On Thursday night, around 100 masked activists gathered outside Young Israel synagogue in the Queens neighbourhood of Kew Gardens Hills. They chanted “Say it loud, say it clear, we support Hamas here” and “Death to the IDF” while banging drums. Local schools and a daycare centre closed early. Jewish families stayed indoors. The NYPD set up barricades to keep the protesters from counter-demonstrators and synagogue-goers alike.

Within hours, a parade of prominent Democrats issued nearly identical condemnations. Senator Chuck Schumer, perhaps the loudest pro-Israel Democrat voice on the Left, called the chanting “antisemitic and unacceptable”, while Governor Kathy Hochul declared that Hamas “is a terrorist organisation that calls for the genocide of Jews”. For her part, Attorney General Letitia James offered a terse statement: “Hamas is a terrorist organization. We do not support terrorists. Period.”

That the moderate wing of the party spoke out against these chants is perhaps unsurprising. What was surprising, however, was that far-Left voices also cried out. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez weighed in, calling it “disgusting and antisemitic” to march into a Jewish neighbourhood chanting support for Hamas. And most astonishing of all, newly-elected New York City mayor Zohran Mamdani, who did not carry a majority of the city’s Jewish voters, posted a screenshot of New York Times coverage of the protest and stated that “chants in support of a terrorist organization have no place in our city.”

The coordination was so obvious that observers on the Right immediately noticed. “The Democrats got new talking points, but the question is why this sudden shift in direction that betrays a part of their lunatic base?” one viral post asked. The answer surely has something to do with the midterm elections in November. Jewish Americans, who supported Kamala Harris by nearly 70% in 2024, remain reliably Democratic in general elections. Yet the party’s progressive wing has spent the years since the October 7 terrorist attack in Israel alienating them.

Mamdani, it bears noting, was considerably slower to condemn the protesters than his mainstream Democratic colleagues, releasing a formal statement only on Friday evening. He has, after all, supported BDS, defended the phrase “globalise the intifada,” vowed to arrest Benjamin Netanyahu if he visits New York, and revoked two of his predecessor’s executive orders linked to Israel and antisemitism. During the latter stages of his mayoral campaign, Mamdani moderated his rhetoric to court Jewish voters, but how he governs over the next five years will have ripple effects for the national party.

The real reason Democrats are making this push is that they sense an opportunity. Over the last few months, the GOP has been roiled by accusations of antisemitism in parts of the party. At Turning Point USA’s annual convention in December, Vice President JD Vance declined to set any red lines against rising antisemitic voices in the movement. “I didn’t bring a list of conservatives to denounce or to de-platform,” he told attendees, adding that “we have far more important work to do than cancelling each other.”

The stance drew criticism from figures such as Ben Shapiro, who publicly rebuked Tucker Carlson for hosting the white nationalist Nick Fuentes. Fuentes, whose “Groyper” movement frames itself as defending a white Christian America, has targeted Vance personally, branding him a “race traitor” and hurling ethnic slurs at his wife. Vance has addressed the issue only obliquely, telling UnHerd that anyone who attacks his wife “can eat sh*t” — a response aimed at Fuentes himself, not the movement that sustains him.

The midterms are 10 months away, and there will be many more tests of whether these condemnations represent a genuine shift or a temporary rhetorical adjustment. Past behaviour by the party’s Left wing suggests the latter.

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Oliver Bateman is a historian and journalist based in Pittsburgh. He blogs, vlogs, and podcasts at his Substack, Oliver Bateman Does the Work

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