What Could a Pro-Palestine Mayor of NYC Mean for the Left?
The latest headlines giving us hope for the left
Below: a socialist electoral upset in New York City, wins against Israel, global worker resistance, and more headlines giving us hope for the left. Subscribe for more.
Reading List
Closing the Extractive Frontier | Gabriel Hetland, Lala Peñaranda, Julián Gómez Delgado
Phenomenal World, June 2025
Under President Gustavo Petro, Colombia is pursuing an ambitious plan to end domestic fossil fuel production. In this rich discussion, Andrés Camacho, a key architect of the energy transition plan, highlights recent gains, such as the “Energy Communities” initiative, which has enabled 300 marginalized communities to build their own solar power generation infrastructure, with thousands more under construction. Camacho also details challenges that remain, especially related to financing.
Labor wins and increased repression: 50 days of Panama’s national strike | Pablo Meriguet
People’s Dispatch, June 2025
A far-reaching people’s movement and national strike have persisted for roughly two months in Panama. Initially sparked by widespread opposition to government cuts to pensions and social security, the struggle has grown to include resistance to new US military bases in the country. The movement has won banana workers the right to retire before 62 and access their pensions, subsidies for families of agricultural workers, and more, but also faces increasing repression.
Brazil’s MST starts series of debates with Venezuelan communes for agrarian reform | Lorenzo Santiago, transl. Ana Paula Rocha
Brasil de Fato, May 2025
Building on twenty years of collaboration, the Brazilian Landless Rural Workers Movement (MST) has launched an educational exchange with urban Venezuelan communes on topics such as agroforestry techniques and political theory. The initiative seeks to frame land reform historically and from a socialist perspective. They have identified key issues to tackle, such as oil rentism and sizeable tracts of non-productive land in the hands of large landowners.
Lessons from Australia: Let the sunshine in! | Jason Ward
Tax Justice Network, May 2025
When big corporations dodge their tax responsibilities, society as a whole is forced to pay the price through budget shortfalls, which are in turn used to justify privatization, enriching those same corporations. A new tool developed by Australian researchers and activists will help us track corporate tax dodging. In 2026, valuable new data will be added to the tool thanks to a powerful new transparency bill passed in Australia due to activist pressure. Using this tool, activists can push governments to close loopholes that perpetuate the cycle of tax dodging.
Global win for workers: ILO agrees to negotiate binding standards for platform workers
International Trade Union Confederation, June 2025
Digital work platforms such as food delivery apps employ more than 150 million workers worldwide, but many of them lack benefits and protections like the right to organize, and even basic contracts. After a sustained global campaign from labor activists, the International Labour Organization—an intergovernmental organization with the mandate to set international labor standards—has agreed to negotiate on growing digital work platforms at its 2026 conference.
Notably, this initial resolution includes trade union access to algorithmic management, without which workers are left powerless to challenge decisions around their pay, working hours, or dismissal. Any binding requirements for transparency from platforms could become important tools for workers in labor negotiations.
Mali takes control of one of Africa’s largest gold mines and launches its own refinery | Pedro Stropasolas
People’s Dispatch, June 2025
The Malian government has taken control of a formerly Canadian-run gold mine in the country, one of the largest in the world, in a major step toward resource sovereignty—the movement to wrestle control over natural resources away from a handful of foreign companies and back to national governments so that resources and revenues can benefit local communities. The move is part of a wave of anti-imperialist action by countries in the new Alliance of Sahel States bloc. Mali also recently began construction of West Africa’s first state-owned gold refinery, aiming to become a regional processing hub.
More on: Labor Movements
Workers in Samsung India’s Chennai plant win a significant pay raise after a protracted battle against management | Abdul Rahman, People’s Dispatch, May 2025
After a 38-day strike, workers in Samsung’s Chennai plant won significant wage increases, promotions, and additional benefits. This victory came even in the face of state repression, a social media vilification campaign, and the enticement of non-union workers.
The Unions, the rank and file and the battle for public services in the USA: Interview with US trade unionist | Kevin Crane, Counterfire, April 2025
In this interview, a US government employee and trade union activist details how federal workers are organizing in response to Trump’s labor crackdown, which has included job cuts and the revoking of bargaining agreements. But despite growing repression, there has been increased union density and new energy driving activism.
UFW welcomes release of Lynn-Ette Workers; Continues Union Fight | Jocelyn Sherman, United Farm Workers, June 2025
In a disturbing display of corporate and state-coordinated repression, US immigration agents appear to have targeted union worker leaders at Lynn-Ette earlier this year. After immediate organizing by the United Farm Workers, three have been successfully released from immigration detention, but five have been deported and six remain in custody. The union continues its struggle and organizing.
More On: Resistance Against Israel
Protests work: Israel has never been so isolated | Michael Lavalette, Counterfire, May 2025
This article marks a tide shift among Western governments: after nearly two years of mass protests, the once-unilateral support for Israel appears to be deteriorating.
Shipping Giant Maersk to Cut Ties with Israeli Settlements | Palestinian Youth Movement, June 2025
In a massive win for the BDS (Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions) movement and Mask off Maersk Campaign, the shipping company Maersk has severed ties with Israeli settlements.
Mahmoud Khalil Freed After 100+ Days in ICE Detention | Democracy Now, July 2025
After mass campaigns, the illegal detention of Palestinian activist Mahmoud Khalil has ended. In his first live interview, Khalil discusses his detention and growing ICE repression.
European Dockworkers Refuse to Load Weapons Aimed at Palestine | Rafeef Ziadah and Katy Fox-Hodess, LaborNotes, June 2025
A cascade of European trade unions have refused to load supplies for Israel’s genocide at their docks, forcing ships to leave port without their deadly cargo. This wave of internationalist action was sparked by a staunch six-day boycott from the Swedish Dockworkers Union as part of a protracted struggle for stronger labor protections. This is not the first instance of this type of solidarity: European dockworkers coordinated in 2019 to block weapons shipments to Saudi Arabia. The Swedish Dockworkers Union is currently fundraising to fight back against retaliation for their strike.
Spotlight
A Pro-Palestine Socialist Is Expected to Become Mayor of New York. What Does This Mean for Anti-Imperialists and the US Left?
How significant is Zohran Mamdani’s primary win for the US left?
In an upset to the liberal establishment and pollsters, socialist Zohran Mamdani is now favored to become the next mayor of New York City. Mamdani is a long-time member of the Democratic Socialists of America, a fast-growing mass socialist organization that has advanced many socialists to elected office in New York and across America. The primary race saw Mamdani overcome intense opposition from Zionist political forces and scrutiny of his history of support for Palestinian resistance, as well as millions from billionaires supporting his conservative opponent, Andrew Cuomo. The campaign mobilized an unprecedented 50,000 volunteers, meaning more than 1 in 200 New Yorkers volunteered for the campaign. In a country plagued by decades of anti-socialist propaganda, his win would mark the most significant electoral victory for the US left in decades.
Why is Palestine a decisive issue in the race?
Zohran’s policy proposals have focused, above all else, on affordability. Proposals to freeze the rent and make buses and childcare free won him wild support in one of the most costly cities in the world. His win suggests bold policy proposals can, in fact, change public opinion and halt the country’s rightward shift.
As a Muslim who has vocally supported Palestine in the past—including by introducing a bill in the state senate to strip charities supporting Israeli settlements of their tax exempt status—everyone from other candidates to party elites have smeared Mamdani as antisemetic and attempted to orchestrate “gotcha” moments demanding he declare support for Israel. The underlying assumption was that there’s no pathway to victory as an anti-Zionist.
Mamdani navigated this by insisting Israel had a right to exist as a “state with equal rights” or a state that “follows international law.” It is important to note that some on the left, such as Anas Saleh, have criticized this as capitulation to Zionist talking points, even protesting one of Mamdani’s events. While many see his framing as continued support for Palestine translated for a mass audience, others are wary that this is the first step in bending to the liberal establishment.
Regardless, Mamdani’s win represents a shift in what’s possible in US electoral politics. Breaking from the status quo support of Israel may have actually mobilized voters, with Mamdani winning the most votes in any primary election in the city’s history. The Palestinian Youth Movement framed the win as a failure of the Zionist lobby and establishment. This watershed moment proves the electoral viability of anti-Zionism in the US and the shifting tide of public opinion.
Why does anti-imperialism even matter for a mayoral race?
About 80% of the US population lives in urban areas, and the forces that shape their lives, from the climate crisis to deregulation, transcend borders. It makes sense, then, that city governments have increasingly become international actors in their own right. Examples include the city of Derry resolving to end procurement contracts and investments with companies profiting from Israeli genocide; hundreds of mayors committing to upholding the Paris Agreement after Trump’s withdrawal during his first term; and mayors of European coastal cities opening their ports to asylum seekers, sometimes in opposition to their national governments. The mayor of the largest city in the belly of the beast has the power to make decisions that either undermine, or enrich, US empire.
What’s next?
Mamdani will now face a general election on 4 November. With the Democratic nomination secured, he is favored to win, but liberal opposition within the party is mounting. A number of party leaders are refusing to endorse Mamdani, including Senator Gillibrand, who recently faced backlash after a racist tirade against the candidate. Zionist billionaire and longtime Democratic donor Bill Ackman also declared support for incumbent mayor Eric Adams, who is running as an independent in the general elections and aiming to push Cuomo out.