Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud party has released a campaign billboard in central Tel Aviv depicting New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani alongside Iranian Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, and Hezbollah chief Naim Qassem. The poster includes the message “They want Netanyahu to lose … Don’t let them win.”
The billboard represents an intensification of tensions between Netanyahu and Mamdani, who has been a prominent critic of Israel’s military operations in Gaza. Last month, Mamdani characterized Netanyahu as a “war criminal” who should face justice at The Hague and called on US authorities to enforce an International Criminal Court warrant for Netanyahu’s arrest should he attend the UN General Assembly in September. Netanyahu responded by accusing the New York mayor of inciting sectarian divisions within his city and of undermining traditionally bipartisan American support for Israel. Recent polling data suggests Mamdani maintains stronger favorability among American Jews compared to Netanyahu.
The campaign attack follows Netanyahu’s recent controversial remarks about Britain, which he described in a podcast interview as “the Islamic republic of Britain” and the “first Islamic republic to get a nuclear weapon.” Netanyahu posted the billboard image and video of Mamdani’s critical comments to his social media accounts in recent days.
The conflict emerges as Netanyahu’s coalition trails in domestic opinion polls ahead of elections scheduled for October. These elections represent the first since the October 2023 Hamas-led attacks. Simultaneously, ceasefire negotiations regarding Gaza remain stalled, with Israel maintaining that troops will not withdraw from the territory until Hamas agrees to disarm. A three-hour meeting between Netanyahu and Trump envoy Jared Kushner on Monday yielded no breakthrough on the matter.
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