Shahana Hanif, a far-left city councilwoman in Brooklyn, has been scrubbing her campaign site and social media of past comments calling to defund the police — as she prepares to face a new Democratic primary challenger who has criticized her approach to public safety and handling of rising antisemitism. 

In recent weeks, Hanif’s campaign site has been purged of a detailed policy page that had featured a pledge to “defund the police and reduce our police force to zero,” while vowing to “disband the use of jails and prisons,” among other extreme measures. 

The page, which includes policies that Hanif had touted during her first campaign in 2021, had been publicly viewable as recently as Dec. 12, according to archived screenshots on the WayBack Machine, shortly after her challenger had entered the race.

Her revamped campaign site now includes no references to defunding the police or public safety, which is expected to be among the top issues in the competitive June primary to represent a progressive district in central Brooklyn covering neighborhoods such as Park Slope.

Meanwhile, Hanif, a Democratic socialist who has faced backlash from Jewish constituents over her hostile views on Israel and response to antisemitic incidents in the district, has also removed at least two past tweets endorsing the movement to divest from law enforcement. The posts, both published in 2021, appear to have been deleted in the last month or so.

“NYPD has unjustly surveilled & brutalized Black and brown communities for far too long. It’s time to defund the NYPD,” Hanif said in one of the deleted tweets. “DEFUND THE POLICE,” she wrote in the other. “NOW.”

Two other social media posts from 2020 calling to defund the police were otherwise still available on Hanif’s personal X account as recently as Thursday.

Hanif’s campaign did not respond to a request for comment regarding the deleted posts and whether her recently amended website represents a change in position for the councilwoman as she has drawn renewed scrutiny over her views on public safety.

As a co-chair of the Council’s Progressive Caucus, Hanif has committed to a statement of principles that includes a controversial pledge to “reduce the size and scope of the NYPD,” a demand that led to an exodus of members when it was introduced two years ago.

But a recent absence of rhetoric supporting the defund movement suggests that Hanif may now be downplaying her views amid a new primary threat from Maya Kornberg, a Jewish Democrat who has identified as a pragmatic progressive while drawing sharp contrasts on public safety and other issues.

On her own campaign site, for instance, Kornberg, a senior researcher at New York University’s Brennan Center for Justice who launched her campaign early last month, takes a veiled swipe at Hanif in arguing that “calls to defund the police are only hurting local communities’ safety.”

In a recent interview with City & State, Kornberg said that her approach to policing is among “several policies” where she “may differ” from Hanif, even as she described the criminal justice system as “deeply broken.”

“I think the way to fix things is to take a nuanced approach that brings in the different stakeholders,” she noted. “One of the things that that includes is being in conversation with local law enforcement.”

Kornberg, who last month qualified for the city’s first round of public matching funds, has also raised concerns that Hanif has failed to address fears from Jewish voters about rising antisemitism, saying that there is room for improvement on such outreach in the heavily Jewish district.

For her part, Hanif, who did not receive the initial tranche of matching funds because she did not file paperwork in time, is seeking to counter claims that her constituent services are lacking — including in a recent government mailer listing accomplishments in the district.

In a brief section addressing public safety, Hanif eschews any mention of defunding the police and instead details a community self-defense class her office hosted “in response to rising reports of sexual assault and harassment.”

“Together,” Hanif writes in the mailer, “we can empower ourselves and each other with the skills and knowledge needed to disrupt and stop violence in our neighborhoods.”