Zohran Mamdani: ‘Globalize the Intifada’ or the Reinvention of Goebbels’ Doctrine?

Since winning the Democratic primary for New York City mayor, Zohran Kwame Mamdani has spent more time addressing outrage over two words he never actually said than outlining his vision for the city. Ironically, his rivals’ overreach—each scrambling to outdo one another in pledging allegiance to Israel —may have only strengthened his support, exposing just how far and how low, candidates will go to pander for the ‘Israel first’ voters.

Last week, NBC’s Meet the Press anchor Kristen Welker repeatedly pressed Mamdani to denounce the slogan “Globalise the Intifada”—a phrase he did not use. In response, Mamdani calmly replied, “That’s not language that I use. The language that I use … is an intent grounded in a belief in universal human rights.” His nuanced, rights-based position wasn’t enough. Why? Because Mamdani’s unapologetic commitment to universal human rights includes Palestinians. And that inclusion violates an unspoken rule in US politics: thou shalt not challenge Israeli impunity.

Rather than engaging with Mamdani’s positions on crime, housing, transportation, or education—issues that directly impact New Yorkers—mainstream media and traditional politicians are fixated on a phrase rooted in Arabic, distorted beyond recognition by Israeli apologists ignorant of its linguistic meaning or context.

Let’s be clear about what “Globalize the Intifada” actually means. In Arabic, intifada means “to shake off” or “uprising”—a grassroots resistance to oppression and military occupation, not a religious war or ethnic hate. Activists use the slogan to express global solidarity with Palestinians enduring Israeli apartheid, ethnic cleansing and ongoing genocide. It is a call for justice, not violence—not against Jews or anyone else. Unless, of course, one believes that opposing the Israeli genocide in Gaza is inherently anti-Jewish.

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The Western, Israeli-managed media and political pundits, whether out of ignorance or deliberate bad faith, misrepresent the phrase as a genocidal threat. This is not a misunderstanding. It’s a manipulative propaganda tactic drawn straight from Joseph Goebbels’ playbook: “If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it.”

The hypocrisy is glaring: Mamdani is being hounded for allegedly failing to disavow a slogan used by others. The media and political establishment weren’t interested in clarity or context. They were hunting for soundbites to fit a manufactured narrative—one that frames any meaningful support for Palestinian human rights as a threat to AIPAC-controlled American political order. 

Instead of obsessing over a mistranslated phrase, why not ask Mamdani’s opponents where they stand on the International Criminal Court’s arrest warrants for Israeli leaders accused of war crimes? Or whether they condemn Israeli Prime Minister’s invocation of a biblical command to ‘

“go and smite Amalek… slay both man and woman, infant and suckling, ox and sheep, camel and ass”—a call he made in reference to Gaza? Or whether they reject the explicitly genocidal rhetoric of Bezalel Smotrich, Itamar Ben-Gavr, and Yoav Gallant, who have laid bare Israel’s war crimes in Gaza.

The answer is simple: in US media and politics, Palestinian lives simply don’t count. Any attempt to humanise them—to advocate for equal rights or to contextualize their struggle—is smeared as extremism. The obsession with Mamdani’s imagined offenses, while ignoring candidates who defend real war crimes, reveals more than double standards. It exposes a deeper rot: racism and Islamophobia thinly disguised as performative concern for “the Jewish people.”

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But this isn’t about defending Jews—many of whom, especially younger voters, supported Mamdani and rejected Israeli apartheid. It’s about kowtowing to AIPAC’s rigid pro-Israel orthodoxy. Nuance isn’t tolerated. Obedience is expected.

This controversy isn’t about slogans. It’s about silencing those who humanise Palestinians. When the pro-genocide political class turns the word intifada into a dog whistle for antisemitism, they’re not simply mistranslating—they’re delegitimising the entire Palestinian struggle. Unable to defend war crimes, they resort to Orwellian doublespeak, reducing complex history and human suffering to inflammatory buzzwords. They weaponise a foreign phrase to deflect from a brutal occupation, ethnic cleansing and genocide in Gaza.

What Mamdani is facing isn’t new. Malcolm X warned us long ago: “If you’re not careful, the newspapers will have you hating the people who are being oppressed and loving the people who are doing the oppressing.” In today’s context, the pro-genocide lobby wants you to fear the victims and glorify the perpetrators.

Let’s not be fooled. The real scandal is not that a progressive candidate refuses to grovel before Israel’s apologists. The real scandal is the ruling political class itself. The attacks on Mamdani expose a dangerous erosion of democratic norms. When candidates are demonised for defending human rights, when slogans are twisted into slurs, when the president implies that certain elected officials don’t “belong” here, we are witnessing not just a smear campaign—but an authoritarian impulse.

This isn’t about a single phrase—it’s about gaslighting the American public and whether they can exercise their First Amendment rights without fear, censorship, or political blackmail. censorship, or political blackmail. Mamdani is not the threat. The real danger lies in those who manipulate language, weaponise identity, and turn lies into truth—from the distortions about 7 October to the century-old Zionist myths—to shield a foreign apartheid state from accountability.

This is about more than a slogan. It’s about universal justice—and that’s what terrifies the political class and those invested in preserving the fables of Israeli exceptionalism.

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The views expressed in this article belong to the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Middle East Monitor.