Israel critic Omar Fateh wins Democratic endorsement for mayor of Minneapolis

A Muslim Democratic socialist state lawmaker in his 30s defeats the establishment candidate for mayor of his city, setting up a showdown in advance of November’s general election.

The scenario played out last month in New York City, and again this week in Minneapolis, where Omar Fateh won the endorsement of the state’s Democratic Party at its convention in his bid to unseat the city’s Jewish mayor, Jacob Frey.

Fateh, 35, is the latest progressive candidate to ascend amid a shift away from establishment Democrats. His victory has drawn comparisons to that of Zohran Mamdani, the New York state assemblyman who last month beat out former Gov. Andrew Cuomo in a primary election to become New York City’s Democratic mayoral candidate.

“Today, we witnessed a rejection of politics as usual,” Fateh said in his victory speech on Saturday after delegates cast their votes at a convention of local Democrats.

Similarly to Mamdani in New York City, Fateh is promising a more progressive approach than the incumbent mayor. Frey is a moderate who has clashed with the City Council’s left-wing majority over issues such as rent control, rideshare driver pay, and labor standards. Like Mamdani, Fateh has focused his campaign on affordability and public safety.

Also like Mamdani, Fateh is a staunch critic of Israel, which is increasingly shaping local races across the United States. In October 2023, he expressed his mourning for the Israeli victims of the October 7 Hamas-led attacks while demanding a ceasefire and warning about “the precipice of a genocidal war” on Palestinians.

Frey, meanwhile, vetoed a City Council resolution that called for a ceasefire in Gaza last year, saying that he supported a ceasefire but found the resolution’s language “one-sided.” The City Council overrode his veto.

The rise of candidates such as Fateh and Mamdani shows that opposition to Israel, once a dealbreaker in the Democratic political world, is no longer an obstacle to electoral success. Nearly two years into Israel’s campaign in Gaza, the party’s rifts have deepened over tensions with its base. In Michigan’s presidential primary last year, more than 100,000 Democrats declared themselves “uncommitted” to protest former US president Joe Biden’s support for Israel, and President Donald Trump won the state.

In a signal that the pro-Palestinian, anti-Israel movement has moved from social organizing to amassing political power, Jewish Voice for Peace, a prominent anti-Zionist group, has restructured to focus on lobbying for specific policies and supporting or opposing candidates for elected office.

Frey’s defeat in the convention does not necessarily predict a loss in November: He failed to win two previous conventions before emerging victorious in the general election, which uses ranked-choice voting. His campaign said the Minneapolis Democratic Party has a flawed endorsement system and alleged that its online system broke down during the voting process, a charge the party has denied. According to a report in Axios, there was a chaotic vote, with a prolonged count of an initial online referendum by delegates, and then a second vote taken by show of hands—but after many of Frey’s supporters had already left the convention hall.

According to The New York Times, winning the vote enables the candidate to declare themselves “DFL-endorsed,” and also to access a databank of voters.

The Twin Cities are home to some 66,000 Jews and more than 100,000 Muslims, including a large community of immigrants from Somalia. Fateh, who was born in Washington, DC, was the first Somali American and Muslim elected to Minnesota’s state senate in 2020.

Like Mamdani, he has been the target of Islamophobic attacks by right-wing activists such as Charlie Kirk, who said he was part of an “attempted Islamic takeover of America” that was “made possible thanks to mass migration.”

Frey defended Fateh from this attack, responding, “Senator Omar Fateh is a proud American who is running because, like me, he loves Minneapolis.”

Jewish groups in Minneapolis have not immediately weighed in on the endorsement. But some Jewish leaders in the area told Jewish Insider that they were wary if not of Fateh specifically then of the progressive shift within the Democratic Party and what it could augur for Israel’s standing within the party.

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