Date: Published On 5 Nov 20255 Nov 2025Published On 5 Nov 20255 Nov 2025SaveSave5 Nov 2025 - 10:59 (10:59 GMT)5 Nov 2025 - 10:59 (10:59 GMT) (10:59 GMT)5 Nov 2025 - 10:50 (10:50 GMT)5 Nov 2025 - 10:50
Location: www.aljazeera.com
Amichai Chikli, Israel’s minister of diaspora affairs and combating anti-Semitism, has launched a scathing attack on the New York mayor-elect, accusing him of holding views that are “not far” from those of the perpetrators of the September 11, 2001, attacks in the US.
“A supporter of Hamas, someone whose views are not far from those of the fanatic jihadists who murdered three thousand people 25 years ago,” Chikli said in a post on X, describing Mamdani’s election as a “critical turning point” for New York.
Avigdor Liberman, chairman of the Yisrael Beytenu opposition party, likewise accused Mamdani of supporting Hamas,
“Just three decades after the Twin Towers disaster, New York has elected a racist, populist, and openly Shiite Islamist as its mayor,” Liberman said on X.
The two men did not provide evidence for their claims that Mamdani supports Hamas.
Mamdani, a strident critic of Israel’s war in Gaza, has not publicly expressed support for Hamas and has described the Palestinian group’s October 7, 2023, attacks on Israel as a “horrific war crime”.
Mamdani attracted a firestorm of criticism last month, however, when he declined to directly answer a question about whether Hamas should lay down its arms during an interview with Fox News.
“I don’t really have opinions about the future of Hamas and Israel beyond the question of justice and safety and the fact that anything has to abide by international law, and that applies to Hamas, that applies to the Israeli military and that applies to anyone you could ask me about,” he said.