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New Yorkers are expressing skepticism after Democratic mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani appeared to try to distance himself from the phrase “globalize the intifada,” after spending months refusing to condemn the phrase many interpret as a call for violence against Jewish people.
The New York Times reported that Mamdani, who is Muslim and a self-professed socialist who has been highly critical of the state of Israel, told city business leaders that he would not use the phrase and that he would “discourage” others from doing so.
The Times reported that Mamdani told some 150 business executives present at the meeting, which took place in the Rockefeller Center, that while many use the phrase to express solidarity with Palestinians, others see it as a call to antisemitic violence.
This comes after Mamdani refused to condemn intifada language throughout his campaign for the Democratic mayoral nomination. During an interview on NBC’s “Meet the Press” in June, Mamdani said, “My concern is, to start to walk down the line of language and making clear what language I believe is permissible or impermissible, takes me into a place similar to that of the president, who is looking to do those very kinds of things, putting people in jail for writing an op-ed, putting them in jail for protesting.”
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He said that “ultimately, it is not language that I use. It is language, I understand there are concerns about, and what I will do is showcase my vision for the city through my words and my actions.”
Now, weeks after winning the Democratic nomination and facing general election voters, he appears to finally be backing away from the intifada language.
Joe Borelli, a former Republican New York City Council member, responded to the shift, telling Fox News Digital it is “hard to imagine any change of heart being genuine when it occurs right after you’ve won a primary and have to pivot for the general, which happens to include a heck of a lot of Jews.”
Rory Lancman, a Democrat and former New York City councilmember and state assemblyman, told Fox News Digital that “a putative mayor of New York City needs to be able to repudiate calls for ‘intifada’ without ambiguity or qualification as morally repugnant and unacceptable.”
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“There is no ‘threading the needle’ or middle ground on this issue, or, for that matter, on the issue of whether Israel should be extinguished as a Jewish state,” Lancman went on.
“These are basic, straightforward ‘good vs. evil’ questions that Mr. Mamdani struggles with because, frankly, he’s on the wrong side of that equation,” said Lancman.
Meanwhile, Christopher Hahn, a Democratic strategist and former aide to Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., told Fox News Digital that “while Mandani has made statements that show he is not an anti-Semite some of his past statements can be construed that way.”
Hahn said that if Mamdani “hopes to be mayor he needs to make it very clear, early and often, he is not anti-Semitic.”
“If he doesn’t his opponents will try to paint him as one,” said Hahn.
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Top Democratic leaders have also been demanding that Mamdani condemn calls to globalize the intifada.
Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, D-N.Y., said during an interview with WNYC radio host Brian Lehrer in late June that the phrase is received by the public as a call to “slaughter the Jews,” and that Mamdani needed to understand how the word is received by the Jewish community.
“It doesn’t matter what meaning you have in your brain. It is not how the word is received. When you use a word like intifada — to many Jewish Americans and Jewish New Yorkers, that means you are permissive of violence against Jews,” said Gillibrand.
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House Minority Leader Rep. Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., has also said the mayoral candidate would have to clarify this position on the phrase.
“Globalizing the intifada, by way of example, is not an acceptable phrase,” Jeffries said. “He’s going to have to clarify his position on that as he moves forward.”
He added, “With respect to the Jewish communities that I represent, I think our nominee is going to have to convince folks that he is prepared to aggressively address the rise in antisemitism in the city of New York, which has been an unacceptable development.”
Mamdani is running to unseat current New York City Mayor Eric Adams who is running for re-election as an independent. He is also facing off against former New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, whom he defeated in the Democratic Primary and who is also running as an independent. Activist Curtis Sliwa is also running for mayor as a Republican.
Fox News Digital’s Hanna Panreck contributed to this report.
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