Does criticising actions of the Israeli government or its prime minister fuel anti-semitism? Despite this argument’s stretch of logic and the danger its bizarre conflation presents to American Jews, some US pro-Israel organisations are working overtime to establish the case that criticising Israel puts American Jews at risk. Benjamin Netanyahu echoed this view in a recent interview with an American TV network, levelling this very charge against New York City mayor Zohran Mamdani.
Tensions between Mamdani and pro-Israel groups, brewing since his 2025 election campaign, were reignited by Netanyahu’s recent US visit. Mamdani was asked by a reporter whether he would fulfil a campaign pledge to arrest the Israeli prime minister as a war criminal, as per the indictment issued by the International Criminal Court.
In response, the mayor convened legal experts who concluded that the city, on its own, didn’t have the authority to make an arrest – only the federal government could do that. Mamdani released a short video acknowledging that he lacked the power to order an arrest, but calling out Netanyahu as a war criminal and stating that he wouldn’t welcome him in New York City. Mamdani didn’t mention Israel, nor the Jewish people or citizens of Israel. This was, he observed, simply about Netanyahu’s crimes cited in the ICC arrest warrant.
Some pro-Israel groups immediately denounced Mamdani’s video. They accused him of ‘repeatedly singling out the world’s only Jewish state…leaving many Jewish New Yorkers feeling targeted and unwelcome’; characterised the video as ‘blood libel and outrageous lies’; and charged Mamdani with ‘fomenting anti-semitism’.
A few days later, a Hispanic man, reportedly with mental health issues, allegedly stabbed two people, one Asian and another Jewish. Observers said they heard the attacker shouting ‘Allahu Akbar’.
The same pro-Israel groups conflating Israel with American Jews and relentlessly condemning Mamdani leapt into the fray, blaming the mayor for making New York unsafe for Jews by ‘using his platform to viciously attack Israel’.
Mamdani responded by condemning the stabbings as ‘hateful and despicable attacks that have no place in our city’ and noted that his administration had dramatically increased investment in hate crime prevention ‘to address the root causes of this bigotry and hatred, as we look to root out the scourge of anti-semitism’.
The mayor added: “When it comes to my comments about Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, they are critiques based not on my personal analysis, but rather on objective facts. They are critiques of a political leader, not of people of a specific faith or religion or background. And my responsibility as mayor of the city is to keep every New Yorker safe...”
The mayor was not without defenders in the Jewish community. Brad Lander, who identifies as a liberal Zionist and recently defeated a pro-Israel congressman, described the attacks as ‘almost certainly an anti-semitic hate crime and quite likely an anti-Asian hate crime, but they are not the fault of the mayor for calling Netanyahu a war criminal’. Lander added, “The effort to connect the mayor to that…is a political effort to shut down criticism of Israel,” and called it ‘weaponising anti-semitism’.
Peter Beinart, one of America’s most thoughtful progressive Jewish thinkers, directly took on the pro-Israel Jewish establishment, noting that it was they, not the mayor, who are conflating Israel with the Jewish community. Beinart wrote: “Zohran Mamdani keeps saying again and again that his critique of Israel has nothing to do with his feelings towards Jews in New York, because he separates Israel, as a state, from Jewish New Yorkers. The people who are making this conflation are the very establishment Jewish leaders who are now attacking Mamdani.”
The problem is two-fold. Anti-semitism is real, and conflating American Jews with Israel is wrong and dangerous whether it’s done by pro-Israel advocates identifying all Jews with Israel for political purposes, or by haters of Jews holding all Jewish people responsible for Israel’s crimes. The former are attempting, as Lander notes, to silence criticism of Israel claiming this puts all Jews at risk. The latter are fuelling the preexisting bigotry of some by holding all Jews responsible for crimes committed by others.
The bottom line is Mamdani, Lander and Beinart are right, and the pro-Israel establishment is wrong.
Dr James Zogby