Ofir Akunis likens Mayor Zohran Mamdani to the Third Reich just as Likud turns him into a campaign bogeyman ahead of October 27. But the case against Mamdani is already damning on the facts: the analogy weakens it — and hands the mayor the only defense he had.
Ofir Akunis wasn't looking for nuance. In an interview with JTA in his Midtown East office on the eve of Rosh Hashanah, Israel's consul general in New York compared Mayor Zohran Mamdani's support for the boycott movement against Israel to the methods of Nazi Germany, called him an "antisemite," and held him directly responsible for attacks on Jews and Jewish institutions in the city. Last month, speaking to young community leaders, he was already describing the mayor's "method": "Whatever happens, blame the Jews. Exactly the same method the Third Reich used a century ago."
The starting point, however, is real. On his first day at City Hall, Mamdani rescinded his predecessor Eric Adams's executive order against the BDS movement. He called AIPAC "monsters." He refuses to recognize Israel as a Jewish state, on the grounds that he cannot endorse states that privilege a "religion" — a scruple that didn't stop him from marching in Pakistan's independence day parade while snubbing Israel's. Michael Miller, who led the JCRC for thirty-five years, sums up the difficulty: Akunis has to "deal with a mayor who does not believe in the legitimacy of the country" he represents.
