New York City mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani on Thursday night declined to recognize Israel’s right to exist as a Jewish state amid pressure from anti-Israel activists.

During an event hosted by the UJA-Federation of New York, moderators peppered Mamdani with questions regarding his views on Israel, the ongoing war in Gaza, and antisemitism. When pressed, Mamdani refused to support the notion that Israel should maintain its Jewish character and seemingly suggested that all of its citizens do not have equal rights.

“I believe that Israel has a right to exist with equal rights for all,” Mamdani said in a carefully worded response, sidestepping the issue of Israel’s existence specifically as a “Jewish state.”

Mamdani’s response came nearly a week after he said last Friday, “I do support [Israel’s] right to exist as a state,” in response to a question.

Following his comment last week, the mayoral candidate faced backlash from anti-Israel activists for not outright opposing the Jewish state’s right to exist.

While speaking on Tuesday at the launch party for Acacia Magazine, a new pro-Palestinian publication, an irate attendee screamed at Mamdani for voicing support for Israel’s existence when questioned by a reporter while simultaneously presenting himself as an advocate for the Palestinian cause. Mamdani also received widespread backlash from other anti-Israel activists for not taking a harsher stance against the Jewish state.

At Thursday night’s event for Democratic primary candidates running for New York City mayor, the moderators also pressed Mamdani on whether he would attempt to implement the boycott, divestment, and sanctions (BDS) initiative, which seeks to isolate Israel as a step toward its eventual elimination. Mamdani stood by his previous support for BDS and dismissed allegations that the movement is antisemitic.

“My support for BDS is consistent with my core politics, which is non-violence. And I think that it is a legitimate movement when you are seeking to find compliance with international law, and I think we have seen the Israeli government be out of compliance with international law,” Mamdani said. 

Mamdani, a representative in the New York State Assembly, argued that Israel has violated international law through not only its defensive military operations in Gaza but also its presence in the West Bank. 

He added that his support for the BDS movement against Israel is based on a “shared sense of humanity” and that those who condemn the boycott efforts against the Jewish state are engaging in “bigotry.”

In 2021, Mamdani issued public support for BDS, claiming that support for the anti-Israel movement is growing within New York City. “The tide is turning. The fight for justice is here. The moment is now,” he posted on X/Twitter. That same year, he also called for prohibiting New York lawmakers from visiting Israel, asserting that “every elected [official] must be pressured to stand with Palestinians.”

The left-wing firebrand on Thursday also defended his previous promise to arrest Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu if elected mayor. He accused Netanyahu of making military decisions while in New York that “killed many innocent people” and cited the International Criminal Court (ICC)’s arrest warrant against the Israeli leader.

In the famous photo Mamdani referred to, Netanyahu approved a strike on top leaders of Hezbollah — a terrorist group that operates out of southern Lebanon.

The moderators also grilled Mamdani for appearing on the podcast of Hasan Piker, a popular streamer who has defended the Hamas-led Oct. 7, 2023, massacre across southern Israel and argued that the mass rapes of Israeli women were justified. Mamdani defended his decision to appear on Piker’s podcast, saying that the Democratic Party has made “mistakes” by refusing to engage with popular internet personalities with controversial views. He dismissed criticism over his decision to appear on Piker’s podcast as mere political “purity” testing.

“I think it is part of a broader discussion about politics as a matter of purity when I think politics should also be an avenue to engage as many people as possible. And so, to me, I do not have any regrets of speaking to any interviewer, to any journalist, to any podcaster,” Mamdani said. 

Piker has an extensive history of repudiating Israel as an “apartheid state” and defending atrocities committed against its civilians. In a 2024 livestream, Piker minimized sexual assaults committed against Israeli women at the hands of Hamas, saying “it doesn’t matter if rapes f—king happened on Oct. 7.” He has also defended violence from the Hamas and Houthi terrorist groups as legitimate “resistance” and said he doesn’t “have an issue with” Hezbollah, which had pummeled Israel with an unremitting barrage of missiles and rockets from southern Lebanon in the immediate aftermath of the Oct. 7 attacks. He has also praised Yahya Sinwar, the later leader of Hamas, for his terrorism against Israel. 

Mamdani’s political ascendance comes amid a spike in anti-Jewish hate crimes within New York City and across the country. On Wednesday, two employees of the Israeli embassy in Washington, D.C. were gunned down in a targeted antisemitic terror attack.

New York City specifically has been ravaged by a surge in antisemitic incidents in the 19 months following the Oct. 7 onslaught. According to police data, Jews were targeted in the majority of hate crimes perpetrated in the city last year. Pro-Hamas activists have held raucous — and sometimes violent — protests on the city’s college campuses, oftentimes causing Jewish students to fear for their safety.

Mamdani has made anti-Israel activism a cornerstone of his political career. A self-described democratic socialist, he has both advanced state legislation seeking to punish Israel and labeled the Jewish state’s defensive military operations in Gaza a “genocide.”

On Oct. 8, 2023, 24 hours following the deadliest day for Jews since the Holocaust, Mamdani published a statement condemning “Netanyahu’s declaration of war” and suggesting that Israel would use the terror attacks to justify committing a second “nakba.” Many Palestinians and anti-Israel activists use the term “nakba,” or “catastrophe,” to refer to the establishment of the modern state of Israel in 1948. Mamdani then said that Israel can only secure its long-term safety by “ending the occupation and dismantling apartheid.”

Five days later, he further criticized Israel’s response to the Hamas-led massacres, saying that “we are on the brink of a genocide of Palestinians in Gaza right now.”

In January 2024, Mamdani called on New York city to cease sending funds to Israel, saying that “voters oppose their tax dollars funding a genocide.”

The post NYC Mayoral Candidate Zohran Mamdani Refuses to Acknowledge Israel’s Right to Exist as a Jewish State first appeared on Algemeiner.com.