CUNY for Palestine Demands Accountability and Action on Palestine from Mayor Zohran Mamdani
Press Release
New York, New York—On Wednesday, October 7, 2026, CUNY for Palestine and NYC-wide Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) organizers held a rally at City Hall, endorsed by various Palestine solidarity and community organizations, in support of the Palestinian national liberation struggle. Students joined the protest downtown after walking out of class at several of CUNY’s 26 campuses, including the flagship City College of New York (CCNY). Despite Meta’s attempts to censor organizers’ social media, removing posts from across movement accounts in the lead-up to the event, the protest drew hundreds of students, academic workers and community members from across the city to mark three years of ongoing genocide and resistance in Palestine. The protest also attracted international media attention as the principled demands resonated so deeply across the globe. As one student organizer put it: “We’re glad our rally exposed every normalizer, traitor, and hypocrite, when it comes to the Palestinian cause, but the truth is, the resistance and city of Gaza exposed these realities early on.”
Building on the work of the CUNY Divestment Coalition, student organizers’ demands were expressed clearly in the chants that reverberated across Lower Manhattan: “One: We are the students, Two: We won’t stop fighting, Three: We want divestment now, now, now!”
In the wake of the 2024 Student Intifada, students and educators across the country united behind a campaign targeting their universities’ Boards of Trustees (widely referred to by students as “Boards of Butchers”). These boards are the universities’ financiers and oversee university endowments, making them key pressure points for campaigns aiming to divest funds from “Israel”. As one City University of New York (CUNY) student explained, “CUNY claims to be a people’s university, yet it is governed by a body whose interests are completely at odds with the daily realities and solidarity commitments of our majority working class, Black and Brown student body and the communities they belong to.
Last year, CUNY students won a landmark lawsuit forcing CUNY to disclose all financial records from the last five years. The records, released last month, reveal investments made with New York taxpayer money and CUNY student tuition into weapons manufacturers arming “Israel”; tech companies providing security infrastructure to “Israel” and the US Department of Homeland Security (DHS); private prison contractors including CoreCivic and GEO Group, which operates the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) concentration camp Delaney Hall; and corporations profiting directly from US prison labor, such as 3M, a company that has supplied raw materials to prison labor programs in at least 13 states.
In the opening speech made by a representative of CUNY Law Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP), the speaker emphasized that Palestine is the moral compass of all revolutionaries and that this was in fact the reason why divestment has been a key demand of the national student movement for Palestine and a central focus for NYC student organizers as well. Universities are materially complicit in the genocide through their investments in weapon manufacturing companies such as Lockheed Martin, Elbit, and General Dynamics. The speaker emphasized that students’ push for divestment is therefore the most material form that their solidarity with Palestine can take. “It is our duty to resist [the settler colonial genocide in Palestine], and as students, the least we can possibly do is to demand and push for our universities to divest from death.” In another speech, a representative of the Young Democratic Socialists of America (YDSA) called out CUNY’s investments in Caterpillar, Boeing, Raytheon, and Palantir, emphasizing that they are at the top of the CUNY Divestment Coalition’s list of targets for divestment.
On October 7th, protesters turned their attention to New York City’s Mayor. They disrupted Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s attendance at a vigil hosted by “Israelis for Peace,” a front for “Standing Together,” which the BDS Movement has denounced as “an Israeli normalization outfit that seeks to distract from and whitewash Israel’s ongoing genocide in Gaza.” The event, held in Union Square, parroted rhetoric used by Western media to slander the Palestinian resistance and manufacture consent for the ongoing genocide in Gaza. The vigil was also attended by Brad Lander, a self-proclaimed Zionist who opposes BDS and supports the City of New York’s ongoing investments in Israeli-owned companies such as Elbit Systems.
The student-led rally began at City Hall before proceeding to Union Square, where demonstrators successfully disrupted Mamdani’s attendance at an Israeli vigil, as he “has abandoned the principles he campaigned on.” Many activists expressed that they had knocked on doors for his campaign and voted for him. One student protestor even shared that she had previously interned for him, but had become disillusioned and angered by his betrayal of the commitment to Palestine that was central to his campaign.
Mamdani’s Complicity
As it stands now, and despite his Palestine solidarity organizer past (Mamdani founded the SJP at Bowdoin University where he completed his undergraduate degree), Mayor Mamdani has become an ally to Zionism:
- He has repeatedly condemned the Palestinian resistance while characterizing those who stand in solidarity with it as supporting “a terrorist organization.”
- He backtracked on his campaign pledge to “arrest Netanyahu” should he set foot in New York City; instead, Mamdani’s NYPD Commissioner Jessica Tisch secured hefty NYPD protection for Netanyahu’s motorcade and arrested over 100 New Yorkers protesting Netanyahu’s presence in the city.
- Mamdani’s decision to keep Zionist billionaire heiress Jessica Tisch on as NYPD Police Commissioner was an early indicator of his subsequent politics as mayor, despite the fact that her reappointment has put Mamdani’s own constituents in danger. Tisch has overseen a surge of NYPD harassment of Black and Brown New Yorkers; bolstered the NYPD’s ties to the Israeli Occupation Forces; systematically criminalized the pro-Palestine movement; and repeatedly directed the NYPD and its infamous Strategic Response Group (SRG) to brutalize and arrest protestors.
- In February, Mamdani appointed Phylisa Wisdom, the head of the “New York Jewish Agenda,” a self-described Zionist organization which openly opposes the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) campaign, to lead the Mayor’s Office to Combat Antisemitism (MOCA). On September 29, MOCA released New York City’s “Strategy to Combat Antisemitism,” the first of its kind from any US municipality. The 35-page “Strategy to Combat Antisemitism” cites reporting from the UJA-Federation of New York, a non-profit that has funneled millions of dollars to organizations which expand illegal settlements in the Occupied West Bank. The “Strategy to Combat Antisemitism” also pledges $6.4 million in funding to nonprofit organizations with financial ties to illegal settlements, including the ADL-partnered Jewish Community Relations Council (JCRC-NY), which in 2022 sent a delegation of CUNY college presidents to the zionist state to meet with israeli president Isaac Herzog and visit settlements on the border of Gaza. The “Strategy to Combat Antisemitism” also pledges $1 million in public funds to provide additional security for synagogues, including those which have continued to host real estate events illegally auctioning off stolen Palestinian land.
- In March 2026, Mamdani failed to block the buffer zone bill—Int. No. 1-B—which directs the NYPD to create security perimeters around houses of worship during protests, specifically targeting Palestine solidarity protests against illegal land sales in synagogues across NYC. The bill passed with a veto-proof supermajority of 44–5, so he couldn’t have stopped it alone. But he didn’t even try: he let it become law after 30 days, a coward’s abstention that functioned as endorsement. Mamdani could have vetoed it as a matter of principle and used the moment to expose the zionist-aligned political forces behind it.
Zohran Mamdani is a politician in the belly of the beast, and so the betrayal of his own alleged values is not surprising to us. We know that U.S. electoral politics is part of a fundamentally capitalist, anti-liberation, imperialist system, and in fact the idea of the U.S. as a liberal democracy legitimizes that system. It is our fundamental responsibility as student organizers and New Yorkers to apply pressure to all politicians and institutions of power until they meet our demands. This is in itself is not a radical act – it is part of the so-called ‘democratic system’, and so those who are critical of our decision to publicly hold an elected official accountable simply because he claims to be a socialist, should re-examine their own politics.
Our Demands
As New York City students we make the following demands of Mayor Mamdani and his administration.
1. Pressure CUNY to Divest from israel, DHS, and Prison Labor and Adopt a Permanent Ethical Investment Policy:
After CUNY students forced the City University of New York (CUNY) to disclose all financial records from the last five years, CUNY’s records revealed over $1 million invested into weapons manufacturers and surveillance technology arming israel’s genocide through companies like Lockheed Martin, Raytheon, Boeing, General Dynamics, Elbit Systems, Palantir, and Caterpillar. Additionally, the records revealed CUNY’s investments in private prison contractors such as CoreCivic and GEO Group, which operates the notorious ICE detention center Delaney Hall. In line with the BDS campaign, which Mamdani previously described as “consistent with the core of [his] politics,” CUNY must divest from all public investments, bonds, and equity holdings linked to israel’s colonization and occupation of Palestine and its ongoing genocide against the Palestinian people. CUNY must sever all contracts and relationships with DHS and its subsidiary agencies, U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP), ICE, and Border Patrol, and bar these agencies from participating in recruitment events and job postings that target CUNY students. CUNY must end all investments in and contracts with entities that profit from incarceration, including those that use prison labor, a form of modern-day slavery that exploits vulnerable and racialized groups.
- Abolish the CUNY Board of Trustees
The only way to ensure that CUNY never makes such investments again is through the abolition of the CUNY Board of Trustees (BOT). The CUNY BOT is the unelected ruling-class body of real estate moguls, Wall Street financiers, corporate lawyers, and war profiteers which keeps CUNY is responsible for deciding where CUNY investments are made. The CUNY BOT turns New York taxpayer money and working class students’ tuition into blood money for the U.S. war machine. The BOT routinely polices Palestine solidarity speech—endorsing the Governor Hochul-commissioned “Lippman Report” which pushed for the IHRA definition to be adopted at CUNY, implementing the false equation of anti-zionism with antisemitism which has been used to criminalize pro-Palestine CUNY students and workers. In 2023, the BOT defamed Fatima Mohammed, an elected CUNY Law student speaker, by branding her principled speech in solidarity with Palestinian liberation and opposing capitalist exploitation, racist police violence, and imperialist wars, as “hate speech.” In July 2025 the BOT suspended Hadeeqa Arzoo Malik, an undergraduate student and former intern for Zohran Mamdani, banned her from every CUNY campus and fired four adjunct professors across CUNY for participating in pro-Palestine protests. One of the four fired adjuncts remains blacklisted from all CUNY employment over a year later. This Board of Butchers has also refused transparency by denying multiple CUNY for Palestine and CUNY Law SJP Freedom Of Information Law requests, forcing us to sue in the New York Supreme Court to obtain information that by law should be publicly available.
BOT abolition is a demand rooted in years of Palestine solidarity and other liberation organizing at CUNY, notably Black and Puerto Rican liberation movements. There was no BOT prior to 1979; it was created as part of the same neoliberal restructuring that resulted in a war on working-class, Black and Brown communities in New York. The BOT was created directly after CUNY implemented open-admissions and began charging tuition. It entrenched racist austerity at CUNY. This entity within our university was created solely to displace decision making power from the students and workers that make up CUNY into the hands of corporate donors. The Mayor of NYC and Governor of New York State are the two authorities above the CUNY Board of Trustees as they may appoint, recall, and influence the trustees.
We demand a true People’s CUNY, which is only possible once this illegitimate body be rightfully abolished and replaced with governance run by and for students, workers, and the communities CUNY is embedded in and beholden to. When CUNY students and workers run our own university, we can achieve complete and total divestment from imperialist wars, zionist genocide, land theft, mass incarceration, border militarization, and racist gentrification, and instead invest in the dignity of our students and community.
3. Stop the Sale of Stolen Palestinian Land in New York City
Throughout New York City, Zionist real estate companies routinely sponsor events wherein illegally procured land in the israeli-occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem is acquired by forcible displacement, often through violent settler attacks on Palestinian families and demolition of Palestinian homes. These land sale events, facilitate the ongoing process of israeli colonization of Palestinian land. As Pal-Awda NY, NJ has emphasized in their “Stop the Sale of Stolen Land” campaign, these events also likely violate federal, state, and city anti-discrimination laws by prohibiting non-Jewish individuals from attending and purchasing land sold at the events. These illegal land sales have been a critical site of protest for Palestine solidarity activists, spurring the controversial “Buffer-Zone” legislation in NYC and New York. In response to coordinated protests against the illegal sale of stolen Palestinian land in New York City, which are often hosted inside synagogues and yeshivas, New York City and State legislators drafted legislation prohibiting protests within 50 feet of places of worship. The NYPD already began enforcing buffer zones at key protests last year in clear violation of New Yorkers’ constitutional right to protest. Activists have identified the following ways that Mayor Mamdani can end the sale of stolen Palestinian land in New York City:
- Enforcement of the New York City Zoning Resolution and Administrative Code Title 28
- The revocation of the tax-exempt status of organizations and religious institutions that host illegal land sales
- Enforcement of public advisory laws and consumer warnings
- Demanding NY Attorney General Leticia James to investigate and shut down illegal Palestinian land sales in New York City.
- Mamdani has publicly stated that the sale of stolen land is a war crime. We demand more than lip service. Mamdani knows this is a blatant violation of international law, and it is happening in New York City under his administration. As the Mayor, Mamdani has authority over the NYPD: We demand that he shut down these illegal events and arrest the criminals responsible for them.
- Immediately halt the use of JFK (and other New York City airports or ports) to ship military cargo to Israel.
We demand that Mamdani use every means available to him to bring an immediate end to the use of JFK International Airport as a conduit for Zionist military logistics. As the People’s Embargo for Palestine and allied groups have documented, passenger flights, including United Airlines, and cargo passing through JFK—including gunpowder on United Airlines routes—have carried military supplies and components linked to the israeli military.
5. Defend New Yorkers from ICE, abolish the NYPD’s Strategic Response Group, and fire Jessica Tisch
On October 8th in the Bronx, Mamdani’s NYPD protected ICE when protests erupted after an ICE agent shot a New Yorker in his car seven times while his 5-year-old son was in the backseat. The NYPD has repeatedly collaborated with ICE, covering for federal violence and brutalizing New Yorkers demanding accountability for ICE agents. Mamdani’s calls for “ICE out” of our city mean nothing while his own NYPD Commissioner, Jessica Tisch, directs the NYPD to protect and collaborate with ICE agents to terrorize our communities. Mamdani must defend New Yorkers from fascist ICE violence.
We also demand that Mamdani abolish another institution of organized violence that harms our communities: the Strategic Response Group (SRG). The SRG is trained to violently suppress racial justice and Palestine solidarity protests—its manual brands BLM, Occupy Wall Street, and anti-Trump demonstrators as “violent.” Its budget exploded from $13 million to over $133 million in a year, and its officers carry a median of six Civilian Complaint Review Board (CCRB) complaints each since 2000, double the department-wide median, with 91% of its victims being people of color and 66% Black. In June 2020, as documented by NYCLU, the SRG trapped, beat, zip-tied, and arrested 263 protesters, medics, and legal observers in Mott Haven, injuring 61 in conduct Human Rights Watch called “intentional, planned, and unjustified.” When the SRG raided the CUNY Gaza Solidarity Encampments in April 2024, SRG officers violently arrested over 200 protesters who suffered burns, broken bones, concussions, and broken teeth; students at Brooklyn College were similarly violently arrested and pepper-sprayed by the SRG when it raided a campus protest in solidarity with Palestine in May 2025.
The NYPD answers to Mamdani. Mamdani has enabled the NYPD’s collaboration with ICE, and the NYPD’s and the SRG’s repression of and violence toward New Yorkers, by retaining Jessica Tisch, the first NYPD Commissioner kept from a prior Mayor’s administration. Tisch, a self-proclaimed Zionist who has vocally supported the US-backed Zionist genocide in Gaza, facilitated NYPD training with the Israeli Occupation Forces and entrenched the NYPD’s ties to Israeli security: the NYPD has an office in a Tel Aviv settlement built on the rubble of the destroyed Palestinian village Kafr Saba, regularly shares intelligence with, and trains alongside, Zionist forces.
Palestine First and Foremost
The October 7th protest was about Palestine, first and foremost. The ongoing genocide and imperialist war launched against Palestine, Lebanon, Yemen, and Iran continue, and as New Yorkers, we have a duty, in the belly of the beast, to stand against U.S. imperialism, Zionism, and its agents. Today, Mamdani stands as one of those agents. No politician is above accountability, especially one who claims to be socialist and to stand for Palestine yet is directly complicit in the oppression of our people. The struggle for Palestinian national liberation and against the ongoing genocide is the moral compass for all people of conscience in the world today. So today, we invite every person to join the fight against all those who stand in the way of liberation—whether they are Zohran Mamdani, Donald Trump, or Netanyahu—and, ultimately, we must dismantle those systems that enable and require dispossession, oppression, exploitation, death, and destruction for power and profit.
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