Mayor Zohran Mamdani is standing by his decision to describe a pro-Israel super PAC as “monsters,” despite concerns from some Jewish New Yorkers who say the language could fuel hostility or violence.
The controversy began last week at a campaign rally with Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), where Mamdani criticized the American Israel Public Affairs Committee [AIPAC] and declared that “these monsters take many forms today.”
Pressed several times by reporters on Monday about whether he regretted using the word, Mamdani refused to back away from it.
“I used the term to describe all those who are preventing the birth of a new world, not solely a PAC, but frankly, super PACs at large, who are spending millions of dollars in deceptive and misleading ads that are blanketing airwaves,” he said during an unrelated press conference in the City Hall Rotunda on Monday morning.
Mamdani, a democratic socialist and outspoken critic of Israel, drew backlash after invoking Antonio Gramsci, the former leader of the Italian socialist movement, while denouncing what he characterized as “dark money” behind television, print and online advertising campaigns.
Speaking at the Kings Theatre in Brooklyn, the mayor singled out AIPAC, saying, “In AIPAC, for whom the only thing more frightening than democracy being allowed to run its course is an end to genocide and Netanyahu’s wars.”
“They move millions in dark money to accomplish a single goal, to preserve their power so that they can turn us against one another,” Mamdani continued.
In the days that followed, several prominent Jewish New Yorkers condemned the remarks as dangerous, warning that such rhetoric could intensify tensions and potentially incite violence.
Chaim Steinmetz, a senior rabbi of the Kehilath Jeshurun synagogue on Manhattan’s Upper East Side, railed online, “This is pure incitement.”
“Mamdani is accusing AIPAC of being a monster that subverts democracy, supports genocide and wants to divide Americans,” he continued.
