“You emboldened Zionist propaganda”: San Diego mayor Gloria called out over shooting

“It’s a f***ing direct result of your leadership!” “You emboldened Zionist propaganda and you’ll keep doing it as long as it lines your pockets!” Those were the words an outraged attendee flung at San Diego mayor Todd Gloria as he stood to dole out supposed sadness. Gloria was speaking after the 18 May 2026 mass shooting at the Islamic Center of San Diego mosque.

Three victims at the mosque were murdered by two local teenagers. Both held white supremacist views. According to a ‘manifesto’ they wrote before the attack, they considered themselves “sons” of Zionist Brenton Tarrant. Tarrant murdered 51 people and wounded 89 in the 2019 Christchurch mosque attacks in New Zealand. According to local reports, one gunman then shot the other in the head before killing himself nearby in their car.

The victims were security guard Amin Abdullah, 51, murdered as he tried to protect other mosque-goers, teacher Mohamed Nader, 57, and Mansour Kaziha, 78, who was known to friends as Abu Ezz.

San Diego mayor is a vocal apartheid supporter

Gloria is a vocal supporter of Israel, and in March 2026 pushed the unfit ‘IHRA definition’ of antisemitism through the city’s council as a means of suppressing criticism of the genocidal state. According to the Reverse Canary Mission site, which highlights the Zionist sympathies, funding and collaboration with the Israel lobby of US political figures, Gloria:

actively shields settler-colonialism by welcoming Israeli advocacy lobbies, illuminating public buildings in solidarity with the occupation, and punishing Palestinian solidarity to sustain Israel’s apartheid and genocide across Palestine. …

… In March 2023, Gloria publicly welcomed the AJC. In October 2023, he lit up the San Diego Convention Center in blue to signal solidarity with Israel, publicly declared that San Diego “stood with Israel,” and condemned the Palestinian resistance group Hamas while framing events through a lens that obscures decades of occupation and the well-documented role of Israel’s Hannibal Directive in contributing to casualties.

In December 2024, Gloria attended the Combat Antisemitism Mayors Summit hosted in partnership with the Israeli Consulate, where he engaged in efforts that equate legitimate criticism of Israel’s actions with hate. In June 2025, he announced he would boycott San Diego Pride events in protest of headliner Kehlani’s condemnation of Israel’s genocide of Palestinians, prioritizing alignment with Zionist pressures over LGBTQ+ solidarity and Palestinian human rights.

And more. It sounds like the fury of Gloria’s heckling was more than deserved:

The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) says that the shooting came against a backdrop of a record levels of Islamophobic hate driven, no doubt, by US support for Israel and Trump’s illegal war on Iran. CAIR described the attack as the:

deadly consequence of years of anti-Muslim hate, demonization and dangerous rhetoric targeting American Muslims and other marginalized communities.

Featured image via Carlos A. Moreno/Getty Images

By Skwawkbox

Source link