Israel plans to conquer Gaza?! Trita Parsi interview
Trita Parsi, executive vice president of the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft, shares insight on Israel's new plan to reoccupy all of Gaza and forcebly remove 2 million Palestinians to southern Gaza.
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Politico
9 hours ago
- Politico
Critics say Zohran Mamdani is antisemitic. He says he's holding Israel accountable.
NEW YORK — As his New York City mayoral candidacy surges, Zohran Mamdani has come under fire for his defiant stance against Israel, which critics say crosses into antisemitism. The criticism, plastered across mailers funded by a super PAC backing Andrew Cuomo, took on a new life this week when Mamdani opted to do a lengthy podcast interview with The Bulwark during which he defended the use of the phrase 'Globalize the Intifada.' Now the issue of antisemitism, which remains central to the rhetoric in the mayor's race as the U.S. joined Israel in its waragainst Iran, is on the ballot next Tuesday — even as New Yorkers say their top issues are affordability and public safety. While Mamdani focuses his candidacy on the city's rising costs, he also repeatedly condemns Israel while on the trail, and throughout his adult life he has organized against the country's policies toward Palestinians. The 33-year-old democratic socialist would become the city's first Muslim mayor, and he recently teared up while publicly discussing bigotry he and his relatives have been subjected to. Cuomo has tried to center antisemitism in the race, all but labeling Mamdani and his opponents as antisemitic in a synagogue speech and at other times when it's seemingly irrelevant to the subject at hand: real estate laws, public safety and taxpayer-funded legal fees to defend him in scandals that forced his ouster as governor. Mamdani in turn has criticized Cuomo for failing to visit a mosque during his first seven years as governor. He also firmly corrected Cuomo's mispronunciation of his name while on the debate stage and said it demonstrated 'an inability to understand that each and every New Yorker deserves the same dignity.' Mamdani slammed a super PAC backing Cuomo as Islamophobic after it created a design for a political mailer that artificially lengthened and darkened Mamdani's beard. The mailer was never sent out. And he blames the PAC's rhetoric for threats against his life, including a recent car bomb threat that drew the attention of the NYPD's Hate Crimes Task Force. In a statement, the pro-Cuomo PAC, Fix the City, defended its mailers and attacked Mamdani. 'Every Fix the City ad and mailer presents Mr. Mamdani unaltered; the photos, policies and plans are his,' said Liz Benjamin, a spokesperson for the PAC. 'When you strip away his Hollywood tinsel, what you realize is that Mr. Mamdani has repeatedly embraced the rhetoric of hate. It is far past time for him to disavow his own calls to 'globalize the intifada', which many understand is an invitation to violence.' Mamdani has also responded to criticisms by touting support from Jewish New Yorkers, including a paid video highlighting their support. 'We're told by some that we're self hating; We're told we're traitors, not real Jews,' says the video, which stitches together statements from different Jewish New Yorkers. 'But what Andrew Cuomo doesn't know is that the struggle for freedom and justice is central to Judaism, and has been for thousands of years.' Mamdani has received the endorsement of Jewish Voice for Peace Action, a pro-Palestinian Jewish group. At the same time, leaders of organizations like the American Jewish Committee, the Metropolitan Council on Jewish Poverty and the Far Rockaway Jewish Alliance have united against Mamdani, arguing his rhetoric breeds antisemitic violence and his election would make the city inhospitable to Jews. 'When someone spends years relentlessly targeting the world's only Jewish state through legislation, boycotts and protests — while remaining silent on the abuses of regimes like Iran, China or Russia —it's not principled criticism, it's antisemitism, plain and simple,' Sam Berger, a Democratic Jewish state lawmaker from Queens, said in a statement. 'His rhetoric, accusing Israel of 'genocide' and 'apartheid,' is not only inflammatory and false, it's part of a broader campaign to delegitimize Jewish self-determination.' The tension percolated on the campaign trail Friday night, when a pedestrian on the Upper West Side of Manhattan shouted, 'He's a Jew hater! Get outta here; this is a Jewish neighborhood,' while Mamdani walked by without responding. 'I don't expect Zohran Mamdani to be a Zionist. I don't. It's fine. I'm a Zionist,' the pedestrian, Steven Beispel, later said. 'But being against Israel, I think is harmful. Even though you think it's not antisemitic.' In response to this story, Mamdani's campaign noted his support from high-ranking Jewish elected officials, including Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders and city Comptroller Brad Lander, who is also running for mayor and cross-endorsed Mamdani. The campaign pointed out that Cuomo has been sued by Orthodox Jewish community leaders for pandemic policies they say were 'blatantly anti-Semitic.' Cuomo has received support from most religious Jewish leaders for his primary bid. Mamdani is also proposing to tackle antisemitism in City Hall by increasing funding to prevent hate crimes by 800 percent, the campaign notes. Below is a list of Mamdani's comments on Israel that have stoked controversy, and how Mamdani has responded. 1. Condemning Israel after Oct. 7 attacks Mamdani issued a statement on Oct. 8, 2023 — his first public statement since the attack — that condemned Israel and its government, and said a 'just and lasting peace can only begin by ending the occupation and dismantling apartheid.' He spared Hamas, which attacked Israel the day before, any criticism in that statement. 'I mourn the hundreds of people killed across Israel and Palestine in the last 36 hours. Netanyahu's declaration of war, the Israeli government's decision to cut electricity to Gaza, and Knesset members calling for another Nakba will undoubtedly lead to more violence and suffering in the days and weeks to come. The path toward a just and lasting peace can only begin by ending the occupation and dismantling apartheid,' the full statement said. On Oct. 7, Hamas-led militants killed nearly 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and took 251 hostages, marking the deadliest day for the Jewish people since the Holocaust. Within 40 hours of the attack, Israel immediately responded by launching airstrikes on over 800 targets into Gaza. Since then, Israel's military campaign has killed more than 55,000 Palestinians, according to The Associated Press, citing the Gaza Health Ministry, which does not distinguish between civilians and combatants. The ministry said more than half killed are women and children. 2. Defense of the phrase 'globalize the intifada' 'To me, ultimately, what I hear in so many is a desperate desire for equality and equal rights in standing up for Palestinian human rights,' Mamdani said on The Bulwark last week when asked about the phrase. 'The very word [intifada] has been used by the Holocaust Museum when translating the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising into Arabic, because it's a word that means struggle.' The word 'intifada' directly translates to 'shaking off.' Palestinians have launched two 'intifadas' against Israel and its military occupation — the First Intifada, beginning in 1987, was marked by widespread Palestinian protests. During the Second Intifada, beginning in 2000, Palestinian militants conducted suicide bombings targeting Israeli civilians on public buses, restaurants and shopping and pedestrian malls. In response, Israel carried out fierce military reprisals. Mamdani's defense of the term — which many Jews see as a call to globalize violence perpetrated against Israeli Jews in the Second Intifada — was condemned by Jewish leaders. The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum issued a statement calling Mamdani's invocation of the Holocaust 'outrageous' and 'especially offensive to survivors.' A web archive shows the museum did use the word in an online article about the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising that was translated into Arabic. After the interview, Mamdani released a statement further explaining his position: 'As the highest profile Muslim candidate in NY history, I feel an obligation to speak out against violence and against bad faith or misinformed efforts to manipulate language in ways that only contribute to the division we're seeking to overcome,' he said. 'I've repeatedly condemned any calls for violence.' Mamdani added Friday that 'globalize the intifada' is 'not the language that I use,' but added 'the role of the mayor is not to police language.' 3. Support for Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement Mamdani has long defended the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement, which calls for consumers, companies and governments to cut ties with Israel in an effort to influence the country's policies toward Palestinians. He's also repeatedly dodged questions about whether he would advocate for the policy as mayor, and has avoided calling for the boycott or divestment of any other nation on the campaign trail. 'We pay our electeds with our tax $$$ to represent us but they go on paid-for trips to Israel,' Mamdani posted to social media in 2021. 'We have 3 letters for them: #BDS. Every elected must be pressured to stand with Palestinians, oppose Apartheid & assert that the fight for dignity knows no exception.' He also told the Muslim Democratic Club of New York that year, 'Speaking up for Israel comes with everything you might want, and we need to show that it's not that way anymore. There are consequences for speaking up in favor of apartheid.' 4. Refusing to disavow controversial streamer Hasan Piker, who has called Jews 'inbred,' after appearing on his show Mamdani participated in a three-hour-plus, one-on-one livestream in April with controversial leftist influencer Hasan Piker. Piker has been accused of antisemitism for repeatedly describing Orthodox Jews as 'inbred.' He also labeled a viewer who condemned the October 7th Nova music festival massacre as a 'bloodthirsty pig dog' during a stream recorded the day after the attacks, which was also criticized as antisemitic. Piker says the quotes are taken out of context. When asked why he appeared with the streamer when others have found Piker's comments antisemitic, Mamdani doubled down. 'I am willing to speak to each and every person about this campaign, and I've said that from the beginning,' Mamdani told POLITICO in April. 5. Did not sign resolution recognizing Holocaust As an Assemblymember, Mamdani was one of five lawmakers in the state Legislature's lower chamber that did not sign two resolutions condemning the Holocaust and honoring Israel, POLITICO reported last month. Mamdani responded by saying his failure to sign onto the measures was part of a 'blanket policy' in his office to not add his name to any resolution emailed to his office, in an effort to 'focus on the substance of legislation.' Mamdani said he 'understands this has caused pain and confusion for many' and said he voted every year for the Holocaust Remembrance Day resolution 'to honor the more than 6 million Jewish people murdered by the Nazis.' 6. 'Not on Our Dime!' Act Mamdani is the prime sponsor of the 'Not on Our Dime!' Act, which would effectively ban Israeli charities from supporting the Israeli military or 'Israeli settlement activity.' The legislation's stated purpose is to pressure Israel to end settlements and follow international law. Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie, who usually abstains from commenting on individual member's legislation before it's discussed in conference, gave a rare rebuke of the bill. Sixty-six Assemblymembers also signed a letter in 2023 calling the legislation 'a ploy to demonize Jewish charities with connections to Israel.' The lawmakers also said the legislation serves to 'attack Jewish organizations that have wide ranging missions from feeding the poor to providing emergency medical care for victims of terrorism to clothing orphans.' Mamdani touted his work to draft the legislation — a non-starter in the Legislature — as one of his top two policy accomplishments in his campaign literature for mayor. 'My support for BDS is consistent with the core of my politics which is non-violence,' Mamdani said in a May interview with the UJA-Federation, which his campaign referred to POLITICO. 'I think it is a legitimate movement when you are seeking to find compliance with international law and I think we have seen the Israeli government out of compliance with international law. ' 7. Led Israeli academic boycott in college During his senior year at Bowdoin College, a small private liberal arts college in Maine, Mamdani organized a boycott of Israeli academic and cultural institutions. The effort earned strong disapproval from the college's president, whom Mamdani feuded with in the pages of the college's newspaper. 'The boycott refuses to discriminate based on citizenship, race or nationality and merely asks that institutional ties be severed with those institutions complicit in the Israeli occupation,' Mamdani wrote in an op-ed he co-authored with another student in 2014. 'In other words, a professor from the University of Tel Aviv can still present research at an ASA conference, provided that he or she does so as an individual scholar and not expressly as a representative of Israeli academic institutions or of the Israeli government.' 8. Minimized claims of antisemitism Mamdani has repeatedly said accusations he is antisemitic are politically motivated or efforts to censor him. 'The conflation of anti-zionism and antisemitism is a conflation that seeks to distract, delegitimize, and really, what it is, is an attempt to silence,' Mamdani said in an interview with the South Asian Avant-Garde in 2021. 'Antisemitism is such a real issue in this city, and it has been hard to see it weaponized by candidates who do not seem to have any real interest in tackling it, but rather in using it as a pretext to make political points,' he also said on the campaign trail, less than a week before Election Day. 9. Further condemnation of Israel following Oct. 7 Beyond his initial statement on Oct. 8, Mamdani mobilized against Israel in the week following the unprecedented, deadly Hamas attacks, by which point Israel had cut off the flow of food, fuel, electricity and medicine and had killed about 1,900 people in Gaza, according to the Gaza Health Ministry. At that time, the Israeli government had also said it had killed 1,500 Hamas militants. On Oct. 13 — six days after the attacks — Mamdani asked his supporters to join him at a rally outside then-Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer's house 'to speak out against the indiscriminate killing of Palestinians as we sit on the brink of a genocide.' While running for City Hall, Mamdani has repeatedly defended using the term 'genocide' to describe the events in Gaza, even as Jewish leaders object to the use of it as an inappropriate comparison of the Israel-Hamas war and the Holocaust. The Anti-Defamation League has said the term 'is not only inaccurate and misleading, but it unfairly serves to demonize the State of Israel and to diminish recognized acts of genocide,' while the United Nations' International Court of Justice has said it is 'plausible' Israel is committing a genocide. Mamdani also produced a stream of social media posts focused squarely on the plight of Palestinians in October 2023, and was arrested during the demonstrations outside Schumer's home. 10. Criticism of lawmakers attending Israel Day Parade, opposition to Israeli independence resolution Mamdani has criticized lawmakers' attendance at Israel Day Parades and promoted his efforts to thwart a resolution in the state Legislature which honors Israel's Independence Day. 'We have elected officials who are taking paid-for trips to Israel,' Mamdani said at a 2021 rally. 'They show up to Israel Day parades, and they say 'we stand in solidarity.' We want to let them know there are three letters that we have as an answer to what is happening in Palestine, and it's BDS,' he said, referencing the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement. That same year, he boasted about his efforts behind the scenes to stop a symbolic resolution honoring Israel. 'Every year they introduced this resolution commending Israel's day of independence, and this year, it was introduced, it was scheduled to go up, and I called the central staff of the assembly, and I made it clear that if this resolution were to come to the floor, I would speak in opposition to this resolution, and would speak about the reality of what was happening in Palestine,' Mamdani said in the 2021 interview with the South Asian Avant-Garde. 'The resolution has yet to come to the floor,' Mamdani added with a smile during the interview. 'I think just the fact of registering opposition that business as usual cannot continue any longer, and it is so, so important that we do not cede any ground to apartheid and to supporters of apartheid, and that we'd be unabashed in our criticism of it.'
CNBC
12 hours ago
- CNBC
Israel recovers the remains of 3 more hostages from Gaza
The Israeli military said Sunday that it has recovered the remains of three hostages held in the Gaza Strip. At least four Palestinians were killed in an Israeli airstrike and 22 were wounded while waiting for humanitarian aid, according to a local hospital. The military identified the remains as those of Yonatan Samerano, 21; Ofra Keidar, 70; and Shay Levinson, 19. All three were killed during Hamas' Oct. 7, 2023, attack into Israel that ignited the ongoing war. The militant group is still holding 50 hostages, less than half of them believed to be alive. The military did not provide any details about the recovery operation, and it was unclear if the airstrike was related to it. "The campaign to return the hostages continues consistently and is happening alongside the campaign against Iran," Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in a statement. Kobi Samerano said in a Facebook post that his son's remains were returned on what would have been Yonatan's 23rd birthday. Hamas-led militants killed some 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and abducted 251 people in the Oct. 7 attack. More than half the hostages have been returned in ceasefire agreements or other deals, eight have been rescued alive and Israeli forces have recovered dozens of bodies. Israel's retaliatory offensive has killed over 55,000 Palestinians, according to Gaza's Health Ministry, which has said that women and children make up more than half of the dead. It does not distinguish between civilians and combatants. Four people were killed on Sunday in an airstrike in the built-up Nuseirat refugee camp in central Gaza, according to Al-Awda Hospital, where the bodies were brought. It said another 22 people were wounded while waiting for aid trucks. Palestinian witnesses and health officials say Israeli forces have repeatedly opened fire on crowds seeking desperately needed food, killing hundreds of people in recent weeks. The military says it has fired warning shots at people it said approached its forces in a suspicious manner. Separately, World Central Kitchen, the charity run by celebrity chef José Andrés said it had resumed the distribution of hot meals in Gaza for the first time in six weeks after shutting down because of Israel's blockade, which was loosened last month amid fears of famine. The Oct. 7 attack and Israel's offensive ignited a chain of events leading to Israel's surprise attack on Iran last week. The United States entered the war overnight with attacks on three Iranian nuclear sites. The Hostages Families Forum, the main organization representing families of the hostages, has repeatedly called for a deal to release the remaining captives. "Particularly against the backdrop of current military developments and the significant achievements in Iran, we want to emphasize that bringing back the remaining 50 hostages is the key to achieving any sort of victory," it said in a statement Sunday. Hamas has said it will only release the remaining hostages in return for more Palestinian prisoners, a lasting ceasefire and an Israeli withdrawal from Gaza. Netanyahu has rejected those terms, saying Israel will continue the war until all the hostages are returned and Hamas is defeated or disarmed and sent into exile. Even then, he has said Israel will maintain lasting control over Gaza and facilitate what he refers to as the voluntary emigration of much of its population, plans the Palestinians and others view as forcible expulsion. The United States, Qatar and Egypt have been trying to broker a new ceasefire and hostage release after Israel ended a truce in March with a surprise wave of airstrikes. Those talks appear to have made little progress as Israel has expanded its air and ground offensive.
New York Post
13 hours ago
- New York Post
Israeli forces recover bodies of three hostages from Gaza
Israeli forces have recovered the bodies of three hostages which had been held in the Gaza Strip since the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas' 2023 attack, the military and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Sunday. The hostages were identified as civilians Ofra Keidar and Yonatan Samerano, and soldier Shay Levinson. 3 Yonatan Samerano was a civilian who died on October 7, 2023, the military claimed. via REUTERS Advertisement 3 Ofra Keidar was killed during the October 7, 2023 attack. via REUTERS All were killed on the day of the attack, on October 7, 2023, the military said. With their retrieval, 50 hostages now remain in Gaza, only 20 of whom are believed to be alive. Advertisement The abduction of Samerano, 21 at the time of his death, by a man later identified by Israeli officials as a worker at the UN's Palestinian refugee agency UNRWA, was caught on CCTV. 3 The remains of soldier Shay Levinson have been recovered, according to Israeli authorities. via REUTERS Around 1,200 people were killed and 251 taken hostage during the Hamas-led attack on southern Israel, according to Israeli authorities. The subsequent Israeli campaign against Hamas in Gaza has since killed more than 55,000 Palestinians, according to health authorities in the Hamas-run strip, displaced almost the entire 2.3 million population, plunged the enclave into humanitarian crisis and left much of the territory in ruins.
