Zohran Mamdani at the Resist Fascism Rally in Bryant Park on 27 October 2024/ Pic: Bingjiefu He
Not since 1969 has a New York mayoral candidate surpassed one million votes – and that was on the back of massive anti-war sentiment when Richard Nixon was in the White House and during the zenith of US troop numbers in Vietnam.
Zohran Mamdani’s election is a victory for the working people of New York. But it is also a victory for his support for the people of Palestine, for his standing up to the weaponisation of anti-semitism charges because of that support, and for his campaign’s repudiation of Islamophobia, which has been so entrenched in the US since the 9/11 attacks and has intensified since October 2023.
His victory marks a decisive rejection by the people of New York of all that was thrown at him by the the US president and state, and of the complicity of the powerful institutions of the city in Israel’s genocide in Gaza through their support for the Israeli state.
Above all, Mamdani’s victory gives us hope that anti-war and pro-Palestine voices can prevail.