racist, antisemitic and homophobic slurs.

The incidents reflect a normalization of hardline anti-Zionist rhetoric among some mid-level political staffers, who implement much of the city government’s goals through actions like conducting outreach, drafting policy proposals and making hiring decisions, but are not subject to the same level of scrutiny as elected representatives.

Gilani shared his posts to around 60,000 followers on X, for example, but the statements did not raise any red flags until they were exposed by Jewish Insider.

The old guard of New York’s Democratic party, like Governor Kathy Hochul, are largely in step with the Jewish mainstream — supporting Jewish self-determination in Israel and the Israeli people, while often criticizing the Israeli government. Mamdani and many of his staffers are more in line with the anti-Zionist activist left, positions that are made evident by their social media history.

Responses to the statements have also been telling. A co-founder of Hot Girls for Zohran defended Gilani and said he would remain with the group, which has rebranded as Hot Girls Organize.

Other prominent anti-Israel voices also defended Gilani and the reporter who exposed his comments said he had received antisemitic death threats.

While Mamdani spoke out against Da Costa’s remarks, he refrained from condemning Gilani’s statements, in line with his pattern of condemning classical expressions of antisemitism as discriminatory, such as tropes about Jewish greed and swastikas, but not inflammatory rhetoric related to Israel.