There was a time when championing Palestinian rights and criticising Israel could make a US politician almost unelectable. Zohran Mamdani’s convincing victory last week has shown this is no longer true.
Mamdani won mayoral elections in New York, a city with the biggest Jewish population outside Tel Aviv, despite his uncompromising position on Israel. He challenged its right to define itself as a Jewish state, accused it of genocide in Gaza and promised to have Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu arrested as an indicted war criminal if he visited New York.
Beth Miller, political director of Jewish Voice for Peace Action, a pro-Palestinian group, said her organisation had mobilised thousands of Jews across the city to volunteer for Mamdani, and “those voters showed up not in spite of the fact he included Palestinian rights in his progressive agenda, but because of it”.