{"id":8968,"date":"2025-09-11T06:53:08","date_gmt":"2025-09-11T06:53:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/8968\/"},"modified":"2025-09-11T06:53:08","modified_gmt":"2025-09-11T06:53:08","slug":"gaza-war-turns-new-yorkers-against-israel-with-mayors-race-as-backdrop","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/8968\/","title":{"rendered":"Gaza War Turns New Yorkers Against Israel, With Mayor\u2019s Race as Backdrop"},"content":{"rendered":"

Two years after Hamas\u2019s terrorist attack on Oct. 7, 2023, and Israel\u2019s subsequent invasion of Gaza, New Yorkers now broadly sympathize with Palestinians over Israelis in the ongoing conflict, according to a new survey by The New York Times and Siena University<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The yawning gap of perspectives toward the conflict \u2014 44 percent of registered New York City voters sympathized more with Palestinians; 26 percent sympathized more with Israel \u2014 is particularly stark given that the city is home to the largest Jewish population outside Israel. The poll also found that voters broadly think that criticizing Israel is not inherently antisemitic, 51 percent to 31 percent.<\/p>\n

Israel\u2019s prosecution of the war<\/a> and its restrictions on aid<\/a> to Gaza have played a part in sullying New Yorkers\u2019 opinion of the country\u2019s actions, and have led many \u2014 including traditionally staunch allies of Israel \u2014 to shift their views and speak out<\/a> against the government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. While the Times\/Siena poll has not previously surveyed voters in the city on this topic, national polls have shown Americans becoming ever more critical of Israel as the war has continued.<\/p>\n

These views have filtered down to the mayor\u2019s race, which is currently led by Assemblyman Zohran Mamdani, the Democratic nominee who has aligned himself firmly with the plight of Palestinians, calling Israel\u2019s actions in Gaza a \u201cgenocide.\u201d <\/p>\n

More than 60,000 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza, according to health officials there. Residents are struggling to feed themselves amid Mr. Netanyahu\u2019s push to expand<\/a> the war. Mr. Netanyahu has said assertions of a famine in Gaza<\/a> are exaggerated and that the war must continue until Hamas disarms and releases the remaining hostages<\/a> it took in 2023, in an attack that killed about 1,200 people.<\/p>\n

Mr. Mamdani\u2019s beliefs would traditionally be considered disqualifying by many New York City voters, and they stand in stark contrast to the positions held by his two most prominent general election opponents, Mayor Eric Adams and former Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo. Both are Democrats who are now campaigning as independents. They, along with Curtis Sliwa, the Republican candidate<\/a>, are polling far behind Mr. Mamdani among likely voters.<\/p>\n

Mr. Adams and Mr. Cuomo have relentlessly criticized Mr. Mamdani\u2019s stance on Israel, calling him an antisemite and terrorist sympathizer. The poll\u2019s findings underscore just how much Mr. Adams and Mr. Cuomo may have misread the electorate by expending energy to attack Mr. Mamdani\u2019s views on Israel.<\/p>\n

In fact, Mr. Mamdani had a slim lead among the poll\u2019s relatively small sample of Jewish likely voters with about 30 percent support, closely followed by Mr. Adams and Mr. Cuomo.<\/p>\n

More than 70 percent of Jewish voters said they sympathized with Israel, compared with about 20 percent who said they sympathized with Palestinians.<\/p>\n

Overall, Mr. Mamdani leads the pack in terms of who voters think has best addressed the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, with 39 percent preferring his approach. By comparison, 17 percent said they thought Mr. Cuomo had best addressed the conflict and just 10 percent preferred Mr. Adams.<\/p>\n

Mr. Mamdani\u2019s primary victory and continued electoral strength have been driven by strong support from younger voters. This demographic group was especially likely to say Mr. Mamdani had best addressed the conflict.<\/p>\n

Aamina Mohammed, 19, said that Mr. Mamdani\u2019s response after he was asked during a primary debate where he would travel first if elected mayor stuck with her. Several of the other candidates, including Mr. Cuomo, said Israel, while Mr. Mamdani said he would stay in New York City.<\/p>\n

The candidate\u2019s focus on New Yorkers\u2019 struggles to afford rent and his willingness to speak out against Israel has led Ms. Mohammed to back him.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t recognize a state that literally is killing people,\u201d she said. \u201cYou cannot make up the things that people are posting online, showing you blown-up children. You can\u2019t make that up.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mr. Mamdani\u2019s backers were far more likely to sympathize with Palestinian interests, the poll found. Mr. Cuomo\u2019s supporters were slightly more sympathetic to Israel (38 percent), but a sizable share (28 percent) were sympathetic to Palestinians and many (18 percent) supported both groups equally. Even among Mr. Cuomo\u2019s own supporters, only about half said he had best addressed the conflict; 12 percent of them said Mr. Mamdani had done a better job.<\/p>\n

During the primary, Mr. Cuomo assiduously courted Jewish voters \u2014 particularly Orthodox Jews who had previously been skeptical of him<\/a> because of Covid restrictions during his governorship. Last year, Mr. Cuomo founded a pro-Israel advocacy group and said he would join Mr. Netanyahu\u2019s legal defense team<\/a> after the International Criminal Court issued an arrest warrant for him.<\/p>\n

\u201cDo you stand with Israel or do you stand against Israel?\u201d Mr. Cuomo said in 2023<\/a>. \u201cBecause silence is not an option.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mr. Mamdani has strongly disputed<\/a> assertions that he is antisemitic and has spoken frequently<\/a> about expanding the city\u2019s efforts to protect Jewish New Yorkers and combat antisemitism if he is elected.<\/p>\n

While Mr. Cuomo has continued to denounce Mr. Mamdani\u2019s views, the former governor\u2019s supporters are not especially likely to say that criticizing Israel is antisemitic. A plurality of his supporters, about 43 percent, said that such criticism is not antisemitic, not dissimilar to the share of New Yorkers overall. About half of registered voters said they thought criticizing Israel is not inherently antisemitic.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Israeli government is extreme. It\u2019s right-wing, and the public is not happy with them,\u201d said Lisa Sopher, a Manhattan resident who is Modern Orthodox. She supports Mr. Cuomo, she said, in part because she objected to Mr. Mamdani\u2019s initial reluctance to disavow the phrase \u201cglobalize the intifada,\u201d which some see as a call for violence against Jews.<\/p>\n

Mr. Mamdani has since said he does not use the phrase and would discourage its use<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Here are the key things to know about this Times\/Siena poll:<\/p>\n

This poll was conducted in English and Spanish, by telephone using live interviewers and by text message. Overall, more than 99 percent of respondents were contacted on their cellphones. You can see the exact questions that were asked and the order in which they were asked here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Voters are selected for the survey from a list of registered voters. The list contains information on the demographic characteristics of every registered voter, allowing us to make sure we reach the right number of voters of each party, race and borough. For this poll, interviewers placed more than 163,000 calls or texts to more than 81,000 voters.<\/p>\n

To further ensure that the results reflect the entire voting population, not just those willing to take a poll, we give more weight to respondents from demographic groups that are underrepresented among survey respondents, like people without a college degree. You can see more information about the characteristics of our respondents and the weighted sample at the bottom of the methodology page<\/a>, under \u201cComposition of the Sample.\u201d<\/p>\n

The margin of sampling error among the electorate that is likely to vote in November is about plus or minus 3.6 percentage points. In theory, this means that the results should reflect the views of the overall population most of the time, though many other challenges create additional sources of error. When the difference between two values is computed \u2014 such as a candidate\u2019s lead in a race \u2014 the margin of error is twice as large.<\/p>\n

Findings among demographic groups carry larger margins of error, and additional considerations, such as the challenge of ensuring each subgroup is demographically representative, mean that results among such groups are less precise.<\/p>\n

If you want to read more about how and why The Times\/Siena Poll is conducted, you can see answers to frequently asked questions and submit your own questions here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Two years after Hamas\u2019s terrorist attack on Oct. 7, 2023, and Israel\u2019s subsequent invasion of Gaza, New Yorkers…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":8969,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[9994,9993,85,46,9995,9991,5708,9990,43,2200,9989,9988,9992],"class_list":["post-8968","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-israel","tag-andrew-m","tag-cuomo","tag-il","tag-israel","tag-jews-and-judaism","tag-mamdani","tag-new-york-city","tag-new-york-times-siena-college-poll","tag-news","tag-palestinians","tag-politics-and-government","tag-polls-and-public-opinion","tag-zohran"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8968","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8968"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8968\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/8969"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8968"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8968"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8968"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}