Israel's Ministry of Foreign Affairs accuses NYC Mayor Mamdani of anti-Semitism after his first day in office



Israel's Ministry of Foreign Affairs accused New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani of anti-Semitism over moves the freshly inaugurated mayor made during his first day in office Thursday.

The New York Times said Mamdani canceled two executive orders by his predecessor — former Mayor Eric Adams — that had barred city agencies from boycotting Israel and defined some criticism of Israel as anti-Semitic.

'Singling out Israel for sanctions is not the way to make Jewish New Yorkers feel included and safe, and will undermine any words to that effect.'

"On his very first day as @NYCMayor, Mamdani shows his true face: He scraps the IHRA definition of antisemitism and lifts restrictions on boycotting Israel," the Foreign Ministry wrote on X. "This isn't leadership. It's antisemitic gasoline on an open fire."

The Times called the statement from Israel's Foreign Ministry "an extraordinary accusation of anti-Jewish animosity."

Israel's consul general in New York, Ofir Akunis, added that Mamdani's decision posed "an immediate threat to the safety of Jewish communities in New York City and could lead to an increase in violent anti-Semitic attacks throughout the city," according to the paper.

The Times said New York City is home to the largest Jewish population outside of Israel.

More from the paper:

Mr. Mamdani has been a strong critic of Israel and its treatment of the Palestinians throughout his public life, and the Israeli government has denounced him before. As recently as October, it described him as someone who “excuses terror and normalizes antisemitism” and said he “stands with Jews only when they are dead.”

The two Israel-related executive orders revoked on Thursday were among a dozen orders issued by Mr. Mamdani’s predecessor, Eric Adams, that were canceled or amended by the new mayor on his first day in office. A spokeswoman for Mr. Mamdani had no immediate comment but said that the mayor expected to address Israel’s comments at an unrelated news conference in Brooklyn on Friday afternoon.

On Friday, a coalition of major Jewish organizations, including the Anti-Defamation League, the American Jewish Committee and the UJA Federation of New York, issued a joint statement opposing the cancellation of the executive orders.

The statement indicated Mamdani had “reversed two significant protections against antisemitism” and expressed particular alarm over the revocation of Adams’ ban on city agencies boycotting Israel, the Times said, adding that Adams signed that executive order just last month.

“Singling out Israel for sanctions is not the way to make Jewish New Yorkers feel included and safe, and will undermine any words to that effect,” the statement said, according to the paper.

The other Adams order Mamdani canceled was a definition of anti-Semitism from the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance and included 11 examples intended to illustrate anti-Jewish bigotry — seven of which include or relate in some way to criticism of Israel, the Times said.

Mamdani's views on Israel have been controversial, to say the least. The Times said the new mayor has criticized the Jewish state "in ways that were once seen as unthinkable for an elected official in New York."

For instance, the paper said Mamdani has called Israel an apartheid state and has supported accusations that Israel has committed genocide in Gaza. Mamdani also has supported the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement against Israel — and he even wants the New York Police Department to enforce an arrest warrant against the Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, the Times added.

But the ride into office hasn't been completely smooth for Mamdani, either. Last month, one of his appointees was forced to resign after the Anti-Defamation League brought to light anti-Semitic social media posts.

RELATED: 'Money hungry Jews': Mamdani appointee abruptly quits after her anti-Semitic online posts resurface

Photo by ANGELA WEISS / AFP via Getty Images

The New York Post noted other officials who criticized Mamdani's moves.

Bruce Blakeman, executive for Nassau County and a Republican gubernatorial candidate, said in a statement that "Mayor Mamdani wasted no time showing New Yorkers exactly who he is," the Post reported. "His very first executive action as mayor was not to address crime, public safety, or quality of life — it was to repeal protections for Jewish people. At a moment of exploding anti-Semitism, Mamdani sent a message that Jewish concerns are negotiable and Jewish safety is optional. It's indefensible."

Rep. Mike Lawler (R-N.Y.) posted on X that "Zohran is officially the face of the Democrat Party," the Post added.

Brooklyn Republican Councilwoman Inna Vernikov urged Democrat Gov. Kathy Hochul of New York to stand up to Mamdani, the Post said: "@GovKathyHochul can fix this with the stroke of a pen! Will she stand up to Mamdani or will she cower to avoid a Mamdani primary? The Jewish community is watching!"

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'Money hungry Jews': Mamdani appointee abruptly quits after her anti-Semitic online posts resurface



An appointee for New York City Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani, a democratic socialist, abruptly resigned after the Anti-Defamation League of New York and New Jersey exposed her past anti-Semitic social media posts.

On Wednesday, Mamdani announced that Catherine Almonte Da Costa would be his director of appointments.

'As this has become a distraction from the work at hand, I have offered my resignation.'

The ADL responded to the nomination by highlighting Da Costa's numerous anti-Jewish online comments.

"Her social media footprint includes posts from more than a decade ago that echo classic antisemitic tropes and otherwise demean Jewish people. ... We appreciate Da Costa has relationships with members of the Jewish community, but her posts require immediate explanation — not just from Ms. Da Costa, but also from the Mayor-Elect," the ADL wrote.

The ADL continued, "Vetting the appointment of city leaders will be Ms. Da Costa's responsibility and the Jewish community deserves to know: 1) Were these comments previously identified by the Mayor-elect's team? If so, why were they excused? 2) What will be the policy of the new Administration if comments like these are discovered during the vetting process?"

The ADL's post included screenshots of three X posts from Da Costa's account, which has since been removed.

RELATED: Mamdani dares ICE to come get him — and throws the Constitution in the trash

Zohran Mamdani. Photo by ANGELA WEISS / AFP via Getty Images

"Money hungry Jews smh," Da Costa apparently wrote in January 2011 on then-Twitter, presumably using an abbreviation for "shaking my head," an expression of disapproval.

"Woo! Promoted to the upstairs office today! Working alongside these rich Jewish peeps," she apparently wrote later that year.

"Far Rockaway train is the Jew train," a third post read from June 2012.

In 2020, Da Costa posted anti-cop sentiments, calling for the defunding of the New York Police Department by $1 billion in the upcoming fiscal year to "get cops out of our schools & subways," the New York Post reported.

RELATED: NYC councilwoman lays into 'rich,' 'entitled' Mamdani voters as mayor-elect plans to leave homeless encampments alone

L to R: Zohran Mamdani, Jahmila Edwards, Catherine Almonte Da Costa. Photo by ANGELA WEISS / AFP via Getty Images

Da Costa announced her resignation on Thursday, following the resurfaced posts.

"I spoke with the mayor-elect this afternoon, apologized, and expressed my deep regret for my past statements," Da Costa said. "These statements are not indicative of who I am. As the mother of Jewish children, I feel a profound sense of sadness and remorse at the harm these words have caused. As this has become a distraction from the work at hand, I have offered my resignation."

In a separate statement, she contended that her "tweets from well over a decade ago ... do not in any way, shape, or form reflect who I am or my views and beliefs today."

Mamdani called Da Costa's past remarks "unacceptable," adding that the posts "absolutely do not represent him or the values of his administration."

"Catherine expressed her deep remorse over her past statements and tendered her resignation, and I accepted," he added.

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Glenn Beck warns: Sydney's Hanukkah bloodbath proves the West is sleepwalking into another Holocaust



On December 14, two gunmen — a father and son radicalized by Islamic State ideology — opened fire on a crowded Hanukkah celebration at Sydney’s Bondi Beach, killing 15 people, including children and elderly victims, and injuring over 40 others in what authorities declared a targeted anti-Semitic terrorist attack.

While it was certainly the deadliest, this wasn’t the only anti-Semitic violence that happened last weekend. In Amsterdam, pro-Palestinian protesters disrupted Hanukkah concerts at the Concertgebouw concert hall by throwing smoke bombs, chanting anti-Semitic slogans, and attempting to storm the venue. In Los Angeles, a drive-by attack targeted a Jewish family’s home, which was decorated for Hanukkah. An unidentified person fired shots while yelling anti-Semitic slurs.

Glenn Beck says these targeted attacks on Jewish people reveal an uncomfortable truth most don’t want to admit: Once again, we find ourselves on the same fertile ground that cultivated Hitler’s crusade.

“Jewish people carry history, not as abstraction, but as inheritance,” Glenn says. “And it lives in names that are whispered at dinner tables and photographs rescued from ash in stories that begin with, ‘And we thought it would never happen here.”’

He comments that before WWII, “polite society everywhere” ignorantly believed that lie — that genocide could never happen on their civilized turf. But then it did, ushering in incomprehensible war and death.

Glenn warns that today, we’re making the same mistake. We’re primed for another Holocaust, and we can’t even see it.

But the signs are everywhere.

“Shadows that all of us hoped were buried forever — hatred with organization, ideology, hatred with teeth, violence, justification — they’re no longer whispers,” he says. “They’re shouting it now in our streets. They’re shouting it in the streets of Australia. They’re shouting it in the streets of Germany and England and France and Norway.”

“They’re burning flags. They’re firing guns. They’re chanting not only, ‘Death to the Jew,’ but, ‘Death to the West,’ ‘Death to Canada,’ ‘Death to the U.S.,’ ‘Death to Europe.”’

But the West, brainwashed by progressive dogma that repackages self-sabotage as inclusivity, is “tolerating it.”

For years, Australia’s Jewish community warned authorities that anti-Semitism was “metastasizing into something ideological and organized and deadly,” but they were dismissed and told to “calm down.” They were told that “multicultural harmony would manage itself.”

“But it didn’t, because it doesn’t. Ideology doesn’t dissolve when it’s ignored. It consolidates. It grows,” Glenn says.

And grown it has — all across the West from Europe to America to Australia.

As a result, today, “Jewish schools [are] guarded like fortresses” and “Jewish families [wonder] whether visibility itself is now a liability,” Glenn laments. “And yet all across the West, officials hesitate to name the problem clearly. So let me do it precisely, truthfully.”

“Islamism is a political ideology. It’s not about faith. It is about power. It’s the belief that society has to be governed by religious law — Sharia law — that freedom of conscience is illegitimate, that women are subordinate, that dissent is heresy, and that the world and everybody in it has to submit,” he lays bare.

This isn’t myth or exaggeration either. It’s their doctrine — documented in writing and preached to the masses.

“Any culture built on individual liberty, freedom of speech, equality before the law — it can’t survive alongside an ideology that views all of those principles as sins or as an affront to Allah,” Glenn says.

Western nations ignorantly “assume that everybody ultimately wants to live and to compromise and live side by side. We assume violence is accidental. We assume that it’s a lone wolf. We assume that words like ‘tolerance’ and ‘dialogue’ mean the same thing to everybody. But they don’t,” he continues.

We have to stop treating Islamism as anything other than what it is: a worldview incompatible with Western ideology.

“I ask you to think about what it feels like to be Jewish today because of the Jewish people, but also because you're next,” Glenn warns. “Jewish communities always pay the price first. They always do. And believe me, you are on the list — you, your faith, your freedom, your children are on the list.”

“History shows this with brutal consistency. When a society begins to rot from ideological cowardice, the Jews are always the early warning system. They’re the canary in the coal mine,” he analogizes.

The question is: Will we first wake up and see it? And then will we have the courage to do something about it?

“If we refuse to do that work now, our children are going to have to do it later under far worse conditions,” Glenn says.

“[We’re] running out of time.”

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