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<\/a><\/p>\nPro-Palestinian protesters disrupt an Oct. 7 vigil organized by Israelis for Peace and attended by New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani in New York City on Oct. 7, 2026. (Selcuk Acar\/Anadolu via Getty Images)<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
Piker, the popular streamer who has campaigned for a number of democratic socialist candidates, made his remarks Sunday at Jewish Currents Live, an all-day event hosted by the left-wing magazine at the Brooklyn Academy of Music.<\/p>\n
Speaking on a panel titled \u201cCan the Left Wield Power?\u201d, he said that the protesters had \u201cvalid concerns,\u201d including demands like firing police commissioner Jessica Tisch and disbanding the NYPD\u2019s Strategic Response Group, a heavily armed unit that often responds to protests.<\/p>\n
But he criticized the Democratic Socialists of America \u2014 the left-wing political organization that Mamdani has called his \u201cpolitical home\u201d \u2014 for not playing a bigger role in last week\u2019s protest, which started at City Hall and later overran an Israeli peace vigil. DSA did not sponsor the protest, though some campus chapters of its student section, the Young DSA, participated.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe DSA not being at the forefront of the anti-Zionist mobilization in New York City is what allowed that mobilization to be tarnished by opportunists, sectarians and those who actually were calling him a genocidaire \u2014 which I obviously find to be ridiculous,\u201d Piker said, referring to protesters\u2019 chants of \u201cMayor Mamdani you can\u2019t hide, we charge you with genocide.\u201d<\/p>\n
Piker, who has drawn heat for his anti-Israel views, did not comment on the Hamas iconography displayed by numerous protesters, nor the decision to crash an Oct. 7 vigil that memorialized the 1,200 people killed in the Hamas-led attacks on that date in 2023, and the 74,000 Palestinians who have been killed since then, according to Gaza health ministry figures, which do not distinguish civilians from combatants.<\/p>\n
Separately, Mahmoud Khalil, the Columbia University pro-Palestinian protest leader who was detained by ICE last year, reportedly criticized those protesters\u2019 \u201cpurity politics\u201d during an event in Washington, D.C. <\/p>\n
\u201cYou don\u2019t have to agree with someone 100 percent \u2014 85 percent is good,\u201d he said, provided that the end goal is \u201cliberating Palestine and ending the unconditional support of the United States.\u201d<\/p>\n
Where should Democrats draw the line?<\/p>\n
Two Democratic congressional nominees from New York, Brad Lander and Darializa Avila Chevalier, appeared on a separate panel focused on Israel and the Democratic Party.<\/p>\n
Lander is Jewish and Darializa Avila Chevalier helped lead Columbia University\u2019s pro-Palestinian encampment in 2024. Peter Beinart, editor-at-large at Jewish Currents, moderated the panel, which also featured Georgia state Rep. Ruwa Romman, the first Palestinian American elected to public office in her state.<\/p>\n
Their discussion exposed some of the gaps between Lander and Avila Chevalier, both progressives who were endorsed by Mamdani this year and who appeared in a campaign ad together alongside fellow Mamdani endorsee Claire Valdez.<\/p>\n
Beinart asked where Democrats should draw the line on what is considered legitimate Palestinian resistance. He pointed to the pro-Palestinian protest held in New York City on Oct. 8, 2023, which Avila Chevalier attended and Lander called \u201cabominable\u201d at the time. <\/p>\n
\u201cI think international law has already drawn that line,\u201d Avila Chevalier said, arguing that U.S. protests should target Israel, which receives U.S. support, rather than Hamas.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe could be the biggest anti-Hamas protesters, but a protest against Hamas in the U.S. isn\u2019t going to do anything,\u201d Avila Chevalier said. \u201cBecause we don\u2019t fund it. We don\u2019t have any structural power over it, there is nothing tying us to that institution other than condemning it endlessly.\u201d<\/p>\n
After the event, Lander did not confirm to the Jewish Telegraphic Agency whether he had spoken about that Oct. 8 protest with Avila Chevalier.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe have talked about these issues broadly in private, and I don\u2019t want to characterize those conversations,\u201d Lander told JTA. \u201cAnd obviously I\u2019ve made my feelings known in public, and I stand by them. I mean, on that day, I was in mourning.\u201d<\/p>\n
An attendee named Mark, 29, who declined to share his last name to avoid potential workplace complications, said he felt that Avila Chevalier \u201cdidn\u2019t really acknowledge the criticism about perhaps disregarding loss of life; despite the power imbalance, it is lost life.\u201d<\/p>\n
For Lander, meanwhile, Mark said it was \u201cpolitically expedient\u201d for him to not directly address Avila Chevalier\u2019s presence at the 2023 protest. \u201cThis is a super lefty crowd that probably would eat him alive if he went against her right now,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
During the panel, Avila Chevalier repeated her call for an arms embargo against Israel while Lander stopped short of doing so, consistent with his statements in the past that Israel should be able to buy defensive ware. Both said Congress must pass the Block the Bombs Act and vote to suspend the sale of offensive U.S. military weapons to Israel. Lander was the only speaker on stage who advocated for a two-state solution in the region.<\/p>\n
Beinart asked Romman about Jon Ossoff, the Jewish Democratic senator running for reelection in her state, and how she views his stance on Palestine. She said she was pleased that both Georgia senators have been consistently voting in favor of Bernie Sanders\u2019 resolution to block arms sales to Israel, but added that \u201cin terms of leading, in terms of rhetoric, there\u2019s still a lot of work to be done.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ll get everyone to where we need them to be eventually,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
\u2018The bund is back in town\u2019<\/p>\n
The Jewish Labor Bund \u2014 the early 20th-century socialist movement that fought against Bolshevism, Nazism and Zionism \u2014 came up at numerous points on Sunday. One attendee doled out fliers with a website URL and the message, \u201cTell your bubbe the bund is back in town.\u201d It was also a subject of a conversation that featured Molly Crabapple, whose 2026 book \u201cHere Where We Live is Our Country\u201d focuses on the Bund.<\/p>\n
Arlene Geiger, an Upper West Sider and longtime activist, told JTA that she related to those conversations.<\/p>\n
\u201cMy connection to Judaism is not to Israel, it never has been. It\u2019s more to Eastern Europe and the Bund, so that spoke to me,\u201d Geiger said.<\/p>\n
Mark, who is from New Jersey, said he doesn\u2019t come from a \u201cstaunchly pro-Zionist\u201d family, but that he has a new interest in leftist Jewish spaces since realizing that he could no longer comfortably distance himself from the issue of Israel, which he believes is committing a genocide.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s just an education for me to be immersed in this kind of space,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n