Jewish supporters of New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani has condemned his use of the term “monsters” in reference to the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (Aipac).
During a rally in Brooklyn last week, Mamdani claimed that the group, which lobbies US lawmakers to maintain pro-Israel policies, opposed “democracy being allowed to run its course” and “an end to genocide and Netanyahu’s wars”.
He went on to say that “the old world is dying, and the new world struggles to be born, now is the time of monsters,” repeating a modern interpretation of a quote often attributed to Marxist philosopher Antonio Gramsci in his Prison Notebooks, which he wrote while imprisoned by the Italian fascist government of the 1920s and ‘30s.
Mamdani then told his audience that “these monsters take many forms”, specifically referencing wealthy political donors, those spending on campaign advertising against several candidates he is backing for office, and Aipac.
And he accused Aipac of using “millions in dark money” to "preserve their power” and “turn us against one another”.
“Dark money” is a recognised term in the context of US campaign finance, referring to legal political expenditures from anonymous sources making use of loopholes in Federal Election Committee regulations.
However, several Jewish groups, as well as Jewish supporters of the mayor, have condemned his rhetoric regarding Aipac.
"Calling Aipac and its backers ‘monsters’ casts them as less than human, rather than as human beings who are one’s political opponents,” wrote Rabbi Jill Jacobs, who leads the progressive rabbinic human rights group T’ruah, in a Substack post.
Likewise, Rabbi Misha Shulman, leader of The New Shul, a progressive synagogue in Brooklyn, said: “I was taken aback. I didn’t like those remarks. It was a little bit of a flag for me.”
And the New York and New Jersey branch of the Anti-Defamation League called on Mamdani to apologise, calling his comments “shockingly offensive and unacceptable”.
"It is about crossing a dangerous line by invoking dehumanising and conspiratorial rhetoric with a long and troubling history in antisemitic tropes,” the group said.
However, the mayor defended his remarks when pressed by reporters at an event this week, saying: “I was quoting Gramsci, who said that the old world is dying and the new world struggles to be born. Now is the time of monsters.
"I used the term to describe all those who are preventing the birth of a new world, not solely Aipac, but frankly super-PACs at large, who are spending millions of dollars in deceptive and misleading ads that are blanketing airwaves.”
Aipac is not a super-PAC, a political organisation which is allowed to accept unlimited donations and make unlimited expenditures in support of or opposition to a candidate as long as they do not donate directly to or coordinate spending with campaigns.
However, it does maintain a super-PAC, the United Democracy Project (UDP), as a subsidiary organisation and contributed more than $10 million to the UDP during the 2022 mid-term election cycle.
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