Mamdani's Primary Wins Deepen Democratic Rift on Israel as Netanyahu-Trump Feud Intensifies

New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani backed three pro-Palestinian candidates to congressional primary victories Tuesday, knocking out two Democratic incumbents including Representative Dan Goldman and accelerating a party-wide shift away from Israel that Republicans have already branded the "Commie Corridor." The results arrived as President Donald Trump's relationship with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu hit new lows, with Trump privately calling the prime minister expletive-laden names and accusing Netanyahu's continued Lebanon strikes of undermining U.S.-Iran nuclear negotiations, according to "Regime Change," the book by journalists Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan.

Netanyahu's Fracturing Alliance With the White House

Trump's frustration with Netanyahu spans the personal and the strategic. He told the prime minister "you'd be in prison if it wasn't for me" and "all the Jews are sick of you," according to "Regime Change," while accusing Netanyahu's ongoing Hezbollah strikes in Lebanon of wrecking U.S. efforts to reach a nuclear agreement with Iran. The Iran war has already cost $80 billion — more than double the figure Congress was originally given — and Trump has separately requested $672 million to halt Iranian nuclear development as negotiations proceed.

Netanyahu also faces a long-delayed corruption trial postponed because of Israel's wars against Hamas and now Iran. Though both governments cooperated on strikes against Iran, the alliance has frayed sharply since.

Goldman Ousted, Lander Advances — and Chevalier Walks Out

Former New York City Comptroller Brad Lander, Mamdani's pick, defeated Goldman after arguing the congressman's Israel support made the United States "complicit in genocide." Goldman, who rejected that framing, warned after his loss that anti-Semitic tropes had surfaced during the campaign and would ultimately threaten democracy if left unchallenged.

A second Mamdani-backed winner, community organizer Darializa Avila Chevalier, walked out of a radio interview on Election Day when pressed on past social media posts supporting police abolition, ICE elimination, and a statement that "Israel doesn't exist." Chevalier said only that she regrets past tweets generally; some of those posts date to 2022.

A National Fault Line, Drawn in New York

Voters in New York City — home to the largest Jewish population outside Israel — ignored endorsements from House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries and Senator Chuck Schumer, in a race that drew roughly half the turnout of Mamdani's own mayoral contest. New York Attorney General Letitia James said she was "disappointed," questioning whether some winning candidates understood the cultural and political differences across districts.

Thomas Friedman, a three-time Pulitzer Prize winner writing in The New York Times, argued that Netanyahu "never nurtured or welcomed a moderate Palestinian alternative," leaving a civilian death toll — Hamas puts the figure at 70,000, following the October 7, 2023 attack in which Hamas killed more than 1,200 Israelis — to register internationally as killing, not governance transition. Tuesday's primaries suggest the Democratic Party's calculus on Israel is moving in the same direction.