New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani is facing criticism after saying that he could not support states that privilege one religion over another, including Israel and Saudi Arabia.
The criticism followed remarks Mamdani made during an interview with ABC’s Jonathan Karl, which aired days after Democratic Socialist candidates he endorsed for Congress swept their primaries.
Karl asked Mamdani whether he supports Israel as a Jewish state, as stated in its founding charter.
Mamdani replied: “I’ve said time and again that I support the state of Israel as a state with equal rights. I think any state that privileges one religion over the other is one that I can’t tell you I support, whether it be Israel or Saudi Arabia or anywhere else.”
He suggested his view was due to his “fundamental belief that we should all be considered equal, no matter what”.
However, the comments drew criticism from several pro-Israel figures, who point out that Israel’s Basic Law guarantees equality and freedom of worship for all religious groups.
And, while the Basic Law does define the country as a “Jewish and democratic state”, designate Jewish festivals as public holidays, and prescribe Hebrew and the national language, there is officially no established religion in Israel in the same way there is in England, Spain, or Italy, among others.
In a statement Sunday, Ambassador Ofir Akunis, Consul General of Israel in New York, said: “Mamdani, we do not need your recognition of the Jewish state. If you knew a little history, instead of spending all day inciting and spreading hatred, you would know that Israel’s Declaration of Independence guaranteed full equality for all its citizens. That has been the reality since the day our state was established.”
And prominent Israeli analyst Haviv Rettig Gur said: “Mamdani isn’t opposed only to the Jewish state, you see, he opposes all states that privilege a religion. But he’ll only ever talk about one of them.
“Dozens of states are officially Muslim – and privilege Muslims more than Israel privileges Jews.
“He’ll never complain ad hoc about those Muslim states. They don’t trouble his moral imagination. Heck, Palestine is officially Muslim, drawing not a whisper of rebuke.
“And all of them are beside the points that the Jews are not a religion and that they desperately need a state of their own.”
Among the victorious Mamdani-backed candidates in the city’s Democratic primary last week, Claire Valdez and Darializa Avila Chevalier campaigned on platforms that included opposition to US military aid to Israel and support for Palestinian rights.
During the interview with ABC, Mamdani was asked about his broader views on Israel. The mayor said voters made it clear that “they were tired of tens of billions of dollars being spent in our taxpayer dollars to violate international law to kill thousands of civilians”.
He added that, currently, “Palestine is described as if there is a ceasefire,” but more than 1,000 Palestinians have been killed during it. New Yorkers, he said, want to “follow international law, to believe in the humanity for all”.
When asked about rising antisemitism in New York City, the mayor said that while Jews are a minority of the city’s population, they constitute a majority of victims of the hate crimes committed in the city.
“That’s something that’s unacceptable,” he said.
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