Netanyahu’s New Likud Poster Puts Zohran Mamdani Beside Khamenei, Erdoğan and Hezbollah: ‘Don’t Let Them Win’
Netanyahu has shared a new Likud campaign poster depicting New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani alongside Iran’s Mojtaba Khamenei, Turkey’s Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and Hezbollah chief Naim Qassem under the message that they want Netanyahu to lose.
Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud campaign has produced one of the most provocative images of Israel’s 2026 election: New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani placed alongside Iran’s Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and Hezbollah leader Naim Qassem.
The message is simple: they want Netanyahu to lose—do not let them win.
Netanyahu shared the poster on social media as campaigning intensifies ahead of Israel’s parliamentary election.
The visual strategy is classic political threat framing.
Instead of presenting only domestic opponents, the campaign groups Netanyahu’s critics with foreign adversaries and armed enemies.
Khamenei leads the Iranian state Israel has been fighting for months. Qassem heads Hezbollah, which has exchanged fire with Israel across Lebanon. Erdoğan is one of Israel’s harshest regional political critics.
Mamdani is different.
He is the mayor of New York, an American elected official with no military power over Israel.
His inclusion is therefore the most politically interesting part of the poster.
Mamdani has sharply criticised Israel’s conduct toward Palestinians and has supported legal accountability for alleged war crimes. His rhetoric has repeatedly angered Netanyahu and pro-Israel groups.
By placing him beside Khamenei and Hezbollah, Likud converts political criticism into the same visual category as strategic enemies.
Supporters will see the poster as an accurate depiction of a coalition of figures hostile to Netanyahu and Israel’s current policies.
Critics will call it deliberate conflation.
Opposing Netanyahu is not the same thing as supporting Iran or Hezbollah.
A democratic politician in New York, a NATO-country president, the supreme leader of Iran and the head of an armed Lebanese movement occupy completely different political and legal categories.
The poster does not care about that distinction.
Its job is emotional association.
Campaigns everywhere use this technique. If voters can be persuaded that domestic political change would delight dangerous enemies, voting against the incumbent starts to feel like helping the enemy.
Netanyahu has relied on security credentials throughout his career. The current environment makes the strategy especially powerful.
Israel is simultaneously confronting Iran, Hezbollah, Hamas, West Bank violence and international criticism. Supporters can plausibly argue that changing leadership during such a period is risky.
Opponents argue Netanyahu benefits politically from permanent emergency and uses external threats to avoid accountability for government failures.
Mamdani’s inclusion also reflects how deeply American politics now enters Israeli elections.
New York contains one of the world’s largest Jewish populations outside Israel. Its mayor can influence public discourse even if he cannot command Israeli policy.
A high-profile confrontation with Netanyahu therefore carries symbolic value far beyond municipal government.
Erdoğan’s image performs another function.
Turkey is a NATO state and has now joined Saudi Arabia and Pakistan in a major defence pact. Ankara says the alliance is defensive and not directed at Israel. Israeli political messaging increasingly treats Turkey as part of a hostile regional environment.
That can shape public attitudes toward the Mecca pact even before it is tested militarily.
The poster is therefore more than election advertising.
It compresses Likud’s worldview into one frame: Netanyahu is the barrier between Israel and a network of hostile political forces stretching from Tehran and Beirut to Ankara and New York.
The open question is whether Israeli voters accept that framing—or see the poster as evidence that Netanyahu’s campaign increasingly treats almost anyone who wants him out of office as belonging to the same enemy camp.