By Michael Katz in Newsmax
Several Jewish groups have condemned statements by a hardline liberal candidate in New York’s Democrat mayoral primary who defended the phrase “Globalize the intifada,” which has been used by pro-Palestinian protesters and seen by many as a call for violence against Jews.
Zohran Mamdani, a New York state assemblyman seeking to become the Big Apple’s first Muslim mayor, told The Bulwark podcast Tuesday that the slogan captured “a desperate desire for equality and equal rights in standing up for Palestinian human rights.”
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“I think what’s difficult also is that the very word has been used by the Holocaust Museum when translating the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising into Arabic, because it’s a word that means ‘struggle,'” said Mamdani, a member of the Democrat Socialists of America.
Mamdani was referring to the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, D.C., which described the 1943 Warsaw ghetto uprising on its website as the largest revolt by Jews during World War II and the first significant urban revolt against German occupation in Europe.
His statement appeared to reference an Arabic translation of the uprising used on the museum’s website up until May 2024, The Jerusalem Post reported Thursday, citing archived web pages found on the Internet Archive WayBack Machine. Until that time, the Arabic translation on the website’s page for the uprising translated “uprising” to the Arabic word for intifada. It was then changed to “muqawama,” the Arabic word for “resistance.”
The museum lashed out Wednesday in a post on X, without mentioning Mamdani by name, stating that “exploiting the museum and the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising to sanitize ‘globalize the intifada’ is outrageous and especially offensive to survivors. Since 1987, Jews have been attacked and murdered under its banner. All leaders must condemn its use and the abuse of history.”
Jonathan Greenblatt, CEO of the Anti-Defamation League, wrote Wednesday in a post on X that “Globalize the intifada” is an “explicit incitement to violence.”
“Globalize the Intifada celebrates and glorifies savagery and terror,” Greenblatt wrote. “Globalize the Intifada dishonors the memory of 1,000s slaughtered, tens of 1,000s maimed, and millions traumatized who were targeted simply because of their identities.”
In another post Wednesday on X, Rabbi Yaakov Menken, executive vice president of the Coalition for Jewish Values, wrote: ” ‘Globalize the Intifada’ is certainly associated with the Holocaust, just not in the way that advocates claim. It is the rallying cry of those who wish to complete Hitler’s Final Solution. Hitler also believed eradicating the Jews was a human rights cause, so good job there.”
Rep. Dan Goldman, D-N.Y., who is Jewish, said in a statement to NBC News that “intifada” is “well understood to refer to the violent terror attacks against innocent Israeli civilians that occurred during the First and Second Intifadas. 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 — the largest Jewish population outside of Israel.”
Mamdani is polling second in an 11-way contest in the Democrat primary, which is Tuesday. The front-runner, former Gov. Andrew Cuomo, also decried his comment in a post on X Wednesday as “not only wrong — it is dangerous.”
Mamdani addressed the controversy Wednesday, according to NBC News, telling reporters in Harlem that “it pains me to be called an antisemite.” He broke down in tears as he described the vitriol he has received during his mayoral campaign.
“I get messages that say: ‘The only good Muslim is a dead Muslim,'” he said. “I get threats on my life, on the people that I love.”
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