New York City has 8.4m people in it; 15% (1.3m) of them are Jewish, making them a key cultural and political group. New York City also has an outsized (if dropping) cultural and political influence on the US.

There are 7.3m Jewish people in Israel, and NYC is the largest population of Jewish people outside Israel, meaning that NYC actions and opinions may have more of an influence within Israel than opinions from elsewhere.

NYC is also seen as a huge, vibrant, peaceful, multicultural city; the longtime headquartering of the United Nations there, the largest financial capital in the world, etc - all give it an emotional and cultural impact.

Here's the thing: when Americans look at Mamdani's election, we see a rejection of the current US political parties, a pushback against the oligarchs, late-stage capitalism, and the corruption and fascism of the right. For most of the people (at least on the US center and left) Mamdani's religion doesn't factor into much (if anything).

For a certain segment of Jewish Israelis who heavily lean into that identity, the election of a Muslim mayor is a threat, especially one as driven and charismatic as Mamdani. And there's a political class in Israel who is willing to promote and exploit that fear, in order to gain their own goals, whether that's increased political power, more money, or simply avoiding going to prison.

NYC has the largest jewish commiunity outside israel, many of which anti-zionists, and it shows how people of different faiths can co-live peacefully, so you can see why isreal wants to influence our politics

Israel is an important and well-intergrated piece of the US empire so they get a say in how the empire is run. Working class new yorkers don't matter in the same way.

To translate into the lies of empire: israel's importance to foreign policy goals and deep cultural ties make it an interested commentator on domestic politics.

New York is just outside of greater Israel.

/s

Why does the mayor of NYC need to have an opinion of Israel? He's not the Secretary of State

The thing about this that is really fucked up is that this watering down of the term is giving cover to actual anti-semites who really do hate jewish people no matter who and where they are.

I have taken the accusation as a hint that the person was probably saying the truth.

Statistically it works pretty well.

It always did; the West was just slow on the uptake.

Mamdani hurt the feelings of a billion Chinese people 10 million Israelis.

"The police department says..."

In fact, being pro Israel is antisemitic

You'll never convince zionists of that though

"Only two groups benefit from the conflation of zionism and Judaism: zionists, to legitimize zionism; and anti-semites, to vilify Judaism."

These days it can just be being pro-humanity and anti-genocide.

They call him Bibi because he's a big fucking Cry Bibi

Not bending over fast enough to lick the boots of Zionists/Neue-Nazis is antisemitic!

Of course it is! You must fall to the feet of the chosen people, didn't you know?

Hey, don't be so presumptuous.

It could also be Mossad.

More like the DNC

That's what fascists do. Take terms that are commonly understood to mean something serious and use it against every person/group they don't like until it loses all meaning. Then when the fascists are inevitably found to be acting exactly like that term originally described, they can discredit whoever is accusing them because "everyone uses that word for everything, you just don't like us" despite being the cause of that problem in the first place.

They don't care what it means, they just use it to bludgeon people into doing what they want.