Hasan Piker Faults Zohran Mamdani's Antisemitism Plan for Using NYPD Data

Hasan Piker, the left-wing streamer and an outspoken defender of New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani, said the mayor's new municipal strategy to combat antisemitism, the first of its kind in the nation, wrongly leans on NYPD statistics. In Piker's view, those statistics count anti-Zionist incidents as antisemitic. He called the mayor's use of them "unacceptable."

The criticism came from Mamdani's own side. Piker made it in a HasanAbi episode this week, after City Hall released the plan on Tuesday. Major Jewish organizations are also faulting the plan, but they say it does not go far enough.

Piker said plainly that he is not against the plan. "It's not a bad thing to have an anti-hate bigotry task force," he said. "I'm never going to tell you that this is a bad thing because it's not, it's not a bad thing at all." Later he added, "This is not an outright condemnation of Zohran Mamdani."

Hasan Piker's Objection to the NYPD Hate Crime Data

In a clip from Mamdani's announcement video that Piker played, the mayor said Jews make up "only 12% of the population," that "NYPD statistics show that anti-Semitic hate crimes account for more than that," and that they are "Half of all confirmed hate crimes." Piker said the police department's numbers were "not as crazy as the ADL" but faulted the mayor for relying on them.

"But they still also feature anti-Zionist incidents as antisemitic. So for him as the anti-Zionist mayor, to turn around and legitimize that is, I think, unacceptable." — Hasan Piker

PolitiKool could not confirm how the NYPD categorizes anti-Zionist incidents in its hate-crime statistics. The mayor's office release does not give the department's figures or describe its methodology.

"The problems I have with this is I don't trust the NYPD to combat any form of bigotry," Piker added.

What Zohran Mamdani's Antisemitism Strategy Funds

According to the mayor's office, the strategy includes:

• $6.4 million in Partners Against the Hate (PATH) grants, doubled from last year
• $1 million for security at synagogues and houses of worship
• $2 million to complete the Queens Holocaust Memorial
• $2.5 million for the Center for New Jewish Culture in central Brooklyn
• More student visits to the Museum of Jewish Heritage

Separately, Mamdani said the city is "increasing hate crime prevention funding by $26 million, or more than 800% from last year."

Piker's second objection is about who gets the money. He said the city "must not fundraise or fund with state funds institutions that are cynically weaponizing real fears of anti-Semitism with a defense of the state of Israel." He named the Museum of Jewish Heritage and the Jewish Community Relations Council of New York (JCRC).

The JCRC is among the community groups funded through PATH grants, Reason reported. PATH's core partners include the New York City Anti-Violence Project, the Arab American Association of New York, the Asian American Federation and the Hispanic Federation, along with the 67th Precinct Clergy Council. Piker acknowledged that "JCRC is just one group under PATH." He also said that security money for synagogues is "fine, right? I don't have an issue with that."

Jewish Groups Say the Plan Falls Short

The JCRC was among the groups that criticized the plan. In a joint statement, UJA-Federation of New York, JCRC-NY, AJC New York and the New York Board of Rabbis welcomed some parts of it. But they said it "fails to address a central issue that the mayor himself has perpetuated: rhetoric that demonizes and delegitimizes Israel inevitably leads to the targeting of Jewish New Yorkers."

The Anti-Defamation League faulted the mayor for not adopting a working definition of antisemitism. It said he "has looked the other way as flags glorifying terror groups have been flown outside synagogues."

Piker said such groups would criticize Mamdani no matter what he did, "for them, it's not about anti-Semitism. It's about Israel."

What Hasan Piker Wanted From the Mayor

Piker said Mamdani missed a chance to draw a clear line between Zionism and Judaism. "Zohran is supposed to be the guy that is capable of untangling the two," he said. He also had a warning for his own audience: "if your goal is to hold Israel to account you can't be anti-Semitic."

He ended on what he called a silver lining. He argued that the backlash, aimed at a mayor who is funding Jewish security, could show the public that the groups criticizing him care first about Israel. Piker said "at least this further draws distance between institutions that are supposedly tasked with combating anti-Semitism and the regular masses."