NYC mayoral candidate Mamdani declared he’s anti-Zionist at 2021 protest, video shows

NEW YORK — New York State Assemblymember Zohran Mamdani, a leading candidate in the New York City mayoral race, told a crowd in 2021 that he is anti-Zionist, video footage showed.

Mamdani is polling in second place ahead of next month’s Democratic party primary, a vote that will likely decide the winner of November’s mayoral race in the mostly Democratic city. Antisemitism and Israel are central issues in the race, and in recent weeks, Mamdani has come under pressure over his views on the existence of Israel as a Jewish state.

During the 2021 rally in Brooklyn led by the anti-Zionist Jewish Voice for Peace, Mamdani said in a speech that pro-Palestinian activism was central to his politics, according to the previously unreported footage.

“It is Palestine that brought me into organizing, and it is Palestine that I will always organize for,” Mamdani said, highlighting that he had co-founded his college chapter of Students for Justice in Palestine. Mamdani, 33, attended Bowdoin College in Maine.

“Anti-Zionism is not antisemitism, and in the anti-Zionist movement that I believe in and belong to, there is no room for antisemitism,” he said.

“If you have any hatred in your soul, this is not the place for you,” he added.

He said he was fighting for “justice” in the Palestinian territories of the West Bank and Gaza, as well as Haifa, which is in Israel proper.

Mamdani was elected earlier in 2021 to represent the Astoria neighborhood in Queens, a seat he still holds in the New York State Assembly.

Israel was engaged in a conflict called Operation Guardian of the Walls against Gaza terrorists around the time of the protest.

Anti-Zionism is the rejection of Jewish sovereignty in Israel. The contested IHRA definition of antisemitism says that denying the Jewish people their right to self-determination is antisemitic.

The footage surfaced amid questions over Mamdani’s support for Israel’s right to exist.

Earlier this month, the Politico news site reported that Mamdani had declined to support resolutions commemorating the Holocaust and recognizing Israel’s independence, which he denied.

After that controversy, Mamdani said he supported Israel’s “right to exist as a state” at a press conference.

That statement drew backlash from anti-Israel activists in the city, including Nerdeen Kiswani, the leader of Within Our Lifetime, the most prominent anti-Israel activist group in New York City. Kiswani accused Mamdani of “affirming a settler colony in the middle of a live-streamed extermination,” but added that he was still “the best candidate.”

Another activist accosted Mamdani at a campaign event, shouting at him, “I’m hearing you say ‘Free Palestine,’ but also, ‘Israel has the right to exist.’ Don’t be hypocritical.”

Politicians like @ZohranKMamdani who seek our votes must be held accountable. Recently, he’s made the media rounds, repeatedly reaffirming “Israel’s right to exist” — a phrase long used to justify the ongoing genocide, ethnic cleansing, and dehumanization of Palestinians. No… pic.twitter.com/l2f52yVtsj

— Anas Saleh انس صالح (@AnasSaleh_NYC) May 21, 2025

Last week, at a mayoral candidate forum hosted by the UJA-Federation of New York and the Jewish Community Relations Council of New York, Mamdani was pressed whether he believes Israel has the right to exist specifically as a Jewish state.

“I believe Israel has a right to exist and it has a right to exist also with equal rights for all,” he said, without mentioning Israel’s Jewish character.

In a separate video, posted earlier in 2021, Mamdani leads chants of “BDS” at a protest outside the Israeli consulate, referring to the anti-Israel Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement.

Mamdani’s support for BDS is not surprising — Mamdani has long backed the movement and he is a member of the Democratic Socialists of America, a far-left party committed to anti-Israel activism.

The rally was significant, though, in that it was led by Within Our Lifetime,  a group that protests for the violent destruction of Israel, including before the October 2023 Hamas attack. The group’s chants include “Smash the settler Zionist state” and calls for an intifada.

A portion of the protest video surfaced earlier this month, but previously unreported footage shows some of the activists around Mamdani during the rally. In the video, Mamdani is standing next to Kiswani, who has posted support for Hamas since October 7. Within Our Lifetime supported the Hamas invasion and since then has led disruptive protests around New York City, targeting hospitals, memorials to the dead, libraries, museums and holiday events.

After Mamdani, the following speaker was Raja Abdulhaq, the co-founder of the Palestinian Quds News Network who has voiced support for the “resistance” in Gaza before and since October 7.

The footage also shows activists in the crowd from Samidoun, an activist group that was designated as a terrorist entity by the US and Canada last year. Signs in the crowd said, “There is only one solution, intifada revolution,” and “Resistance, return and reparation.”

A week after the protest, activists affiliated with Within Our Lifetime assaulted a Jewish man in midtown Manhattan and have since been imprisoned for hate crimes.

Mamdani’s campaign did not respond to a request for comment.

Mamdani has also come under fire for appearing on a podcast with the streamer Hasan Piker, who has a history of antisemitism, and for vowing to arrest Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu if Mamdani is elected and Netanyahu visits New York City. Mamdani has cited the International Criminal Court arrest warrant for Netanyahu, but the court has no jurisdiction in the US and federal law bars local governments from cooperating with the court.

He has made some outreach to Jewish communities, winning the endorsement of Jewish Voice for Peace and the leftist Jews for Economic and Racial Justice through the group’s electoral arm, the Jewish Vote. He unequivocally condemned the killing of two Israeli embassy staffers in Washington, DC, last week. A faction of the DSA supported the killings.

Mamdani is trailing former New York State governor Andrew Cuomo ahead of the primary, according to polls. Cuomo has said combating antisemitism is a priority and has repeatedly voiced his support for Israel and the Jewish community during his campaign, and attacked the DSA for its anti-Israel platform.

Cuomo is polling in first place among Jews and the general public in the city’s ranked-choice voting system, according to a Marist poll released earlier this month. The poll found that 26% of Jews favor Cuomo as their first-choice candidate.

Mamdani’s strongest support is among white, young, college-educated liberals who are drawn to his progressive policy proposals, despite questions about how the plans would be funded and implemented. Mamdani is polling in third place among Jewish voters, with 14% selecting him as their first-choice candidate.

A more recent poll released this week by Emerson College showed Mamdani climbing to 22% of first-choice votes, compared to Cuomo’s 35%.

New York City Comptroller Brad Lander, a Jewish progressive Zionist, was in second place for Jewish voters, at 17%, according to the Marist poll.

The city’s ranked-choice voting system means a candidate can win the primary without winning a plurality of first-choice votes.

Jews make up about 16% of the voting population for the primary, the poll said. The primary will take place on June 24 and early voting begins on June 14.