Mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani was caught on resurfaced video leading “BDS” chants in a push to boycott Israel while blasting officials for traveling to the Jewish State on taxpayers’ dime.
The demcratic socialist candidate led the chants in favor of the “boycott, divestment and sanctions” movement during a May 11, 2021 pro-Palestinian rally across from the Israeli Consulate in Manhattan.
“We have elected officials paid for trips to Israel,” he said in the clip, which resurfaced Sunday — hours before the Salute to Israel Day parade in Manhattan. “They are going there paid for by your tax dollars.
“They show up at the Israel Day parade and they say, `We stand in solidarity,’” Mamdani goes on. “We want to let them know that there are three letters that we have as an answer to what is happening in Palestine. It’s BDS.”
He then leads chants of “BDS, BDS!” with the protesters, the clip shows.
Mamdani, a state Assemblyman who represents Queens, has been polling second behind ex-Gov. Andrew Cuomo in the crowded Democratic Party primary for mayor.
During his remarks in the resurfaced clip, he also urges pro-Palestinian protesters in the video to “put pressure” on their local council members and state representatives to advocate for a “safe and free” Palestine.
The lawmaker had referenced his appearance at the rally in a May 12, 2021 Facebook post, which was reposted Sunday by political consultant Jason Curtis Anderson.
The Anti-Defamation League and other Jewish advocacy groups label the BDS movement as antisemitic, saying it seeks to delegitimize and destroy Israel..
“The BDS movement uses divisive and inaccurate terms like ‘apartheid,’ ‘genocide,’ ‘settler colonialist’ and ‘supremacists’ to refer to aspects of Israeli action or policy they criticize, language which serves to demonize the Jewish state and those who support its existence,” the ADL said.
“ADL believes that many of the founding goals of the BDS movement, which effectively reject or ignore the Jewish people’s right of self-determination, or that, if implemented, would result in the eradication of the world’s only Jewish state, are antisemitic.”
Last week, Mamdani drew flack for refusing to sign onto a pair of resolutions recognizing Israel and the Holocaust. Critics ripped the mayoral hopeful as having “no business representing the largest Jewish community outside of Israel.”
He also received the endorsement of anti-Israel ex-“Squad” Rep. Jamaal Bowman.
Mamdani spokesman Andrew Epstein responded, “Zohran has been consistent and principled in his calls for equal rights and freedom for every single person, including Palestinians, and has never strayed from his belief that peace and justice will only be achieved through nonviolence.”
The assemblyman previously introduced the controversial “Not On Our Dime Act” that would bar New York non-profits from bankrolling any groups involved with West Bank settlements.
His father, Mahmood Mamdani, went even further, and called for the end of the Jewish state.
“The Palestinian challenge is to persuade the Jewish population and the world … the longtime security of a Jewish homeland in historic Palestine requires the dismantling of the Jewish state,” Mahmood Mandani said during a 2014 speech at Columbia. “Jews can have a homeland in historic Palestine, but not a state.”
The ranked-choice primary is June 24. Early voting is scheduled to begin June 14 and will go for nine days prior to the election.
