Daily News: Zohran ‘fuels fires of hate’

The editorial board of the New York Daily News, which endorsed Joe Biden for president in 2020 and whose owner has discontinued endorsements, stated that Zohran Mamdani, the Democratic nominee for mayor, “must disavow the language of Jewish hate or stop pretending he believes in unity.”

“Mamdani can’t just say he’s not antisemitic and that he wants to protect all New Yorkers,” the board said. “Those are hollow words that he continues to undermine by his actions, by using and supporting language and positions that fuel the fires of hate.”

“His candidacy and naive, even cartoonish, positions on the Mideast have rightly sparked fear among Jewish New Yorkers,” it added.

The editorial board wrote that Mamdani will need to engage more effectively with New York Jews and change his language, which has been “harmful to the New Yorkers he hopes to lead.”

“A Muslim who backs rights for Palestinians, Mamdani accuses Israel of committing ‘genocide’ against Palestinians in the war in Gaza, which is the intentional extermination of a people,” the board continued. “The false charge is even more hurtful to be laid on one of the few world populations, the Jews, on whom a real genocide was inflicted.”

The paper’s editorial board criticized Mamdani’s repeated refusal to condemn the chant “globalize the intifada” and said that his support for the movement to boycott Israel singles out the world’s only Jewish state.

“There was a time — well before the Hamas Oct. 7 terror attack slaughtered 1,200 Israelis — that many in Israel supported the idea of an independent Palestinian state in exchange for lasting peace,” the board stated. “Mamdani wants that, but refuses to support an independent Jewish state.”

“Yaron Lischinsky and Sarah Milgrim were gunned down in Washington by a gunman shouting ‘free Palestine’,” the board observed. “You cannot simply disavow violence. You must disavow the words and beliefs that drive the hatred.” —JNS