The race has turned into an Israel-Palestine proxy war of sorts, even as voters on both sides wish the focus remained on local issues
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peaking from a Jerusalem bomb shelter last week as Iran and Israel exchanged fire, a New York state senator posted a video message to New York City voters: “There is a mayoral primary coming up this week where one of the candidates does not believe the Jewish state has a right to exist,” said Sam Sutton, the senator from Brooklyn. “We don’t want to be in a situation like this in America.”
Sutton called on New Yorkers to elect a “great friend of the Jewish people”: Andrew Cuomo, New York’s former governor.
The appeal was a stark illustration of the outsized role a foreign country and its conflicts have come to play in local elections. While Tuesday’s vote is just the primary, the winner of the Democratic contest historically has gone on to win the mayoral contest in November – though this year could be different.
