Mamdani Supports BDS While Governor Hochul Opposes BDS

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Curiouser and curiouser: Zohran Mamdani has been supporting the Boycott, Divest, and Sanction (BDS) movement ever since he was a college student at Bowdoin more than a decade ago. He’s made clear that as mayor of New York City, he will unload all of the city’s considerable investments in Israeli stocks and bonds. New York Governor Kathy Hochul has as governor opposed BDS with almost as much fervor as Mamdani supports it. Yet Hochul has chosen to endorse Mamdani to be the next mayor of New York City.

More on this tangled web can be found here: “Zohran Mamdani Supports BDS — What Will That Mean for New York City and New York State?,” by Charles A. Stone, Algemeiner, October 6, 2025:

If Zohran Mamdani becomes the mayor of New York City, he may decide to implement Boycott, Divestment, and Sanction (BDS) measures against Israeli commercial companies and academic institutions.

This would be problematic for New York Governor Kathy Hochul, because New York State’s Office of General Services, Executive Order No. 157, directs State entities to “divest all public funds supporting the Boycotts, Divestment and Sanctions campaign against Israel.”

According to EO 157, boycott, divestment, and sanctions activities targeting Israel, “means to engage in any activity, or promote others to engage in any activity, that is intended to penalize, inflict economic harm on, or otherwise limit commercial relations with Israel or persons doing business in Israel for purposes of coercing political action by, or imposing policy positions on, the government of Israel.”

This Executive Order was signed by Governor Andrew Cuomo on June 5, 2016. EO 157 has been supported by Governor Hochul since she took office in 2021. The following statement confirms Governor Hochul’s support for EO 157:

Israel is a critical ally and invaluable economic partner to New York State. Early in my administration, I extended an Executive Order directing state government to divest public funds from companies and institutions engaging in Boycott, Divestment, or Sanctions that threaten the sovereignty and security of the State of Israel.

Hochul had no reservations when she became governor: she would continue to support EO 157, that divests state funds from companies and institutions engaged in BDS against the Jewish state.

The BDS movement is based on four fundamental lies about Israel: 1) Israel is a settler-colonial regime; 2) apartheid is the law of Israel, as it was in South Africa between 1948 and 1994; 3) The entire state of Israel exists on occupied Palestinian land between the river Jordan and the Mediterranean Sea; and 4) Israel is committing genocide against the Palestinian people.

Governor Hochul’s support of Zohran Mamdani in his campaign to become the 111th Mayor of New York City is an endorsement of a vocal supporter of the BDS movement.

Mamdani has publicly advocated for BDS since 2014, when he was a student and founder of the Students for Justice in Palestine chapter at his university — and his calls have only grown stronger since then….

Perhaps the Governor would try and pressure the mayor to step back from his anti-Zionist positions and BDS rhetoric — or perhaps she will argue that NYC is simply too big to defund, and let Mamdani’s boycott go unchallenged….

I think Governor Hochul knows that Mamdani is a True Believer, a fanatical hater of Israel who will institute at once a policy of BDS, whatever effect that might have on state aid to the city. He won’t be talked out of it. But Hochul, who has given her support in the mayoral campaign to Mamdani — she’s afraid of him, afraid of his popularity, afraid to oppose him — is more likely to find a way to ignore applying EO 157, in a version that replaces “bank” in a well-known phrase with “NYC” — “NYC is too big to fail.”

In her endorsement of Mamdani that was published in The New York Times, Governor Hochul does not mention his avid support of the BDS movement, his refusal to acknowledge Israel’s right to exist as a Jewish state, or his plan to disavow the City’s adoption of the IHRA working definition of antisemitism. She only said, “We discussed the need to combat the rise of antisemitism urgently and unequivocally.”

You discussed the need to “combat the rise of antisemitism,” but what was the outcome? Did Mamdani pledge to accept the internationally-accepted IHRA definition of antisemitism? Of course not. Because if he had, he would have broadcast it far and wide. And so, come to think of it, would Governor Hochul.

It is too bad that the Governor felt that the Mamdani juggernaut could not be stopped, so that she felt it prudent to endorse him rather than be run over by that same juggernaut. If she refuses to enforce EO 157, in order to keep that annual $14 billion in aid flowing from state to city, supporters of Israel should remember her pusillanimity, and when she next runs for office — her term as governor ends at the end of 2026 — do the right thing, and oppose her re-election. By that time, Zohran Mamdani will have made such a mess as mayor that those who, like Hochul, endorsed him because he appeared unbeatable (and in 2025, he was) and they wanted to be on the winning side, will have realized, too late, the error of their ways, and at the ballot box will receive their comeuppance.