By Bruce S. Ticker
PHILADELPHIA, Pennsylvania — Zohran Mamdani, the much-scorned mayoral candidate in New York City, all but declared war on the city’s 960,000 Jews over the weekend.
Amid numerous references to Israel on Saturday, the 33-year-old Democrat told a raucous pro-Arab mob at Brooklyn College, “The incident around encampments here at Brooklyn College – the decision to surge officers into that site – is one that leaves students less safe than they were before” (as quoted by the Jewish Telegraphic Agency).
Mamdani does not object to students installing illegal encampments on college campuses, as they did throughout the nation during spring 2024, but he opposes sending the police to enforce the law. How will this approach apply to protection for Jewish New Yorkers who are vulnerable to assaults?
The next day, Mamdani told a television interviewer that he backs divesting city pension funds from Israel if he is elected, saying, “We should not have a fund that is invested in violation of international law,” according to The New York Post.
If these are Mamdani’s plans should he be elected, he could sabotage his quest for free buses, free universal child care, and frozen rents for almost one million stabilized apartments.
Proposals like these face an uphill fight under any circumstances, but it will be far harder if he should threaten Israel and/or Jewish New Yorkers. That is sure to compel reprisals and distract from domestic concerns, possibly eliminating most of his initiatives that will help vulnerable people.
Mamdani’s fellow progressives in Congress and on the streets routinely fuse American poverty with Middle East holy wars. They tell minority groups here that Israel oppresses the “Palestinians” just as American white supremacists persist in keeping Africans, Native Americans and others in modern-day chains.
They call it intersectionality.
What have they accomplished? Scratch that. The question is antiquated. The more relevant question must be: How far have we crumbled since these so-called progressives achieved political power in the last seven years?
Their pursuit of reforms to help the poor and middle class is beneficial and commendable – if they are ever realized. A rising batch of Congress members has sworn to deal with inequality on various fronts, failing schools, inadequate health-care coverage, housing, gun-safety laws and a range of related issues.
In the process, they antagonized Jews with abrasive verbal attacks against Israel, making it easy for right-wingers to tag pro-Arab activists as radicals on most everything else. I am not defending Israeli policies, but these advocates jumbled their criticism of Israel with so many distortions that they cannot be taken seriously.
Amazing how intersectionality undermined improvements in housing and health care.
Even worse, many of them refused to vote for Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris last year on grounds that the Biden administration continued to send Israel military weapons, which they claim were used to support Israel’s military response against Hamas after terrorists slaughtered 1,200 people in southern Israel.
Donald Trump’s popular vote jumped 3 million votes in 2024 to 77.3 million votes, and that was still 4 million lower that President Biden’s vote in 2020.
So, what kind of intersectionality are we left with? We never expected an enlightened administration under Trump, but his second term is a nightmare…to understate the case. Trump’s National Guard has occupied Los Angeles and Washington as they might in Baghdad. Republicans are trying to cut millions off Medicaid and triggered fears that Medicare and Social Security are imperiled. Billions of dollars are being withheld from university research. Vaccine availability is limited. Government agents are picking out people of color as illegal immigrants.
Is this how intersectionality was supposed to work?
“The most serious issue with Mamdani’s campaign is the extremism attached,” Mayor Eric Adams wrote on social media, according to The New York Times. “We cannot stay silent in the face of any extremism.” Adams is seeking re-election as an independent candidate.
Jim Walden, who dropped out of the mayoral race, suggested that Mamdani would cancel “any contract with any Israeli business or any company that does business with Israel. Israeli private equity has about $26 billion worth of investments in New York and New York City. There are a tremendous number of businesses and institutions that also have contracts with Israel. This is an antisemitic policy.”
A Mayor Mamdani who crosses Jewish New Yorkers or any other ethnic group will make it all that harder to achieve his reforms, which are wrapped together under a package he dubs “affordability.” That is a fundamental need. Any citizen should be able to afford rent, food, health whether they live in New York City or Dayton, Ohio.
Under the best circumstances, it will be difficult to improve the lives of New Yorkers. Mamdani, who is a Muslim state assemblyman in Queens, proposed raising taxes on the wealthy to finance his programs, which poses another obstacle.
Mamdani, if elected, must build trust among the vast majority of Jewish New Yorkers because any conflict will probably distract from his affordability initiatives, which would help local Jews as well as anyone else.
He has been slammed for supporting disinvestment from Israel and refusing to condemn the phrase “Globalize the Intifada.” His father has urged the elimination of Israel and his mother has also bashed Israel.
Mamdani has tried to distance himself from unfair criticism of Israel, but he could not leave it alone when he appeared with U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vermont) at Brooklyn College for a rally on Saturday.
The Jewish Telegraph Agency reports that his Israel-related comments prodded the most rowdy applause beyond the domestic issues that a mayor is elected to deal with. Does this mean he could prioritize threatening Israel and local Jews above housing and income inequality?
“We are seeing faculty members who are facing not just discipline, but termination, for the crime of expressing solidarity with the fight for Palestinian human rights,” he said.
No mention of professors at Columbia University who interfered with police who attempted to staunch illegal activity.
“It is a repression,” he added, “that extends even to the ways in which we choose when to send police officers onto college campuses.”
Columbia protesters at times assaulted and injured campus employees, seized and occupied a building and a library room, set up illegal encampments and harassed Jewish students.
If Mamdani has a problem with a police response to serious criminal offenses, this late in the political campaign, maybe he will tolerate assaults on Jewish New Yorkers.
As if we do not lack for worries.
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Bruce S. Ticker is a Philadelphia-based columnist.
‘Intersectionality’ is a bogus new linkage that blames the Jewish state for basically everything