NYC Mayor Zohran Mamdani has stepped up her opposition to AIPAC | Israel-Palestine War News

Zohran Mamdani says AIPAC has been supporting the ‘status quo for immorality’ in Palestine, a large area.

New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani has stepped up her criticism of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) after being asked if calling the pro-Israel group “monsters” would be dangerous.

Mamdani last week criticized Israel lobbyists’ spending on New York’s primary election campaign, saying AIPAC spends “millions in dark money”, drawing criticism from Jewish leaders.

“When I’m talking about AIPAC, I’m talking about an organization that has been supporting the status quo, that has fought against every attempt to provide security to people, not just in Palestine, but honestly, through a large part of the region, and it’s a culture of immorality,” said Mamdani on Monday at City Hall.

The mayor also said that more than 1,000 Palestinians in Gaza have been killed by Israeli forces since the US agreed to a “ceasefire” in October to end Israel’s civil war.

“And when it comes to how they protect the status quo, they often protect it through direct donations, like we’re seeing in the New York 13,” said Mamdani, the first Muslim mayor of New York City.

The mayor is facing criticism for comments at a rally in Vermont last week when he criticized AIPAC, which has spent a lot of money supporting Israeli candidates in this year’s US primaries.

“They move millions in dark money to achieve one goal: To protect their power so they can challenge us against each other instead of our leaders turning to the moral change we all know is necessary.

New Jersey representative Josh Gottheimer accused Mamdani of “insulting the public”.

“Replace “AIPAC” with “Jews” and it’s the oldest antisemitic conspiracy theory on the books. That’s not criticizing the lobby. It’s removing anti-Semitism from your tradition as Mayor of a city with over a million Jews. This bullshit is dangerous,” he wrote on X.

The criticism comes as a new slate of candidates is testing the Democratic Party’s political strategy in New York. primary elections. The results will show the candidates the party will nominate for the mid-term elections in November.

The position of the candidates in Israel has been a major source of information in the contests.

Adriano Espaillat, who has been working for a long time since 2017, was praised by AIPAC, while Mamdani’s backer, Darializa Avila Chevalier, was criticized for participating in pro-Palestinian protests a day after Hamas attacked southern Israel on October 7, 2023. Palestinian civilians.

Federal Election Commission records show that AIPAC’s super PAC, the United Democracy Project, made two donations last month totaling $600,000 to BOLD America, which has been providing campaign funds in support of candidate Espaillat in New York’s 13th District.