New York City mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani holds a press conference at the Unisphere in the Queens borough of New York City, US, Nov. 5, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Kylie Cooper

Following the trio of far-left Democratic candidates in New York City winning their primaries on Tuesday, pro-Israel Americans are facing a reality in which the radicalism once pegged as fleeting is now settling into the Democratic Party with a sense of permanence.

The Mamdani-backed leftists include two Democratic Socialists, Darializa Avila Chevalier (NY-13) and Claire Valdez (NY-7), whose victories over their establishment-aligned challengers revived the euphoria felt among progressives following Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s (AOC) primary win over moderate Democrat Congressman Joe Crowley in 2018.

Former New York City Comptroller Brad Lander beat two-term lawmaker Dan Goldman — partly by criticizing Goldman repeatedly over supporting Israel. While Lander is not a card-carrying member of the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA), he shares an ideological worldview similar to that of Chevalier and Valdez, particularly when the issue centers on America’s alliance with Israel.

All three candidates, who hail from deep-blue districts and are poised to win in November, have repeatedly accused the Jewish State of committing genocide in Gaza and support imposing restrictions on US military assistance to Israel.

It’s worth noting that community activist-turned-candidate Chevalier attended a rally that supported the slaughter of innocent Israelis one day after the Oct. 7, 2023, massacre in New York, where swastikas were displayed and demonstrators called for the destruction of Israel.

The profanity-prone political newcomer, who co-founded the virulently antisemitic Columbia University Apartheid Divest (CUAD), has also rejected the existence of Israel.

And the Democratic Socialists’ string of success is not confined to congressional primary races in New York City.

The anti-Israel coalition continues to build its ranks, notching gains in state legislatures and mayoral races in cities like Washington, DC and Seattle, with current momentum suggesting that far-left Democrats will win congressional races in Michigan and New Jersey.

These collective victories are a troubling reminder of the antisemitic trends being normalized in the Democratic Party and confirm the flawed strategy behind framing opposition to radical left-wing politicians solely around their shared hatred of Israel.

Accusations of antisemitism leveled against an insurgent set of politicians may induce the momentary thrill of moral righteousness, but it’s an approach that’s deficient in moving politicians and their voters toward moderation.

Candidates like Chevalier, Valdez, and Mamdani-endorsed Aber Kawas, who, despite downplaying the 9/11 attacks, still won her primary for New York State Senate this week, wear their anti-Zionism as a badge of honor.

The institutional and political missteps contributing to the rising influence of Israel-hating candidates rest on a pattern of failing to address how anti-Zionist pathologies are part of a broader path toward anti-Americanism.

The anti-Zionism freely wielded within Democratic Party spaces is merely a proxy for a larger battle. Many Democratic Socialists are transparent about their contempt for America and have openly crowed about “ending the US empire.”

For her part, Chevalier has not only called for eliminating Israel but also advocated for abolishing prisons and doing away with borders.

Jewish Americans are rightly unsettled by an atmosphere under which the mayor of New York City feels at ease while decrying pro-Israel Americans as “monsters” and greets news of a Jewish politician being refused service at a local cafe with indifference.

Yet labeling Mamdani and his slew of radical comrades as anti-Israel is not making a dent in their ability to prevail electorally, nor is hectoring centrist officials about the antisemitism pervading their movement.

According to a Pew Research Center Poll published last April on Americans’ views on Israel, 60 percent of Americans have an unfavorable view of the Jewish State.

That figure is up nearly 20 points since 2022. The share of US adults with a very negative view of Israel nearly tripled from 10 percent in 2022.

The latest studies suggest that responding to new political and societal realities, which are now steeped into the American consciousness, must consist of dispensing outdated tools of persuasion through which Jewish Americans operate.

Evolving American attitudes toward Israel necessitate Jewish institutions stop marinating in a circa-2005 reality and begin elevating platforms better suited for a population and period that has demographically changed and ideologically shifted.

Issues that include strengthening border security and expanding school choice programs should be woven into the missions of our communal organizations, as these measures preserve the interests and safety of Jewish Americans.

These policy prescriptions also resonate with the US electorate, who are not metabolizing the Democratic Party’s antisemitic lurch with the same degree of alarm as American Jewry.

A middle-class American living in Indiana who harbors no attachment to Israel may not be moved by the country’s war against Hezbollah, but he may care that a likely newcomer to Congress with the last name Chevalier once bragged about using an American flag as a rag.

The Hispanic immigrant working two jobs from the Bronx may not be bothered by Democrats’ threats to withhold assistance to Israel, but she is right to be troubled by these same politicians threatening to abolish prisons and unleash a wave of lawlessness at her doorstep.

The pro-Israel community must respond to America’s new and troubling political moment with a blueprint acknowledging that this poisonous ideology is not only about breaking bonds between the US and Israel, but carries with it the larger, and ultimate, destructive goal of unraveling rights and protections that many Americans enjoy.

Even if Americans don’t feel a particular way about Israel, they don’t support abolishing the police and borders. That’s where common points of alliance can begin.

Irit Tratt is a writer residing in New York. Follow her on X @Irit_Tratt.