New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani launched a direct attack on AIPAC and its Jewish supporters in the United States during a 30-minute speech Thursday evening at a rally for progressive candidates in Brooklyn ahead of the Democratic primaries. Mamdani claimed the lobby fears democracy and works to thwart calls for a ceasefire in Gaza, which he called “genocide” in his remarks.
Mamdani didn’t stop at condemning the lobby—he also sharply criticized Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and the conduct of the war in Gaza. He used the platform to urge the audience to support progressive candidates with distinctly anti-Israel positions, including State Assembly member Claire Valdez, former City Comptroller Brad Lander, and Darializa Avila Chevalier, who led the tent protests at Columbia University.
Senator Bernie Sanders, the main speaker at the rally at the Kings Theatre, joined the combative tone and told the crowd: “The American people understand that much of our terrible foreign policy is influenced by AIPAC funding.”
Mamdani’s remarks came against the backdrop of a serious escalation in physical threats against AIPAC activists and lobby staff in the United States. Just two days before the speech, federal indictments were filed against five men who planned to assassinate senior American officials, after an FBI investigation revealed that one of the suspects searched his phone for information about members of Congress supported by the lobby.
On the same day Mamdani delivered his speech, another indictment was filed against Forrest Kendall Pemberton, 27, from Florida, for attempting to carry out a mass shooting targeting AIPAC office employees in Plantation.