Scarborough: Blame Netanyahu for Antisemitism, Not Mamdani-Backed Antisemites!

Reacting to the election results in yesterday's NYC Democrat congressional primaries, where Mamdani-endorsed, virulently anti-Israel candidates pulled off a clean sweep, Joe Scarborough took to Morning Joe on Wednesday to lecture viewers. 

He said he's "hearing a lot of people say, talking about the antisemitism in New York City, and last night proved the antisemitism in New York City, and this is Mamdani's fault, this is so-and-so's fault, it's this, is this, no, no, no, it's not. It's, it's really not."

His verdict? Don't blame the radicals cheering attacks on Jews or showing up to post-Oct. 7 rallies. Blame Benjamin Netanyahu. Even the "horrors" of October 7 are on Netanyahu's hands. 

"If you wanna blame anybody... I think you have to blame Benjamin Netanyahu . . . You can blame all of this on Benjamin Netanyahu."

Pointing to a photo of Netanyahu standing left of Trump, Scarborough added, "The guy on the left is the reason why Israel's standing—not only in New York City, but across America—is lower than it has been since 1948."

Co-host Jonathan Lemire nodded along, branding Bibi "the central figure" in the outbreak of antisemitism and the rise of far-left, anti-Israel radicals.

"The people on the right like to blame Mamdani; they like to say there's a culture of antisemitism here, and people can have their own opinions. That's not what this was about."

"People can have their own opinions" as to whether there's a culture of antisemitism in NYC? Or you can have the strange opinion that Netanyahu caused all the American antisemitism here.

A dramatic increase in hate has been documented by the ADL and NYPD. Antisemitic hate crimes in NYC skyrocketed post-Oct. 7, with hundreds of incidents including unprovoked assaults on visible Jews wearing kippahs or tzitzit, slashings, beatings, and vandalism of synagogues and businesses. Orthodox communities bore the brunt in America's largest Jewish city. 

Just this month, the NYPD reported [emphasis added]: "Hate crimes are up by 74.4% compared to the previous May. More than half of the confirmed hate crimes, 60%, were targeting Jewish individuals, despite Jewish New Yorkers making up only 10% of the city’s population."

The radicalism predates Israeli operations in Gaza. Mamdani-backed congressional candidate Darializa Avila Chevalier attended the notorious Oct. 8, 2023, pro-Palestinian rally in Times Square—one day after Hamas's atrocities—where participants celebrated the death toll. Mamdani endorsed her.

Mamdani's record is damning. He introduced the "Not on Our Dime!" bill targeting New York charities funding Israeli settlements, calling it subsidizing "war crimes" and "settler violence." When he attended Bowdoin College in Maine during Obama's presidency, he was a co-founder of their chapter of "Students for Justice in Palestine," an academic boycott supporter against "oppressive occupation and racist policies," a rally speaker against "Israeli settler colonialism" and "Zionism." He has defended slogans like "Globalize the Intifada," and "From the river to the sea," and supports the so-called Palestinian "right of return," all of which would result in the destruction of Israel as the world's only Jewish state.

His wife, Rama Duwaji, liked social media posts cheering Hamas's October 7 slaughter as inspiring "great change" in the immediate aftermath. Mamdani's team calls this viewpoint "private."

Scarborough admits the Palestinian massacre of Jewish Olympians at Munich in 1972 shaped his views. Yet "images out of Gaza" override that. But the blowback didn't start with Israeli self-defense—it was there in the rallies, funding defenses, and slogans long before.

Scarborough is embracing the left's narrative that excuses antisemites while blaming Jewish self-defense. The "guy on the left" in the photo bears the blame in Scarborough's telling—but the real culprits are much closer to home.

Here's the transcript.

MS NOW
Morning Joe
6/24/26
6:07 am EDT

JOE SCARBOROUGH: I just, I just, you know, hearing a lot of people say, talking about the antisemitism in New York City, and last night proved the antisemitism in New York City, and this is Mamdani's fault, this is so-and-so's fault, it's this, is this, no, no, no, it's not. It's, it's really not. 

If you wanna blame anybody for what happened last night, my opinion, if you wanna blame anybody, Jonathan, I think you have to blame Benjamin Netanyahu. 

Four years of maximalist aims, four years of ahistoric goals in the Middle East. That anybody, anybody, from Dr. Brzezinski to even me, could have told anybody over the past twenty years, it's not going to work. And I've said it all along, there's always blowback in the Middle East. 

The idea that you're gonna be able to brutalize children and women in Gaza, with bombing that looks indiscriminate on TV day in and day out for years. That you're gonna be able to level half of Lebanon, that you're gonna be able to continue to allow thugs to run wild in the West Bank? 

And, and, and, and, and brutalizing Palestinians, brutalizing Christians in Bethlehem, brutalizing Christians across that area along with Palestinian Muslims, especially Palestinian Muslims, blowing up Catholic churches in Gaza. 

I, I can, I, I, of course, I'm saying things that would relate to some of these people who are so shocked that Israel is in such low standing in America right now. Forgive me for a quick digression, but I was always instinctively pro-Israeli and anti-Palestinian growing up. You know why? Because when I was a young child, one of my first memories was the '72 Munich Olympics. When, when, when Palestinian terrorists killed Israelis, and it was shocking, and we saw time and time again terror attacks throughout the '70s. That shaped an entire generation's views on that conflict. 

Well, what's shaping the views now? Images out of Gaza, images out of the West Bank, images out of Lebanon, famine out of Gaza, like just, and, and an American president who, who tells Netanyahu, "Go, you're unrestrained," until his war in Iran goes horribly wrong." 

So you can blame all of this on Benjamin Netanyahu. And yes, if you go back to the horrors of October 7th, blame the funding for that on Benjamin Netanyahu as well, because he forced the Qataris to continue funding Hamas weeks before the October 7th attack. 

So again, everybody's gonna wanna blame somebody else for this. The guy on the left [Netanyahu, in a photo with Trump] is the reason why Israel's standing, not only in New York City, but across America, is lower than it has been since 1948/ And you're starting to see that in election, in elections, not only on the far left, but on the far right.

JONATHAN LEMIRE: Yeah, what you just said there about Netanyahu being the central figure is precisely what I was texting with some New York Democratic operatives last night. 

First of all, it, yes, it, the, the, the people on the right like to blame Mamdani, they like to say there's a culture of antisemitism here, and people can have their own opinions. That's not what this was about. Brad Lander, of course, Jewish himself. This is about the support for Israel and the conduct of that war.