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Anti-BDS order will test Mamdani on day one
Outgoing New York City Mayor Eric Adams is immediately testing his successor’s position on the boycott Israel movement as Zohran Mamdani takes office, at a moment when the city’s Jewish community remains divided over the next mayor’s priorities and his stance on Israel.
On Wednesday, Adams signed an executive order barring city agencies from participating in Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions efforts, which would pre-empt any moves by city officials to divest from Israel Bonds and other Israeli investments. Mamdani, a strident critic of Israel, has pledged to end the city’s decades-long practice of investing millions in Israeli government debt securities and has said he would order the arrest of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu if he visits New York.
Mamdani’s transition team had no immediate comment.
But Adams was prepared for a response. “If the incoming administration wants to reverse” the executive order, then “that is on their watch,” he said.
Why ban BDS now?
Adams announced the measure in remarks at the North American Mayors Summit Against Antisemitism, organized by the Combat Antisemitism Movement, in New Orleans, Louisiana. “You are being targeted,” Adams said. “And we have to be as intelligent and as focused, as strategic as possible. … That’s why I am signing an executive order today to deal with BDS, so we can stop the madness that we should not invest in Israel.”
Fabien Levy, the deputy mayor for communications, said the move, weeks before Adams departs, was “a flag in the ground” to state that the current administration “will not waver in the fight against antisemitism.”
New York City is home to the largest concentration of Jews in the United States. Many Jews view the bonds as a bulwark against the BDS movement, whose co-founder has stated that the goal is to apply economic pressure on Israel to end its occupation of the West Bank and to abolish Israel as a Jewish state.
The city’s investment in Israeli bonds was a flashpoint in the Democratic primary for mayor and in the general election. Mamdani, who co-founded the Students for Justice in Palestine chapter at Bowdoin College, pledged to publicly back the movement to boycott Israel. In an interview with the Forward in April, Mamdani said he would end Adams’ policies that he regarded as a violation of international law and human rights.
The city’s Jewish voters split in the competitive mayoral election last month — with former Gov. Andrew Cuomo receiving the support of most voters who identify as Jewish and dominating in Hasidic and Orthodox strongholds, while Mamdani got 31% of the vote and swept progressive Jewish neighborhoods in Brooklyn and Manhattan on his way to a citywide win. A recent poll of 745 American Jews by the Jewish People Policy Institute found that 64% of respondents view Mamdani as both anti-Israel and antisemitic, and 67% believe his election would make New York City’s Jews less safe.
Nonetheless, Mamdani’s positions on BDS and stance on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict resonated with a plurality of voters. Nearly half of Mamdani voters, 49%, said his position was a factor in their support, according to a CNN exit poll.
Levy, who is Jewish and accompanied Adams both on his four-day farewell trip to Israel and to Louisiana, said that the mayor is sending a message about what the city’s values are, “even if hating Israel has suddenly become ‘the cool thing’ by some.” In meetings and public remarks during his swing in Israel, Adams pointed out that Mamdani won with 50.4% of the vote, and that his policies were not popular. Mamdani met with Adams at Gracie Mansion earlier this week, a meeting that was kept private.
Mamdani will also have to decide whether to disband the recently-created mayor’s office to combat antisemitism, which has pursued a measure adopting the controversial International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance definition of antisemitism, which considers most forms of anti-Zionism as antisemitic. He’ll also need to decide whether to take action on Adams’ new New York City–Israel Economic Council, an initiative to strengthen economic ties with the Jewish state.
What the executive order says
Adams’ anti-BDS order bars agency heads, chief contracting officers and other mayoral appointees with contracting authority from adopting practices that discriminate against Israel or Israeli citizens. It also directs the city’s chief pension administrator and pension trustees appointed by the mayor not to support divestment from Israel Bonds or other assets.
Brad Lander, the outgoing city comptroller overseeing pension fund investments and a Mamdani ally, ended the city’s half-century practice of investing millions in Israeli government debt securities in 2023 when the holdings matured.
At the time, the city’s pension funds held $39 million in Israel Bonds, with a roughly 5% return. Lander, who is Jewish, maintained that he was following the city’s policy of avoiding foreign sovereign debt, treating Israel the same as other countries rather than giving it special treatment in the pension portfolio.
City pension funds also held more than $315 million in Israel-based assets, including nearly $300 million in common stock and over $1 million in Israeli real estate investment trusts.
Mark Levine, the comptroller-elect who is also Jewish, pledged to repurchase the bonds as part of the city’s portfolio. “This has been a rock-solid investment for decades,” he said. “Israel has never missed a bond payment, and a good, balanced portfolio should have global diversity.”
The post Anti-BDS order will test Mamdani on day one appeared first on The Forward.
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Leader of Lithuanian Government Party Found Guilty of Hatred Against Jews
Dawn of Nemunas Party leader Remigijus Zemaitaitis attends a press conference after general election in Vilnius, Lithuania, Oct. 28, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Ints Kalnins
A Lithuanian court found the leader of a junior party in the ruling coalition government on Thursday guilty of incitement to hatred against Jews and belittling the Holocaust in social media posts in 2023.
Remigijus Zemaitaitis, founder of the populist Nemunas Dawn, was fined 5,000 euros ($5,835) for falsely accusing the Jewish people, as a group, of historical crimes, encouraging hostility, and strengthening negative stereotypes, the court said.
“[Zemaitaitis] publicly mocked and despised Jewish people and incited hatred against the Jewish community” in social media, the Vilnius Regional Court said in its ruling.
It said he had also used “language that is degrading, derogatory to human dignity, and which incites hostility on ethnic grounds.”
Zemaitaitis has denied any wrongdoing. He told the BNS news agency on Thursday that he considered the verdict politically motivated and that he would appeal.
After resigning from parliament over the issue in April 2024, Zemaitaitis was re-elected in October of that year and his party, Nemunas Dawn, joined the new coalition government led by the Social Democrats. He is not himself a government minister.
Prime Minister Inga Ruginiene, whose three-party coalition has a slim majority in Lithuania’s parliament, told reporters she had not yet read the verdict.
Her Social Democratic Party said in a statement it respected the court’s ruling, while noting the decision was not yet final.
Thousands gathered at the parliament in Vilnius in November 2024 and again in August this year to protest against Nemunas Dawn’s inclusion in the government.
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Israel Strikes Hezbollah Targets in Two South Lebanon Towns
People inspect a damaged site after Israel’s military said it struck targets in two southern Lebanese towns on Thursday, in Jbaa southern Lebanon, Dec. 4, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Ali Hankir
Israel‘s military said it struck targets in two southern Lebanese towns on Thursday after ordering the evacuation of two buildings it alleged were being used by Hezbollah terrorists.
About an hour after the initial warning, the army’s Arabic spokesperson issued another notice instructing residents of buildings in two other towns to leave.
The strikes came a day after Israel and Lebanon sent civilian envoys to a committee overseeing a fragile ceasefire agreed a year ago that both sides have accused the other of breaking.
The envoys would broaden the scope of talks between the long-time adversaries, both sides said.
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Anti-Hamas Gazan Clan Leader Reported Killed
Leader of the Popular Forces Yasser Abu Shabab and his deputy Ghassan Al-Duhaini stand next to armed men in Rafah, in the southern Gaza Strip, in this screenshot taken from a video released on Nov. 18, 2025. Photo: Yasser Abu Shabab/Popular Forces via REUTERS
The head of an armed Palestinian faction that opposes Hamas in Gaza has been killed, Israeli media reported on Thursday, in what would be a blow to Israeli efforts to support Gazan clans against the ruling Islamist terror group.
Yasser Abu Shabab, a Bedouin tribal leader based in Israeli-held Rafah in southern Gaza, has led the most prominent of several small anti–Hamas groups that became active in Gaza during the war that began more than two years ago.
His death would be a boost to Hamas, which has branded him a collaborator and ordered its fighters to kill or capture him.
There was no immediate word about Abu Shabab’s status on the Facebook page of his group, the Popular Forces.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu acknowledged in June that Israel had armed anti–Hamas clans, though Israel has announced few other details of the policy since then.
RAFAH SECURITY SWEEP
Abu Shabab’s group has continued to operate from areas of Gaza controlled by Israeli forces since a US-backed ceasefire between Hamas and Israel was agreed in October.
Rafah has been the scene of some of the worst violence during the ceasefire. Residents had reported gunbattles there on Wednesday, and Israel said four of its soldiers were wounded there. The Israeli military said on Thursday its forces had killed some 40 Hamas terrorists trapped in tunnels below Rafah.
On Nov. 18, Abu Shabab’s group posted a video showing dozens of fighters receiving orders from his deputy to launch a security sweep to “clear Rafah of terror,” an apparent reference to Hamas fighters believed to be holed up there.
Abu Shabab’s death was reported by Israeli media including Kan, Israel’s public broadcaster, citing a security source.
Israel’s Army Radio, also citing a security source, said he had died in Soroka hospital in southern Israel of unspecified wounds, but the hospital soon denied he had been admitted there.
The reports did not say when he died or how he received the reported wounds.
RAFAH ADMINISTRATION
An Israeli government spokesperson declined to comment on the reports. Hamas had no comment, its Gaza spokesperson said.
Israel’s policy of backing anti–Hamas clans took shape as it pressed the Gaza offensive against the group, aiming to end its rule of the coastal strip in the wake of the Oct. 7, 2023, attacks on communities in southern Israel.
In an article published in the Wall Street Journal in July, Abu Shabab – a member of the Tarabin Bedouin tribe – said his group had established its own administration in the Rafah area and urged US and Arab support to recognize and support it.
Abu Shabab’s group has denied being backed by Israel.
Netanyahu said in June that Israel’s backing for Gazan clans was a good thing that had saved the lives of Israeli soldiers.
But the policy has also drawn criticism from some in Israel who have said such groups can provide no real alternative to Hamas, which has controlled Gaza since 2007.
CONTROVERSIAL POLICY
“The writing was on the wall. Whether he was killed by Hamas or in some clan infighting, it was obvious that it would end this way,” Michael Milshtein, a former Israeli military intelligence officer at the Moshe Dayan Center in Tel Aviv, told Reuters.
Several other anti–Hamas groups have emerged in areas of Gaza held by Israel. Palestinian political analyst Reham Owda said that Abu Shabab’s death would fuel doubts among them about their “ability to challenge Hamas.”
US President Donald Trump’s Gaza plan foresees Hamas disarming and the enclave run by a transitional authority supported by a multi-national stabilization force. But progress has appeared slow, with Hamas so far refusing to disarm and no sign of agreement on the formation of the international force.
Hamas has accused Abu Shabab of looting UN aid trucks during the war. Abu Shabab’s group has denied this, saying it has protected and escorted aid.