Former New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo spoke out against Zohran Mamdani, his top rival in New York City’s Democratic mayoral primary on Tuesday, for defending calls to “globalize the intifada” in a widely criticized podcast appearance this week.

“Yesterday when Zohran Mamdani was asked a direct question about what he thought of the phrase ‘globalize the intifada,’ he dismissed it as ‘language that is subject to interpretation,’” Cuomo said in a social media post on Wednesday. “That is not only wrong — it is dangerous. At a time when we are seeing antisemitism on the rise and in fact witnessing once again violence against Jews resulting in their deaths in Washington, D.C., or their burning in Denver — we know all too well that words matter. They fuel hate. They fuel murder.”

Mamdani, a far-left state assemblyman from Queens who is polling in second place behind Cuomo, has faced backlash over his comments in an interview with The Bulwark, where he characterized the slogan heard frequently at anti-Israel protests as an expression of Palestinian rights and invoked a prominent act of Jewish resistance to Nazi Germany to justify its usage, even as the phrase has been criticized as a call to violence against Jews.

“I think what’s difficult also is that the very word has been used by the Holocaust Museum when translating the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising into Arabic, because it’s a word that means struggle,” Mamdani said on the podcast, in an apparent reference to the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington.

For its part, the museum, which rarely weighs in on domestic politics, dismissed Mamdani’s comments in a sharply worded social media post on Wednesday that did not mention him by name. 

“Exploiting the Museum and the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising to sanitize ‘globalize the intifada’ is outrageous and especially offensive to survivors,” the museum said. “Since 1987 Jews have been attacked and murdered under its banner. All leaders must condemn its use and the abuse of history.”

Pressed to respond to the outage over his comments, Mamdani said in an emotional press conference on Wednesday that he is frequently targeted for his Muslim faith. “I try not to talk about it,” he said, choking up. “My focus has always been on making this a city that’s affordable, on making this a city that every New Yorker sees themself in,” he added, “and it takes a toll.”  

“The thing that’s made me proudest in this campaign is that the strength of our movement is built on our ability to have built something across Jewish and Muslim New Yorkers,” he said, adding that “antisemitism is such a real issue in this city, and it has been hard to see it weaponized by candidates who do not seem to have any sincere interest in tackling it but rather in using it as a pretext to make political points.”

Ted Deutch, the CEO of the American Jewish Committee, also took offense at Mamdani’s framing, saying his invocation of the Holocaust Museum “is as offensive as it is outrageous” in comments posted to social media on Wednesday. 

“I don’t know this candidate, but I know a lot of fine elected officials in the city he wants to run,” Deutch added. “ALL OF THEM should condemn the use of ‘globalize the intifada’ as the call to violence that it is. And they should tell Mr. Mamdani that if he really wants to keep Jews safe, he must do the same.”

Cuomo, who along with his allies has accused Mamdani of espousing anti-Israel rhetoric amid a recent surge of antisemitic incidents, likewise called on his opponents in the primary “to join together to denounce Mr. Mamdani’s comments because hate has no place in New York.”

“There are no two sides here,” Cuomo wrote. “There is nothing complicated about what this means.”

Whitney Tilson, a former hedge fund executive seeking the Democratic nomination who has been highly critical of Mamdani’s anti-Israel views, also took aim at the state assemblyman in a statement on Wednesday.

“Mamdani’s refusal to disavow terrorism against Jews is utterly disqualifying,” Tilson argued. “His assurances that he will protect Jewish New Yorkers ring hollow.”

A spokesperson for Mamdani did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Brad Lander, the Jewish city comptroller who is polling in third place and recently cross-endorsed with Mamdani, said at a town hall hosted by the UJA-Federation of New York earlier this month that he does not immediately view calls to “globalize the intifada” as antisemitic, arguing the phrase is “really complicated” and that such judgements depend on context.

“The First Intifada was relatively nonviolent, and the Second Intifada was quite violent,” Lander said of the Palestinian uprisings that began in 1987 and ended in the early 2000s, killing more than 1,000 Israelis in a series of attacks targeting civilians and soldiers alike. “So if you say ‘globalize the intifada,’ you are at very least, at the very least, playing with vague language.”

The phrase has also stirred controversy further down the ballot. Shahana Hanif, a far-left city councilwoman in Brooklyn who has clinched endorsements from Lander and Mamdani as she faces a primary challenge, has also drawn scrutiny for amplifying a call to “globalize the intifada” on social media before she took office.

While she had initially dismissed complaints from Jewish leaders who took issue with her decision to endorse the phrase, Hanif, an outspoken critic of Israel, ultimately relented — deleting the post and  expressing regret for boosting a message that many voters had found concerning.

“I unequivocally apologize for this,” Hanif wrote in a letter to Jewish community members last fall. “I understand now that the phrase can invoke feelings of hostility, discrimination and fear for Jewish people. It was never my intention to promote such messaging, and I removed the post as soon as I recognized its harmful implications.”