The 34-year-old socialist, Shiite Muslim mayor of New York City, Zohran Mamdani, has managed to do something rare: unite Israel’s famously fractious rival politicians.
Mamdani’s "Benjamin Netanyahu is a war criminal" video attracted more than 58 million views on X, 8.5 million on Facebook, and another nearly 2 million on YouTube in less than 24 hours after he posted it on the evening of Tuesday, July 21. Mamdani targeted the Israeli prime minister, stating that, "Benjamin Netanyahu is not welcome in New York City" and calling him "a war criminal, the architect of a horrific genocide against the Palestinian people."
The scathingly negative reaction to Mamdani from Netanyahu’s political rivals just months before a hotly contested Israeli parliamentary election indicates that they understand that Mamdani’s animus isn’t directed merely at a single Israeli politician, but at the Jewish state itself.
Mamdani’s comments, while singling out Netanyahu, accused him of crimes so enormous that if the accusation were accurate the culpability would extend far beyond the prime minister. "He is responsible for the killing of more than 73,000 people, for the maiming of tens of thousands of children as those who survive undergo amputation without anesthesia," Mamdani said. "For the targeting of neonatal hospitals and maternity care centers, denying newborns even the chance to live. For the countless people he starved as he blocked food and humanitarian aid from reaching them. For the gunning down of hundreds of aid workers and journalists. And just last month, the UN confirmed that Palestinian children continue to be deliberately targeted and killed by Israeli armed forces, more than eight months after the so-called ceasefire. The list goes on and on. All as we, as Americans, pay for the bombs that do the killing."
Mamdani doubled down on the accusations Wednesday morning at a press conference, accusing Israel of maiming and starving Palestinian children in Gaza without acknowledging that Hamas terrorists had used Gaza hospitals as headquarters and had looted food and medical supplies.
One of Netanyahu’s political rivals, Naftali Bennett, a former prime minister, wrote on X, "Mayor Mamdani, your antisemitic libels against Israel’s prime minister, its commanders, and its soldiers place you on the wrong side of history - alongside those who deny October 7th and protested on campuses on October 8th in support of genocidal Hamas. You’re continuing a long tradition of attacking Jews and condemning us for defending ourselves."
Bennett went on, "The people of Israel don’t want war. We want peace. We want our children to grow up safely. But since October 7th, Israel has been fighting a just war against a terrorist organization that murdered children in front of their parents and parents in front of their children, that maimed, that kidnapped, that raped and used sexual violence as a weapon. Your silence on their crimes is deafening."
Another person running against Netanyahu for prime minister, Gadi Eisenkot, said, "The remarks by New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani are a reckless distortion of the truth. They are pure antisemitism, with no basis in fact. They are dangerous, inflammatory, and have no place anywhere - certainly not in 2026. … The IDF operates according to clear values and in accordance with international law, with a deep conviction in the justice of its cause."
Another of Netanyahu’s political rivals, Benny Gantz, declared, "Mayor @ZohranKMamdani — political theater at the expense of every day New Yorkers is one thing. But parroting Hamas lies on starvation, sympathizing with terrorist[s] who murdered and raped innocent Israelis on Oct. 7, libellously claiming IDF targeted journalists and aid workers, and deceitfully repeating calls of ‘genocide’ are not only blatant lies — but a moral stain on yourself and the office you hold. Focus on New York, Mayor."
Another Israeli politician, Gideon Sa’ar, currently serving as foreign minister, reposted a comment from the war scholar John Spencer: "There is/was never a genocide in Gaza. The opposite actually, one side (Israel) vaccinating, feeding, helping with all services (medical, drinking water, power) while taking extraordinary steps to protect civilians in the worst urban warfare scenario arguably ever seen and the other side (Hamas) doing everything it can to get civilians killed, stealing food, targeting civilians that do not do their demands. The mayor is a liar and worse."
In the video, Mamdani said his legal team had advised him he had no authority to arrest Netanyahu. That was entirely clear already not only as a legal matter, but also as a practical matter because there is an approximately less than zero chance that his police commissioner, Jessica Tisch, would carry out such an arrest.
American and New York Jews were also united in denouncing Mamdani’s remarks. "Mayor Mamdani: New Yorkers elected a mayor to lead this city — not to make Israel the centerpiece of your political grandstanding. Your video is rife with distortions and disinformation. And at a time of rising antisemitism, repeatedly singling out and vilifying the world's only Jewish state for perceived political benefit is repugnant, puts Jews at greater risk — and leaves many Jewish New Yorkers feeling targeted and unwelcome in the city we call home. Shame on you," said the UJA-Federation of New York, the central Jewish charity in the city.
The CEO of the Anti-Defamation League, Jonathan Greenblatt, said, "Remember that, just days after the October 7 massacre—the deadliest day for Jews since the Holocaust—he was already in the streets accusing Israel of ‘imminent genocide.’ Before the victims were even buried, he had chosen his villain. That obsession reveals two things: First, an antisemitic worldview that doesn’t merely distort his judgment—it drives it. Second, the play-acting instincts of a perpetual student activist who’s never actually run anything, learning on the job at our expense. Mayor Mamdani, this isn’t the Model UN. It’s New York City. Do your job."
Last month, Mamdani described the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, the main, bipartisan U.S. pro-Israel lobby, as "monsters."
The voices urging Mamdani to focus on New York rather than foreign policy may have a point given the flight of job-creators and wealthy taxpayers from the city in recent years. There has, though, been a long tradition of New York mayors having their own foreign policies—usually on the pro-Israel side, as when Mayor Rudolph Giuliani kicked Yasser Arafat out of a Lincoln Center concert in 1995 or when Mayor Michael Bloomberg made a solidarity visit to Israel in 2009 as it was under attack by Hamas rockets from Gaza. It may be that Mamdani and his fellow left-wing Democrats believe the demographics and the politics have since shifted so that there is now domestic political advantage to be gained by Israel-bashing. Or it may be that they are so brainwashed by social-media videos and Edward Said- and Frantz Fanon-influenced professors that they actually believe this stuff. Either way, the Israeli politicians are correct to see it as alarming, given the risk that, in years ahead, a Mamdani-style politician will eventually reach a position in the federal government with power not merely to make videos but actually to use American hard power in ways hostile to Israel. That would undermine not only Israeli interests but also American ones.