Simmering Democratic disagreements over the war in Gaza burst to the forefront of New York’s mayoral primary this week, rattling the final days of an already chaotic contest.
Former Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo, the race’s front-runner, and Assemblyman Zohran Mamdani, his chief rival, have long differed over U.S. support for the war. But as voting approaches, they have traded increasingly pointed accusations that touch on antisemitism and Islamophobia.
The tension escalated on Tuesday, after Mr. Mamdani, a critic of Israel, was asked during a podcast interview if the phrase “globalize the intifada” made him uncomfortable, and he declined to condemn it. Palestinians and their supporters have called the phrase a rallying cry for liberation, but many Jews consider it a call to violence invoking resistance movements of the 1980s and 2000s.
In the interview with The Bulwark, Mr. Mamdani said he believed the phrase spoke to “a desperate desire for equality and equal rights in standing up for Palestinian human rights.” He said the U.S. Holocaust Museum used a similar Arabic term for “uprising” to describe the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising against the Nazis, and stressed his own commitment to nonviolence and fighting antisemitism.
The blowback was swift. By Wednesday morning, the Anti-Defamation League; Representative Daniel Goldman, a New York Democrat; and other Jewish leaders had condemned the phrase, and some tied it to recent spasms of anti-Jewish violence in Washington and Colorado. The Washington-based Holocaust Museum weighed in, too, calling Mr. Mamdani’s remarks “outrageous and especially offensive.”
Mr. Cuomo, who is seeking to blunt Mr. Mamdani’s rise in the polls, immediately began fanning the sense of outrage, saying his rival defended words that “fuel hate” and murder. Mr. Mamdani, who would be the city’s first Muslim mayor, pushed back, calling the former governor’s response insincere and designed to score “political points.”
The clash, just days before the June 24 primary, laid bare the fissures running through the Democratic Party over the war in a city that is home to large and diverse Jewish and Muslim populations.
Polls suggest voters are more concerned about crime, affordability and President Trump’s return to power. But the growing conflagration in the Middle East, and the Trump administration’s detention of noncitizen students espousing pro-Palestinian views, have pushed the war and its fallout closer to the forefront.
Mr. Mamdani, for his part, has blamed Mr. Cuomo for neglecting Muslim New Yorkers like himself. On the debate stage last week, after a moderator for NY1 suggested that Mr. Cuomo had rarely, if ever, visited a mosque while governor, Mr. Mamdani contended that Muslims were invisible to Mr. Cuomo and that “he doesn’t see us as if we are every other New Yorker.” (Mr. Cuomo responded that he loved immigrants, including Muslims, and would “protect” them.)
In recent days, Mr. Mamdani has accused a super PAC supporting Mr. Cuomo of darkening and thickening his beard on a prospective mailer that was leaked to a journalist, but never distributed. The group, Fix the City, has said it never had intended to send the mailer and was “disturbed” it had entered public view.
Mr. Mamdani has also taken issue with a $5.4 million ad campaign by Fix the City that uses footage of him wearing a kurta and shouting, saying it was a bid to “smear and slander” his campaign. Fix the City said its ads have merely tried to highlight Mr. Mamdani’s “radical” left-leaning policy views.
Mr. Cuomo, 67, and Mr. Mamdani, 33, could hardly have more divergent positions on Israel.
Mr. Cuomo has cast himself as a champion of Israel’s war effort and Jewish New Yorkers, and has sought to galvanize electoral support from Jewish voters by contrasting himself with Mr. Mamdani, a democratic socialist. He has even volunteered to defend Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister, in international criminal court.
But his posture has irritated his Jewish opponents in the race. After Mr. Cuomo criticized the city comptroller, Brad Lander, as not supportive enough of Israel, Mr. Lander cursed him in Yiddish, denounced “non-Jews weaponizing antisemitism to score political points” and said, “Andrew Cuomo doesn’t get to tell me how to be Jewish.”
Mr. Lander and Mr. Mamdani have cross-endorsed each other in the race, whose winner will be determined by ranked-choice voting.
A new survey from the Marist Institute for Public Opinion released on Wednesday showed that Mr. Cuomo is the first choice of 40 percent of likely Jewish primary voters. But Mr. Mamdani is second, with about 20 percent, followed by Mr. Lander.
Mr. Mamdani has been consistent about his views of the war and Israel’s actions. He joined a hunger strike outside the White House calling for a cease-fire, has called Israel’s actions in Gaza a “genocide” and, when pressed, has not said if Israel has a right to exist as a Jewish state. During a 2021 speech in Brooklyn, he described the New York State Assembly as a “bastion of Zionist thought.”
But he says that he is motivated by a desire for Palestinians to gain political agency peacefully and that his criticism of the Israeli government is not equivalent to antisemitism.
At a news conference on Wednesday, Mr. Mamdani grew emotional as he denounced what he called cynical attacks for political aims.
“Antisemitism is such a real issue in this city, and it has been hard to see it weaponized by candidates who do not seem to have any sincere interests in tackling it, but rather in using it as a pretext to make political points,” he said.
In the interview with The Bulwark, Mr. Mamdani seemed to express misgivings about using terms that “can be distorted.” Still his characterization of “globalize the intifada” inspired sharp pushback.
“Regardless of the technical Arabic translation of the term ‘intifada’ or any supposed benign intent of it, the term is well understood to refer to the violent terror attacks against innocent Israeli civilians that occurred during the First and Second Intifadas,” said Mr. Goldman. “Globalizing the intifada is simply exporting that violence against Jews around the world.”
“If Mr. Mamdani is unwilling to heed the request of major Jewish organizations to condemn this unquestionably antisemitic phrase, then he is unfit to lead a city with 1.3 million Jews,” he added.
Even some of Mr. Mamdani’s allies in the race sounded uncomfortable with the comments. Michael Blake, who cross-endorsed him last week, called them “definitely offensive.”
“Even among family & friends, we have to hold people accountable to condemn and denounce these words,” he wrote on X.
Mr. Lander said he believed Mr. Mamdani’s intentions were good, but said he personally heard the words differently. “Maybe you don’t mean to be saying it’s open season against Jews all over the world,” he said in an interview with Pod Save America, referring to those who use the phrase. “But that’s what I hear.”
Basim Elkarra, the executive director of CAIR Action, the political arm of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, defended Mr. Mamdani. He said the phrase in question was used by some human-rights activists “to call for nonviolent, worldwide solidarity aimed at securing equal rights and safety for everyone in the region.”
Mr. Elkarra placed the assemblyman in that group, and said attempts to “twist” the term would only silence advocacy and hurt Palestinians.
Mr. Mamdani said on Wednesday that he has received death threats related to his Muslim faith.
His campaign shared a voice mail message left at Mr. Mamdani’s Assembly office on Wednesday in which a man says, “Nobody wants your terrorist ways here,” and warning him to “keep an eye on your house and your family.”
Samantha Latson contributed reporting.
Nicholas Fandos is a Times reporter covering New York politics and government.
Dana Rubinstein covers New York City politics and government for The Times.
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