When Zohran Mamdani swept into office as New York City’s mayor, he entered office with a historic reputation as the most openly pro-Palestinian chief executive in the city’s modern history. Throughout his campaign, the Israeli military campaign in Gaza dominated his policy platform, with Mamdani repeatedly denouncing Israel’s actions and labeling the conflict a genocide against Palestinian people. Within days of taking office, he acted quickly to roll back two hardline pro-Israel executive orders enacted by his predecessor, Eric Adams.
The first order he revoked codified New York City’s adoption of the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) working definition of antisemitism, a framework long criticized by pro-Palestinian activists for unfairly equating legitimate criticism of the Israeli state with antisemitic hate speech. The second revoked ban barred city employees from participating in the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement, the Palestinian-led grassroots initiative that describes its mission as ending international support for Israel’s occupation and oppression of Palestinian people. In his high-profile first meeting with U.S. President Donald Trump at the White House, Mamdani also centered pro-Palestinian demands, using the Oval Office audience to push for the release of detained Palestinian activist Leqaa Kordia. Standing alongside Trump, Mamdani doubled down on a core campaign pledge: to redirect New York City tax revenues away from investments tied to Israel and toward domestic infrastructure and services for city residents.
Nearly a year into his term, however, the same progressive pro-Palestinian organizers and activists that swept Mamdani into office have turned against him, sparked by a string of unfulfilled high-profile campaign pledges that have left supporters feeling betrayed. One of the most prominent broken promises revolves around the 2024 International Criminal Court arrest warrant for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu over alleged war crimes in Gaza. During the campaign, Mamdani vowed that if Netanyahu visited New York City, his administration would uphold the ICC warrant and take the Israeli prime minister into custody, publicly calling Netanyahu a war criminal.
The test of that pledge came in July, during an interview with *The New York Times*, when Mamdani was asked directly if he would follow through on the arrest promise. He reaffirmed that Netanyahu “belongs in The Hague,” noting that his legal team was holding active discussions to clarify whether local law enforcement had the legal authority to execute the international warrant, and that he would take whatever action the law permitted. Just three days later, however, Mamdani released a public video backing away from the pledge, confirming that his administration did not hold the legal authority to enforce the ICC warrant.
When Netanyahu ultimately traveled to New York in September to address the annual United Nations General Assembly, he received a formal police escort from the New York City Police Department (NYPD) and faced no detainment during his visit. While Netanyahu spoke inside the UN headquarters, thousands of pro-Palestinian protesters — including grassroots organizers, civilian activists, actors, and elected officials — took to city streets to condemn Israel’s military campaign and Netanyahu’s leadership, with roughly 74,000 Palestinians reported killed in Gaza since the war began. Dozens of member state delegations also staged a walkout during Netanyahu’s address inside the assembly hall.
Many of the protesters who gathered outside UN headquarters were politicians who had previously endorsed or been endorsed by Mamdani, participating in a mass demonstration organized by Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP). More than a dozen of these protesters were ultimately arrested by NYPD officers, including high-profile public figures: congressional candidate Darializa Avila Chevalier, New York City Council member Chi Osse, former New York City Comptroller Brad Lander, and New York State Senate candidate Aber Kawas. Mamdani did not join the protest, nor did he follow through on his pledge to arrest Netanyahu. Instead, he posted a wordless social media video showing himself planting an olive tree at Gracie Mansion, the city’s mayoral residence, alongside Palestinian families displaced from Gaza.
The backlash was immediate: activists condemned Mamdani for making a populist pledge to arrest Netanyahu, only to allow the Israeli leader to visit unimpeded while permitting the arrest of peaceful pro-Palestinian protesters under his watch.
This month marks three years since the Hamas-led attack on southern Israel that killed hundreds and triggered Israel’s military campaign in Gaza. On the anniversary, Israeli Voices for Peace, an anti-occupation group that advocates for a secure future for both Israelis and Palestinians, held a public vigil in Manhattan’s Union Square to mourn all lives lost, including the 300 attendees killed at the Nova music festival attack in southern Israel. Mamdani appeared alongside the group at the event, a decision that sparked direct confrontation with pro-Palestinian demonstrators.
At the same time as the vigil, CUNY Students for Justice in Palestine held a parallel march from City Hall to Union Square to honor the tens of thousands of Palestinians killed in Gaza. The two gatherings converged, and pro-Palestinian protesters turned their anger directly on Mamdani, chanting “traitor” and accusing the mayor of having “blood on his hands.” Leading the protest was Hadeeqa Malik, a former intern for Mamdani who has spent three years organizing to push CUNY to divest from companies that supply Israel’s military. Speaking to Middle East Eye, Malik argued that Mamdani’s participation in the Union Square vigil amounted to “normalisation of the Zionist regime” and normalizing settler colonialism.
Malik also pointed to another unfulfilled demand: Mamdani’s failure to restructure the CUNY Board of Trustees, which controls the university system’s investment decisions. “Instead of investing into CUNY students and workers, they have decided to invest over one million dollars in weapons manufacturers,” Malik explained. “And Zohran Mamdani is one of the two people, alongside the governor of New York State, responsible for the board of trustees. So we are demanding that he abolish the board of trustees today.”
Beyond the Gaza-related pledges, activists have also slammed Mamdani for backtracking on a promise to dismantle the NYPD’s Strategic Response Group (SRG), a specialized unit trained to suppress large-scale city mobilizations and civil unrest through aggressive crowd control tactics and mass arrests. The New York Civil Liberties Union has long labeled the SRG “notoriously violent,” accusing officers of escalating confrontations and injuring New Yorkers exercising their First Amendment right to protest. Shortly after launching his 2024 mayoral campaign, Mamdani publicly pledged to disband the unit in a post on X, but he has not taken any action to follow through on that promise.
Calls to disband the SRG intensified last week after a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officer shot and killed a man in the Bronx, with the unit deployed to suppress anti-ICE protesters who gathered in response to the killing. JVP is one of the leading organizations calling for the unit’s dissolution, and has also demanded the ouster of current NYPD Commissioner Jessica Tisch, a billionaire heiress who retained her post after Mamdani took office. Mamdani, the first New York City mayor in 80 years to decline to appoint his own police commissioner, kept Tisch — a self-described “proud Zionist” originally appointed by Eric Adams — in her leadership role.
In a recent public statement, JVP argued: “Jessica Tisch’s virulent Zionist politics, connection to big tech surveillance, and commitment to sharing tactics between the NYPD and Israeli military should have led to her immediately being fired at the start of the new mayoral administration.” The Democratic Socialists of America, which supported Mamdani’s campaign, also signed an open letter last week demanding the SRG be disbanded and Tisch fired. Earlier this week, however, Mamdani publicly defended Tisch and rejected calls to remove her, pointing to a historic drop in city homicides during their time working together. “Over the last ten months that we have worked together, we delivered the lowest recorded number of Murders in our city’s history,” he said. A day after facing widespread backlash over the decision, Mamdani announced a first-of-its-kind comprehensive review of NYPD use-of-force policies — the first such review in a decade — alongside new measures to strengthen police accountability.
Mamdani has also faced criticism from pro-Palestinian activists over his recently released Strategy to Combat Antisemitism, with opponents arguing the plan allocates public funding to what they call “Zionist propagandist groups,” including the Jewish Community Relations Council of New York.
This report was originally published by Middle East Eye, an independent media outlet covering the Middle East, North Africa and surrounding regions.