Reading time : 7 minutes
How a Grassroots Campaign in Queens became a Global statement against Empire, Apartheid, Occupation and Genocide
Prologue: Election Night in Queens — When New York Spoke for Gaza
On a cold November evening in Queens, the atmosphere outside City Hall felt electric. Thousands gathered in the streets, waving Palestinian flags and chanting “Ceasefire Now!” as the final votes came in. The results confirmed what had seemed unthinkable just months before — Zohran Mamdani, a progressive Democratic Socialist, an Indian-Ugandan Muslim immigrant, had been elected Mayor of New York City.
For many, this was not merely a local victory but a moral event of global consequence. As fireworks lit up the skyline, the crowd broke into chants of “Queens for Gaza” and “From the River to the Sea — Justice Will Be Free.” The symbolism was unmistakable: New York, home to some of the most powerful Zionist political and economic institutions in the world, had elected a man who had openly condemned Israel’s ongoing genocide and ethnic cleansing of Gaza and criticized Zionism itself as a system of racism, apartheid, occupation and settler colonialism.
Mamdani’s campaign was marked by moral clarity and unflinching language. During his rallies, he declared, “We cannot be silent while the people of Gaza face extermination. Zionism, like apartheid, must be named and opposed.” For the first time in U.S. history, a major city had chosen a leader who not only rejected AIPAC money but also vowed to hold Israel accountable under international law.
As Mondoweiss reported in Michael Arria’s analysis, “Mamdani’s victory represents a breaking point — a signal that the Gaza genocide has permanently altered the place of Israel in U.S. politics.” His supporters saw it as a moral referendum, a vote not only for affordable housing and labour rights but also for global justice.
For many in the Global South, the moment was reminiscent of the anti-apartheid victories of the 1980s — a rare convergence of ethics and politics in one of the world’s most powerful cities. Mamdani’s success, they argued, had cracked open the edifice of fear that had long prevented U.S. politicians from criticizing Israel.
2. The End of the Zionist Consensus in American Politics
For decades, support for Israel was a bipartisan article of faith in Washington. To criticize Israel — or even call for conditioning aid — was considered political suicide. AIPAC, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, was the gatekeeper, ensuring compliance through campaign donations and targeted opposition.
That era, however, is now unravelling – nearing it’s end.
The turning point came during the Gaza Genocide, the Holocaust of 2023–25 being perpetrated by Israel, when images of bombed hospitals, refugee camps, and starving children flooded social media feeds. Millions of Americans, including young Jews, marched in solidarity with Palestinians. The genocide scholars’ open letter to the United Nations in late 2024, describing Israel’s campaign as “an unfolding genocide,” marked a profound moral rupture. Even Holocaust scholars such as Omer Bartov and Raz Segal spoke out, urging the world not to remain silent in the face of state-organized mass killing – calling it a genocide.
By the time of the 2025 elections, the political landscape had shifted dramatically. In New York, California, Virginia, and Ohio, candidates funded by pro-Israel PACs faced growing backlash. In Virginia, Lieutenant Governor Ghazala Hashmi — spoke at an anti-Israel protest and opposed legislation combatting antisemitism — won a surprise election, making her the first Muslim woman to win statewide offices anywhere in the US. Ghazala Hashmi is of Indian, Asian origin.
But it was New York that delivered the decisive blow. Mamdani’s triumph — achieved despite a $20 million campaign by pro-Israel donors backing Andrew Cuomo — demonstrated that the so-called “Israel litmus test” no longer held. As Arria wrote, “The Zionist consensus in American politics has finally met its limit.”
Across the U.S., public opinion was shifting. Polls conducted in late 2025 showed that over 60% of Democrats and 45% of independents believed that Israel was committing war crimes in Gaza. A majority of voters under 35 favoured cutting military aid to Israel. The AIPAC model — once a guarantee of victory — had become a liability.
This sea change was not merely about foreign policy; it was about moral legitimacy. As Mamdani himself said on election night, “You cannot stand for justice in Harlem and be silent in Gaza. You cannot claim to fight racism here and ignore apartheid abroad.”
3. The Jewish Awakening: From Zionism to Justice
Perhaps the most striking element of Mamdani’s campaign was the level of Jewish support it attracted — not from the institutional establishment, but from anti-Zionist and progressive Jewish groups.
As Middle East Eye reported in its feature “Why so many Jews are campaigning for Zohran Mamdani in New York City,” hundreds of young Jewish volunteers joined Mamdani’s campaign, knocking on doors and organizing interfaith solidarity events. They came from groups like Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP), IfNotNow, and Rabbis for Ceasefire, who framed their activism as part of a moral struggle within Judaism itself.
“Being Jewish no longer means being Zionist,” said one organizer quoted in the report. “It means standing on the side of the oppressed, just as our ancestors demanded of us.”
The generational divide within the Jewish community is now undeniable. Younger Jews are breaking with the unconditional support for Israel that characterized their parents’ generation. As Philip Weiss wrote in Scheerpost, “Zohran Mamdani’s historic run will help free Jews, and U.S. politics, from Zionism.” He described the campaign as a moment of spiritual liberation — the ability for Jews to reject ethno-nationalism without rejecting their identity.
This transformation has deep theological and historical resonance. Many Jewish intellectuals have drawn parallels between Mamdani’s message and the prophetic tradition in Judaism — the insistence that justice for the stranger, the widow, and the orphan stands above loyalty to any state.
For decades, Zionist institutions such as the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) and AIPAC presented themselves as the voices of the Jewish community. But their credibility has collapsed among young Jews, who increasingly see them as defenders of apartheid & genocide. Polls by the Jewish Electorate Institute show that less than 20% of Jews under 30 believe Israel is a democracy; over 60% say they feel “ashamed” of its actions in Gaza.
As one Brooklyn rabbi put it at a Mamdani rally, “We are the children of the prophets — not the lobbyists.”
4. Mamdani’s Doctrine: Moral Clarity as Political Strategy
While most politicians navigate moral crises with ambiguity, Mamdani’s success came from his refusal to equivocate. His message was uncompromising: “Silence is complicity. To be neutral in the face of oppression is to take the side of the oppressor.”
Throughout his campaign, Mamdani insisted that foreign policy was a local issue. “When New York police are trained by Israeli forces, when our tax dollars fund the bombing of Gaza, when our tenants can’t afford rent because billionaires buy our politicians — it’s all connected,” he told a rally in the Bronx.
This framing connected international justice with local economic struggle. Mamdani’s platform combined calls for rent control, union expansion, and climate justice with demands to divest city funds from companies profiting from Israeli settlements and weapons sales.
His boldest statement came during an interview with The Nation, where he declared that if Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu — indicted at the International Criminal Court — ever set foot in New York, “we would have a moral obligation to arrest him for war crimes.” That statement, initially dismissed as political theatre, became one of the campaign’s most viral moments, shared millions of times across TikTok and X.
Mainstream commentators derided him as “radical,” but voters saw courage. His coalition, very ethnically and religiously diverse — spanning progressive Jews, Muslims, Christians, Hindus, Black socialists, Hispanics, LGBTQ community, trade unionists, and climate activists — reflected a new political alignment.
The campaign also took on billionaires and corporate landlords, many of whom poured money into his opponents’ campaigns. Mamdani called it “the same system — where money silences morality.”
As Scheerpost noted, Mamdani’s doctrine of moral clarity succeeded because it combined ethics with strategy. It was not only about what he opposed but also about what he affirmed: solidarity, dignity, and a shared struggle for justice.
5. Post-Zionist Politics: The Road Ahead
Mamdani’s victory marks the beginning of a new chapter in American political life — one that challenges decades of deference to Israeli power and the Zionist narrative.
For the Democratic Party, this is a watershed. The party’s base — especially among millennials and Gen Z — is demanding an end to the unconditional military and diplomatic support that Washington provides to Israel. Leaders like Bernie Sanders, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Rashida Tlaib, and Ilhan Omar have already called for accountability measures, but Mamdani’s win shows that these positions can now command majority support at the ballot box and that too in New York itself!
Within days of the election, progressive mayors in Chicago, Seattle, and San Francisco released statements endorsing a ceasefire and pledging to review city contracts linked to Israeli weapons manufacturers. Many U.S. city councils and other local bodies passed non-binding ceasefire resolutions calling for a halt to fighting in Gaza. Reuters’ municipal tally showed dozens of U.S. cities doing this. Seattle City Council passed an amended resolution supporting a long-term ceasefire; the council record and press coverage are public. San Francisco’s Board of Supervisors passed a ceasefire resolution; Mayor London Breed criticized it but declined to veto the non-binding measure. AP and local reporting document that. Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson publicly made strong critical remarks about Israel’s actions in Gaza that were characterized by CAIR as recognizing the campaign as “genocidal.” CAIR and press outlets published responses.
Even in the Republican Party, Thomas Massie & Marjorie Taylor Greene, both who serve in the U.S. House of Representatives, the Congress, have raised the banner of revolt against the AIPAC Israel First Zionist control over their party and the Trump White House. Marjorie Taylor Greene has decided to contest the Republican party primaries for the Presidential nominee for 2028. She has already galvanised her support base across the country and is determined to get her agenda into the national debate. This is not good news for the Israeli Lobby in retreat. To counter the popularity of these two Republicans, Jewish Zionist Billionaire Miriam Adelson has decided to pour in $20 Million to defeat Thomas Massie in the upcoming elections in his congressional district in Kentucky.
Interestingly, Tucker Carlson, among the most prominent journalists and the leading Christian Conservative voice in America, said that Zohran Mamdani was not an antisemite. In fact, increasingly Christian Conservative voices who were earlier pro-Israel, have now taken a sharp anti-Israel position, the most prominent being Candace Owens, who is among the world’s leading and influential podcasters. For Israel, for the Lobby to lose the American Christian Conservative vote will be a catastrophe, as they will have lost popular public opinion, the Church-going American Christian voter! This is in addition to the Zionist Lobby already having lost the majority of the Democratic party voters, though they yet control the Democratic establishment. Which is the very Democratic establishment that Zohran Mamdani challenged and smashed in New York.
Undoubtedly, the ripple effects of Mamdani’s epic win were global. In London, Members of Parliament from the Labour left cited Mamdani’s win as proof that “anti-Zionism is not antisemitism.” Labour MP’s and leaders reaffirmed this position and they included Dianne Abbot, John McDonnell, Bell Ribeiro, Rebecca Long-Bailey and (ex-MP) Chris Williamson. Both Jeremy Corbyn & Zarah Sultana who resigned from the Labour Party due to grave differences on the ongoing Genocide in Gaza, and the complicity of the Keir Starmer government, both congratulated Zohran Mamdani for his grassroots socialist campaign.
Palestine solidarity activists from across the world who have been mobilising in their millions, invoked New York’s example as evidence that moral politics can prevail even in the heart of empire.
Political scientists are calling this the dawn of post-Zionist politics — a framework that sees liberation, equality, and human rights as universal principles, not privileges reserved for one nation or people. In this new paradigm, to be anti-Zionist is not to be anti-Jewish, but rather to affirm the shared humanity of Palestinians and Jews alike.
Still, the road ahead will not be easy. The backlash has already begun. AIPAC and allied organizations have launched new political action committees to unseat anti-Zionist lawmakers. The ADL has intensified its campaign to equate criticism of Israel with antisemitism. Major media outlets continue to amplify Israeli narratives.
Yet the tide has turned. The fear that once silenced critics of Israel has been broken. A new generation of activists, scholars, and politicians is speaking with moral confidence — and Mamdani stands at their forefront.
As Mondoweiss concluded, “Mamdani’s New York is not just a city; it is a message — that liberation is indivisible, and that justice must be universal.”
Conclusion: A New Chapter in American Political History & the Weakening of Zionist Lobbies
Zohran Mamdani’s victory was not just about one man or one city. It was a referendum on the moral soul of American democracy. It proved that courage, when anchored in justice, can overcome money, propaganda, and decades of religious and political conditioning.
In the coming years, historians may look back on this election as the moment when the U.S. political establishment’s uncritical support for Israel finally began to erode. It will be remembered as the point when New York — a city built by immigrants, shaped by diversity, and tested by inequality — stood up to empire and chose solidarity over silence.
As Mamdani said in his victory speech:
“The struggle for Gaza is the struggle for all of us. Because until every people is free, none of us are.”
Source: CounterCurrents.ORG