“I would wager that in the primary, more than 50% of the Jewish people voted for Mamdani,” Cuomo told the crowd of around 450 at a breakfast event Sunday at the Hampton Synagogue.
He believed they were influenced by Mamdani’s appeal to younger and first-time voters who, Cuomo said, view criticism of Israel as opposing the policies of the Israeli government in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. “They are pro-Palestinian, and they don’t consider it being anti-Israel,” he said.
“We have the largest Jewish population outside of Israel, and I was proud to be the strongest advocate,” Cuomo continued. “But many, especially younger people, don’t consider saying anti-Israel is different than being antisemitic.”
One only needs to look at the Middle East for a demonstration of that in action. Most Arab countries had Jewish populations in the tens or hundreds of thousands, but they were either intimidated into leaving or forcibly expelled during the 20th century as a misguided extension of anti-Zionism.