ADL's move to establish 'Mamdani Monitor' decried as scaremongering and Islamophobia

The pro-Israel Anti-Defamation League (ADL) plans to track and monitor the policies and personnel appointments of New York City mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani, according to a press statement released on Wednesday.

“Mayor-Elect Mamdani has promoted antisemitic narratives, associated with individuals who have a history of antisemitism, and demonstrated intense animosity toward the Jewish state that is counter to the views of the overwhelming majority of Jewish New Yorkers,” Jonathan Greenblatt, the ADL's CEO and national director, said in a statement.

“We are deeply concerned that those individuals and principles will influence his administration at a time when we are tracking a brazen surge of harassment, vandalism and violence targeting Jewish residents and institutions in recent years,” he added.

The ADL has long been denounced by pro-Palestinian groups for describing Palestinian rights movements as antisemitic. The organisation has also, in the past, worked with US law enforcement to spy on and target Arab-American groups and has facilitated and funded US police training trips to Israel.

The ADL said it would establish a tipline that will serve as a “hyper-focused resource for New Yorkers to report antisemitic incidents in the city, including on the streets, in schools, in their workplace”.

The ADL-led surveillance would be used to feed information to a “Mamdani Monitor”, which will include information about the mayor’s policies and governance. The pro-Israel group said it would be bolstering its “research capabilities”.

The move sparked backlash online and from Muslim civil rights groups.

"The ADL has never established a special monitor to harass any other elected official, including politicians who have actually expressed real bigotry against Jewish Americans. Singling out Mayor-Elect Mamdani is an act of hypocrisy and anti-Muslim bigotry, pure and simple,” the Council on American-Islamic Relations (Cair) said on Wednesday.

“We strongly condemn the ADL's increasingly unhinged, desperate attacks on American Muslims and other advocates for Palestinian human rights, and we call on New York community leaders to do the same,” Cair added.

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Kenneth Roth, the former head of Human Rights Watch, called the move on social media “Awful scaremongering from an organization that pretends to fight racism in all forms but really defends Israel.”

“Why does Mamdani need special monitoring? Because he is Muslim? Because he criticizes Israel for such things as its genocide?” Roth wrote.

Mamdani, the first Muslim mayor of New York City and a self-declared Democratic Socialist, swept to victory on Tuesday night, winning four out of five of the city’s boroughs in the mayoral elections. He will take office on 1 January 2026.

No mayor-elect of New York City has ever been as outspoken about Israel's violations of international law and the cause of the Palestinian people as Mamdani has.

Throughout his campaign, he faced repeated attacks from pro-Israel voices over his positions.

Islamophobic attacks

Mamdani has accused Israel of committing genocide in Gaza, and has said he would arrest Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu - per the International Criminal Court warrant - if he visited New York. Mamdani later walked back that claim.

He was attacked with Islamophobic comments by several pro-Israel groups and his independent challenger, former New York Governor Andrew Cuomo.

The Center for the Study of Organized Hate revealed in a 20-page document on Monday that Islamophobic and xenophobic discourse surrounding Mamdani on X had increased 450 percent between September and October.

Republican Congressman Andy Ogles called for Mamdani to be deported and denaturalised over the summer.

Ogles said:  "Zohran 'little muhammad' Mamdani is an antisemitic, socialist, communist who will destroy the great City of New York. He needs to be DEPORTED. Which is why I am calling for him to be subject to denaturalization proceedings.”

Meanwhile, Stephen Miller, the White House assistant chief of staff, who is frequently referred to as the architect behind Trump’s immigration policies, alluded to Mamdani in a post on X on 25 June, saying that “NYC is the clearest warning yet of what happens to a society when it fails to control migration.”

On the ground, however, Mamdani made deep inroads with Jewish New Yorkers, particularly young Jewish voters concerned about affordability.