Mayoral front-runner Zohran Mamdani once made a vile pronouncement tying the NYPD with the Israeli military, a shocking video that resurfaced Tuesday reveals.
“We have to make clear that when the boot of the NYPD is on your neck, it’s been laced by the IDF,” the Queens assemblyman said in 2023, referring to the Israel Defense Forces.
The comparison – which Mamdani made during a panel at the 2023 Democratic Socialists of America’s national convention, where he was the keynote speaker – drew white-hot criticism from many cops and Jewish New Yorkers, who called out the arguably antisemitic connotation.
“Sometimes it’s hard to tell if Zohran hates Jews more than he hates cops or if he hates cops more than he hates Jews,” said Kalman Yeger, a fellow state assemblyman who represents the heavily Jewish 41st District in southern Brooklyn.
Mamdani’s cringey, conspiracy-tinged remark unfolded as he sat on a DSA panel discussion titled “Socialist Internationalism: The Solution to the Crisis of Capitalism,” during which he said it was important to connect “hyperlocal” and “international issues” with residents.
“We are in a country where those connections abound. Especially in New York City, you have so many opportunities to make clear the ways in which that struggle over there is tied to capitalist interests over here,” he said.
“For anyone to care about these issues, we have to make them connected,” he continued, before typing the oppressive “boot” of the NYPD to the IDF.
“We have to make it materially connected to their lives.”
The revelation comes as Mamdani, the Democratic nominee, has just seven days to seal his ascension to City Hall in the Nov. 4 election – in part by distancing himself from his police bashing comments.
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Mamdani deflected when asked on Tuesday if he stood by his NYPD-IDF comments.
“I’ve said time and again that with public safety, I’m looking forward to working with police officers here in New York City to deliver it, and I’m looking forward to ensuring that we actually tackle the retention crisis at hand.
“But we now have about 350 officers leaving the department every month, and that is something we will bring to an end by ensuring that police officers are only asked to do the work of a police department, not the work of social services as they have it,” Mamdani said.
The progressive firebrand has tried to make nice with the nation’s largest police department and its supporters, retreating from tweets made in 2020 when he called the NYPD “racist, anti-queer & a major threat to public safety” and backed “defund the police.”
With the mayoralty within his grasp, he said would retain Jessica Tisch as police commissioner and cast his past anti-police tweets as a reaction to the murder of George Floyd.
But the 2023 video shows Mamdani still looked askance at the NYPD years after Floyd’s death sparked outrage and a racial reckoning – as noted by one police source.
“Take note this is only two years ago,” the source said. “More of the same intersectionality – the ever-expanding mumbo-jumbo of everything is about everything. Never at a loss for useful idiots.”
Many police veterans, such as the city’s longest-serving top cop Ray Kelly, already weren’t buying Mamdani’s back-the-blue pivot.
“It just underscores how unfit he is to be mayor!” Kelly, who endorsed ex-Gov. Andrew Cuomo on Monday, said about the video.
Former NYPD Commissioner Bill Bratton opined that Mamdani’s remark reflects the democratic socialist pol’s lifelong dislike of the police department.
“His views are out of touch with a majority of New Yorkers and Israelis,” Bratton said.
“The IDF is highly admired by the citizens of Israel and the NYPD is highly admired by the citizens of New York,” Bratton said.
Mamdani, a vocal critic of Israel, has also faced significant fears from many Jewish leaders, including hundreds of rabbis nationwide who signed a letter expressing alarm over “rising anti-Zionism.”
Rabbi Elliot Cosgrove of the Park Avenue Synagogue on the Upper East Side, called Mamdani’s rhetoric “deeply reckless.”
“To claim that the NYPD is ‘on your neck’ and that its ‘boot is laced by the IDF’ is the recycling of a dangerous conspiracy theory: that Jews and the Jewish state are the hidden hand behind oppression everywhere,” said Cosgrove, who recently urged his congregation to back Cuomo over Mamdani.
“New Yorkers deserve leaders who shine light rather than cast shadows, who build coalitions rather than scapegoat Jews,” he told The Post on Tuesday.
Rabbi Joseph Potasnik, executive vice president of the New York Board of Rabbis, said nothing shocks him anymore.
“It’s another statement by Mamdani that crosses the line and is totally false,” he said.
“The sad part of it is you can make fallacious statements like this with some people and get away with it.”
Republican mayoral candidate Curtis Sliwa called Mamdani’s NYPD and IDF bashing “outrageous.”
“It’s part of his anti-cop dogma. It’s part of the hatred he has projected toward the police. He conflates the two [NYPD and IDF] and he should apologize,” Sliwa said.
Mamdani has condemned antisemitism and reached out to the Jewish community, promising to represent all New Yorkers, if elected.
Some polls show Mamdani, despite his views on Israel, has strong support among many Jewish New Yorkers – with a Fox News survey showing 38% favoring him, compared to 42% for Cuomo.
