Zohran Mamdani, a leading candidate in next Tuesday’s New York City mayoral primary, refused to condemn calls to “globalize the intifada” during a new podcast interview with The Bulwark released on Tuesday, arguing the phrase is an expression of Palestinian rights.

In an exchange about antisemitic rhetoric on the left, Mamdani was asked by podcast host Tim Miller to share his thoughts on the phrase, which has been invoked at anti-Israel demonstrations and criticized as an anti-Jewish call to violence.

“To me, ultimately, what I hear in so many is a desperate desire for equality and equal rights in standing up for Palestinian human rights,” said Mamdani, a far-left assemblyman from Queens who has long been an outspoken critic of Israel. “And 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,” he said, apparently referring to the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington.

He added that, “as a Muslim man who grew up post-9/11, I’m all too familiar in the way in which Arabic words can be twisted, can be distorted, can be used to justify any kind of meaning.”

“I think that’s where it leaves me with a sense that what we need to do is focus on keeping Jewish New Yorkers safe,” Mamdani continued, after noting that antisemitism is a “real issue” he plans to address if elected mayor. “The question of the permissibility of language is something that I haven’t ventured into.”

Mamdani, who is polling in second place behind former Gov. Andrew Cuomo, has faced criticism over his approach to Israel during the campaign. He has declined to acknowledge Israel’s right to exist as a Jewish state and said he would divest from Israel if elected, among other comments and actions that have raised alarms among many Jewish voters.

Cuomo, who has deemed rising antisemitism “the most important issue” in the race, has for his part denounced calls to “globalize the intifada,” saying that such phrases are “giving license to come after Jews.”

Earlier this month, the UJA-Federation of New York and other local Jewish groups called on all candidates running for mayor “to unequivocally condemn dangerous rhetoric — such as ‘globalize the intifada’ — that has inspired deadly acts against Jews, most recently in Colorado, Washington, D.C., and Pennsylvania.”