Mamdani says pro-Israel Democrats aren’t welcome in his coalition

Mamdani’s warning that he does not want the votes of pro-Israel Democrats has not stopped the left-wing group J Street, which describes itself as “pro-Israel, pro-peace,” from supporting him.

By Alana Goodman, The Washington Free Beacon

Socialist New York City mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani said there is no room for pro-Israel voters within his coalition, arguing that fellow Democrats should not make “an exception” for people who are “progressive except Palestine.”

The Democratic nominee said his long history of anti-Israel activism—which includes founding the Bowdoin College chapter of the extremist and terror-aligned Students for Justice in Palestine organization—informs his belief that pro-Israel liberals should be driven out of the left.

“That exception is one that I believe we should not only take issue with because of what it means for Palestinians and Palestinian human rights,” he told the New York Times in an interview published Tuesday.

“But also, whenever you are at peace with the making of an exception, you make it easier to make another exception—wherever, whenever.”

Mamdani used the term “progressive except Palestine,” which pro-Israel liberals like Philip Mendes, a professor at Monash Univeristy in Australia, have criticized as a “cynical political strategy to exclude moderate progressives from debates on resolving the Israeli-Palestine conflict” and a “means to discredit progressives who do not support fundamentalist calls for the abolition of the existing Jewish State of Israel.”

Politicians who could be categorized as “progressive except Palestine,” according to anti-Israel activist Ruqaiyah Zarook, include Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D., N.Y.) and Ayanna Pressley (D., Mass), who have not condemned Israel strongly enough for many fellow leftists.

Mamdani’s warning that he does not want the votes of pro-Israel Democrats has not stopped the left-wing group J Street, which describes itself as “pro-Israel, pro-peace,” from supporting him.

J Street founder Jeremy Ben-Ami said last summer that the left needs to build a “bridge” between “the center left Jews who care about Israel and the really progressive pro-Palestinian rights activists,” such as Mamdani, the Washington Free Beacon reported last week.

Ben-Ami has spent the past few months arguing that Mamdani—whose Democratic Socialists of America support Hamas outright—is an important ally.

“There is a very, very important bridge that needs to be built here if we are going to beat the forces that I think we’re all up against, the forces that are anti-democratic, that are ethnonationalist, that are against the rule of law,” Ben-Ami said on J Street’s podcast in July.

“I like to think J Street has an important role to play in this. Frankly, I think Zohran Mamdani has an important role to play in this. We need to stay together for the larger fight.”

J Street did not immediately respond to a Free Beacon request for comment.

Mamdani’s comments to the Times came after the candidate—who has already drawn criticism for his opposition to Israel’s existence as a Jewish state, claims that Israel has committed a genocide in Gaza, and refusal to denounce the use of the term “globalize the intifada”—issued a delayed statement on President Donald Trump’s peace plan.

He condemned Israel for “occupation and apartheid” and drew parallels between Hamas’s release of Israeli hostages and Israel’s release of Palestinian terrorists, saying he found images of both “profoundly moving.”

Mamdani has maintained a lead in the polls since securing the Democratic nomination in July, though the gap has narrowed slightly in the weeks since incumbent mayor Eric Adams suspended his campaign.

The nominee is still projected to beat former governor and independent candidate Andrew Cuomo, as well as Republican Curtis Sliwa, on Election Day.