By Bruce S. Ticker
PHILADELPHIA – The father of New York City’s new mayor is fond of interpreting Jewish history, so he should not mind if I interpret his history.
A New York Times reporter disclosed that Mahmoud Mamdani engaged in an activity that I believe constitutes a crime when he participated in illegal encampments at Columbia University in the spring of 2024.
In a Times story this past Sunday, Matthew Mpoke Bigg writes, “During the 2024 protests at Columbia, Professor Mamdani signed a petition calling on the university to end its support for Israel (nothing illegal there, certainly). He also held teach-in sessions for students who had set up an encampment on campus grounds to protest the war in Gaza.”
A lot illegal there. The administration thought these encampments were so illegal that they called in the city police at least three times to disband them. Anyone who participated in the operation of these encampments violated the law – possibly in the form of low-level offenses such as trespass, disorderly conduct and reckless endangerment.
Mamdani, a professor at Columbia, participated by holding these teach-in sessions.
“His conduct, in my view, contributed to a discriminatory environment for Jewish students,” said 23-year-old Elisha Baker, a Middle East history student who led pro-Israel advocacy then, according to the Times article.
My interpretation is based on my experience reporting on legal issues and my continued interest in reading up on legal matters. I have never set foot inside a law school. Pro-Arab protesters consistently get away with a lot because they infrequently face legal consequences for their actions.
Mamdani should have been arrested for his participation.
The Times article flirts with his negative views of Israel as a Jewish state, but it fell short of quoting some of his more hostile statements that should antagonize any pro-Israel person. Such as:
“The Palestinian challenge is to persuade the Jewish population and the world, just as in South Africa, the longtime security of a Jewish homeland in historic Palestine requires the dismantling of the Jewish state.
“The lesson for Palestine and Israel is that historic Palestine can be a homeland for Jews but not for Jews only. Jews can have a homeland in historic Palestine, but not a state.”
Mamdani, father of Mayor Zohran Mamdani, either does not know or does not care about the most consequential events in modern Israeli history. Arabs were offered an equivalent amount of land by the United Nations in 1947 but chose to attack the Jews. They ended up with 22 percent of the territory that the UN set aside for both sides. Arabs tried again in 1967 and lost the remainder of their territory to Israel. In 2000, they refused a new offer of an independent state and responded by going to war again.
Our professor ignores the recent past as he tries to parse a case for Arab control of control of Israel. In a speech he delivered in 2014, he recounts Tanzanian President Julius Nyerere telling a Palestinian delegation in 1960, “Your situation is worse than anything we have faced on this continent. We lost our independence; you lost your country.”
They lost their “country” in large part by leaving their country to give Arab armies space to sweep in and drive the Jews into the sea. Why should Israel allow them to return?
He added, “…when all forms of resistance are being redefined as terror, when repression is embraced as a war on terror…Israel and the United States have been unable to tar popular resistance in historic Palestine with the brush of terrorism.”
Mamdani does not bother to justify Palestinian dominance. Even if he could, he expends a massive amount of effort composing arguments that will make no difference in resolving the conflict. The current reality is all about two peoples who each make strong claims to the land, and neither of those peoples are going anywhere. They can either talk to each other or continue fighting.
I cannot fathom why Mamdani, his son or his wife Mira Nair are so invested in the so-called Palestinians. Both parents are from India and spent much time in Uganda before moving to New York City. Father and son are Muslims, and Nair is Hindu.
There are Muslim leaders who want to grow with Israel, not destroy it, because they know strong relationships will help all Middle East nations.
These leaders are Muslims who live in the real world, not an ivory tower.
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Bruce S. Ticker is a Philadelphia-based columnist.