On Sept. 24, 2026, the New York Daily News reporter Josephine Stratman wrote that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu castigated New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) address he gave on Sept. 24. But Stratman left out what would have been important context to include in her piece on Netanyahu’s speech.
Stratman simply calls Mamdani “an outspoken supporter of Palestinian rights,” who has “called on the federal government to arrest Netanyahu.”
This is a woefully inadequate and dishonest description, leaving readers with a distorted picture of why Netanyahu spoke out about Mamdani.
Netanyahu criticized Mamdani for his personal associations and growing antisemitism in the city he leads. The trend is not at all helped by Mamdani’s baseless accusations that Israel is committing genocide and his refusal to condemn terror-linked rhetoric directed at NYC Jews like “Globalize the Intifada.”
His flirtations with antisemitic rhetoric and organizations have been accompanied by an 8 percent rise in anti-Jewish hate crimes in the city in 2026. Leading New York City Council Speaker Julie Menin labeled the trend “unconscionable.”
But Stratman only notes carefully selected examples of his controversies in passing.
“Netanyahu listed Mamdani’s rapport with streamer Hasan Piker, his hosting of a Palestinian journalist at Gracie Mansion and posts the mayor’s wife liked on social media as proof the mayor is antisemitic.”
Stratman then attempts to paint Netanyahu’s comments as baseless, unwarranted, or the result of some sort of personal vendetta against Mamdani for his past threats to arrest the prime minister. But, as CAMERA has written, these threats were empty, and Netanyahu knew it.
Stratman skips over a plethora of other examples of Mamdani’s controversies.
Mamdani supports the antisemitic Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions movement, which singles out Israel in lobbying for the economic, cultural, and academic boycott of the Jewish State. “My support for BDS is consistent with the core of my politics,” Mamdani has said.
As a student at Maine’s Bowdoin College, Mamdani co-founded the school’s chapter of Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP), which has endorsed the Oct. 7, 2023, massacre in southern Israel. Following the attack, the national leadership of SJP planned a National Day of Resistance for its nationwide campus chapters, which escalated into the massive wave of antisemitic incidents on college campuses we observed for the best part of two years following the Oct. 7 massacre.
One may fairly point out that SJP has grown more radical in the years since Mamdani was a part of the local Bowdoin chapter, but even during his tenure the group held events like inviting As’ad Abu Khalil to speak on campus, who accused the United States of bringing the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on itself.
A rally was held on Oct. 8, 2023, one day after the Hamas attacks, in Times Square by members of the Democratic Socialists of America (a group in which Mamdani is a member).
Mamdani also faced sustained criticism after declining to condemn the phrase “Globalize the Intifada” during his mayoral campaign. He later said he would discourage its use, but he continued to insist that he believes that the phrase represents a call for Palestinian protest and human rights. The chant honors the two Palestinian intifadas of terror in the late 80’s, 90’s, and 2000’s that killed over 1,000 Israelis.
Mamdani also sat for a friendly interview with Hasan Piker that was published on Piker’s YouTube channel on Apr. 7, 2025. Piker, among other things, called Orthodox Jews “inbred,” defended the Oct. 7 attacks, insulted his audience members who condemned the massacre, and asserted that America “deserved” the September 11attacks in the city which Mamdani now leads.
Mamdani’s wife, Rama Duwaji, liked several social media posts celebrating the Hamas invasion of southern Israel soon after it occurred. The mayor’s office did not comment on the matter at the time.
Stratman should have included the contexts about Mamdani’s record and rising attacks on Jews in the city and let her audience decide for themselves whether they merited Netanyahu’s accusation. Instead, she presented Netanyahu’s remarks through the lens of a personal dispute over Mamdani’s calls to arrest him. This is relevant to the two men’s dispute, but so are the other facts. Her readers deserved the whole truth.