Zohran Mamdani’s victory is a loss for Zionism
Sid Shniad
MONDOWEISS November 5, 2025
Zohran Mamdani’s victory is a loss for Zionism
Zohran Mamdani’s historic victory in New York City shows that the Gaza genocide has permanently shifted Israel’s role in U.S. politics.
By Michael Arria
Zohran Mamdani seen on stage at a campaign event. (Photo: Zohran Mamdani campaign)After Democratic Socialist Zohran Mamdani prevailed over Andrew Cuomo in New York City’s mayoral race, former Israeli foreign minister and right-wing leader Avigdor Lieberman put out a statement through a spokesperson.
“The Big Apple has fallen,” declared Lieberman. He urged New York Jews who want to survive” to flee “to where they belong — the land of Israel.”
This farcical call is obviously based on fantasy, but the source of his anxiety is very real. Lieberman knows that Mamdani’s historic win is a blow to Israel, a country whose international reputation has already fallen apart.
For more than two years, the world has watched the Gaza genocide live-streamed across their electronic devices, and millions have taken to the streets to express their opposition.
Here in the United States, Palestine advocates have faced a brutal government crackdown that’s resulted in deportations, detentions, arrests, fines, and widespread censorship. This backlash has not subsided, but it failed to quell the resistance to Israel’s policies and the U.S. support for them.
A recent Quinnipiac survey found that a plurality of voters (47%) think supporting Israel is in the national interest of the United States, while 41% think it is not. That’s way up from the immediate aftermath of the October 7 attack, when 69% of voters thought supporting Israel was in the national interest, and just 23% disagreed.
A New York Times Siena University survey found that just 34% of U.S. voters say they back Israel, compared to the 47% who said they supported the country after October 7. The Times referred to the shift as a “seismic reversal.”
The gaps are much more severe among Democratic voters. In recent years, dozens of studies have concluded that the party’s base has completely split with its elected officials on this issue. A March Pew Poll found that 69% of Democrats have an unfavorable view of Israel, and a June Quinnipiac survey found that just 12% of Democrats sympathize more with Israelis than Palestinians.
Sympathy for the Palestinian cause was already increasing among Democratic voters, whereas support for Israel remained ironclad with Republicans. However, since October 7, the country’s supporters and its domestic lobbying groups have suddenly encountered an increasing number of problems on the right, particularly among young people.
In the aforementioned Pew poll, 50% of GOP voters under the age of 50 expressed a negative view of Israel, compared to just 35% in 2022. An August University of Maryland Critical Issues survey found that just 24% of Republicans aged 18-34 sympathize more with Israelis than Palestinians.
“The erosion among younger voters is not unimpressive,” Quincy Institute advisor and Responsible Statecraft editorial director Kelley Vlahos told Mondoweiss last month. “They do not have the same instincts, and they are less ideologically shackled. They’re not feeling the same pressure as the Boomer generation.”
Enter Mamdani. He might have pulled his punches as his campaign wound down, but he never actually condemned the phrase “From the river to the sea,” like his critics demanded. He also consistently referred to Israel’s actions in Gaza as a genocide and said he’d arrest Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu if he set foot in the city.
These kinds of positions have long been viewed as disqualifying in U.S. politics. To say this kind of stuff was to touch the third rail and immediately nuke your election chances. Mamdani was accused of being obsessed with Israel, but his critics and the Cuomo campaign were the ones who continually brought up the issue.
They obviously thought his stances would hurt him, but a cursory glance at the numbers always showed that they would actually bolster his campaign. In an exit poll, 38% of New York City voters said their candidate’s position on Israel was a major factor in their voting decision. Less than a third said it wasn’t a factor at all.
Mamdani’s win can’t be dismissed as a blip or a fluke by pro-Israel groups. More than two million New Yorkers showed up to the polls, almost double the amount that voted in the mayoral election four years ago. He’s the first candidate to win over one million votes in an NYC mayoral contest since 1969.
He also did it in the most Jewish city in the United States, despite an ongoing smear campaign aimed at tagging him as an antisemite. In this sense, the election was a referendum on Zionism and a bold rejection of those who insist on conflating it with Judaism.
It’s unclear how Mamdani will govern, or what the inevitable political backlash will look like. It’s also debatable how much influence the mayor of a U.S. city could possibly have on Middle East policy. Many New Yorkers presumably voted for Mamdani because of his ambitious domestic agenda, and viewed his foreign policy positions as an added bonus.
However, it’s undeniable that last night’s results will have a lasting impact beyond New York. Mamdani hasn’t just provided a blueprint for leftists seeking power; he’s shown future candidates that embracing Israel is not a prerequisite for victory. On the contrary, it’s a strength.
“I think Cuomo and some of the other candidates are expecting that Mamdani’s support for Palestine in the end is going to hold him back and allow other candidates to get past him,” Democratic consultant Peter Feld told Mondoweiss months before the mayoral primary.
“I think Cuomo’s attempt to Israelize the election is going to backfire,” he added. “This could actually help give Mamdani further strength to overtake him. If that happens, I think it’s going to set the table for some of the primaries next year.”
The Big Apple hasn’t fallen, but the third rail of U.S politics has been removed from the track.