Democratic mayoral nominee Zohran Mamdani said during a Thursday night TV interview that he now discourages using the phrase “globalize the intifada” as he seeks to quell a weeks-long controversy over his repeated refusal to condemn a slogan that many Jewish New Yorkers see as an incitement to violence.

While Mamdani has said the expression is not one he personally chooses to use, critics have accused him of condoning antisemitism because the mayoral candidate has declined to disavow the phrase, saying he hears the language as “a desperate desire for equality and equal rights in standing up for Palestinian human rights.”