New York Mayor Mamdani Refuses to Apologize for Attack on AIPAC

New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani has again attacked the pro-Israel lobby AIPAC, despite sharp criticism from senior Jewish leaders in the city. Mamdani said AIPAC supports a status quo that blocks “real security” not only for Palestinians but for much of the region, calling that status quo “immoral.”

He also repeated the claim that AIPAC spends “millions of dollars on deceptive and deliberately misleading ads” that flood the airwaves, while trying to broaden the criticism to other lobbies as well. Mamdani again linked the lobby’s activity to the economic hardship of many Americans.

The latest remarks follow comments he made last week, when he called the group “monsters” and used what critics described as clear antisemitic motifs. In that speech, he said AIPAC fears nothing more than “ending the genocide and Netanyahu’s wars,” and accused it of spending dark money to preserve its power and turn people against one another.

The backlash has included the Anti-Defamation League and other Jewish organizations. Ted Deutch, chief executive of the American Jewish Committee, wrote that calling other New Yorkers “monsters” was “outrageous and dangerous.” Jewish Democratic Congressman Josh Gottheimer also condemned Mamdani, saying that replacing the word AIPAC with “Jews” reveals one of the oldest antisemitic conspiracy theories, and warned that the rhetoric was especially dangerous in a city with more than one million Jews.