Nate Bear Do Not Panic
Yesterday New York City mayor Zohran Mamdani announced what he called “the first-ever municipal strategy to combat antisemitism.”
In the video announcing it, his doe-eyes convincing you this is nothing more than a good old community safety initiative, he said “antisemitism in New York is real and it is growing” and as such he would create an “all-of-government” approach to tackle it. Citing NYPD statistics, he said the “antisemitic hate crimes account for over half of all hate crimes.”
You know, I know and surely he knows one of the central justifications for the genocide of Gaza was that Hamas are a raving band of bloodthirsty antisemites who must be destroyed. This logic, which had been long-established in the western mind by two decades of propaganda, enabled Zionists and supporters of Israel to confect frenzied antisemitism hysteria to discredit and delegitimise opponents of genocide. Mamdani surely knows that fake claims of antisemitism have been the primary rhetorical stick used to beat pro-Palestinians, especially in the last three years. It is the word beloved of the political and media establishment to discredit and silence critics of Israel, and has become an essential tool of the status quo. Conflating antisemitism and antizionism has also been an essential tactic of the security state, to the point that the NYPD now classifies keffiyehs and watermelons as antisemitic hate symbols. You know, I know and surely he knows all this. Surely he knows that the vast majority of the increase in antisemitism he cites is because of this utterly fraudulent characterisation, and does not reflect a genuine increase in hate crimes against Jews. Jews and Jewish institutions in New York City aren’t being confronted because of their religion. They are being confronted for supporting, facilitating and in some cases being direct participants in genocide via their membership of the IDF. Mamdani’s knowledge of this is what makes this announcement so disgustingly cynical.
I have never liked Mamdani. The red flags were present early. I wrote an article calling out his fakery and treachery more than nine months ago. But I understand why some wanted to believe in him. He did call it genocide when many politicians wouldn’t. He did say he would arrest Netanyahu. In a political environment where we’re starved of figures willing to stand for basic humanity during a genocide, he appeared to some as a principled breathe of fresh air. On top of that, as a Muslim, you could be convinced these principles, on Israel, Gaza and Palestine, carried more weight.
Unfortunately, actually winning power, he has betrayed these principles over and over again. Firstly he retained Jessica Tisch, a proud pro-genocide Zionist who trained with the Israeli military, as the head of the NYPD. And he kept her on despite the last 10 mayors switching out the head of the NYPD for their own choice. All he needed to do was follow precedent and argue for it on this basis. But no.
He also retained the NYPD’s Strategic Response Group which he promised to disband for its violence towards both BLM and pro-Palestine protestors, and it now operates under his command. Then, when the NYPD arrested activists protesting auctions of West Bank land being held in New York synagogues, he condemned the activists and praised the police. Then he weaseled his way out of his pledge to arrest Netanyahu. Then when Netanyahu did visit New York Mamdani not only refused to join the protest against him, his security forces arrested over one hundred people whilst granting the wanted war criminal and butcher of Gaza a huge protective motorcade through the city. Then just last week he announced a 15-person business council which includes Doug Steiner, the billionaire son of David Steiner, a former head of AIPAC. During his campaign he also stated that ‘under no circumstances’ would his NYPD cooperate with ICE, yet just yesterday his NYPD helped ICE arrest a clearly distressed Nigerian man outside a hospital. Shameful. Oh, and he also had dinner with the genocide-denying Chabad organisation the other night. And now this, a cynical move which provides fresh fuel for the underlying premise which has legitimised the genocide he claims to oppose and instead funnels $27 million to Zionist groups. One of those groups is the Jewish Community Relations Council of New York which organises “study tours” to Israel for New Yorkers to understand “the complex reality of the state of Israel.” You can’t make it up.
My tweet calling Mamdani a con for this latest announcement is approaching 8 million views. Lots of people in response called me a Jew hater, an antisemite, a Nazi. The usual stuff you get called when you understand the political context and material realities which have come to define the relationship between Jews, Israel, Zionism and antisemitism. The usual ad hominin attacks that come when you have examined the political and social scaffolding built to protect a genocidal state and its supporters. The reality is that the vast majority of Jewish institutions, from synagogues to lobby and interest groups, are Zionist. Very few have denounced the genocide of Gaza, let alone called for the dismantling of the country. As I have written about before, Jewish institutions are complicit in the holocaust of Gaza. Where is the conference of Jewish leaders and rabbis to end genocide? Where’s the full page joint statement from global Jewish leaders, printed in all western news outlets, condemning Israeli genocide? Rather than use their social and moral privileges to help end a genocide being perpetrated by the Jewish state, many Jewish leaders remain, in a golden age of Jewish safety, focused on illusory Jewish persecution.
And now Mamdani has adopted this very same stance.
And by adopting it, Mamdani is going to consciously advance the cause of Zionism in very real ways. One of those ways will be through the indoctrination of schoolchildren, given that his strategy calls for an increase in school trips to the Museum of Jewish Heritage. This explicitly Zionist museum last year held a so-called “rage against hate” event which platformed numerous Islamophobic speakers, including the former head of Mossad. It was at this event that the demented journalist Melanie Phillips claimed there is “no such thing as the Palestinian people” and only Jewish people “have any entitlement” to historic Palestine. The museum has also been been sued by an ex-employee for creating an atmosphere of anti-Muslim racial hatred. Lots of school children, including Muslims, will now be forced to visit a racist institution to consume Zionist propaganda. Mamdani also said that as part of the strategy the NYPD will work to identify antisemitic hate crimes before they happen. Now, given that the NYPD classifies watermelons and keffiyehs as antisemitic, it doesn’t take a huge leap of imagination to consider where this dystopian pre-crime targeting might lead.
While Mamdani is performing for Zionists and buttressing the foundations of liberal Zionism under the cover of antisemitism, you know who doesn’t get a special “all-of-government” task force to protect them in the city he runs? Palestinians, who have to walk the same streets as Jewish Zionist New Yorkers who have served in the IDF and murdered their family members in Gaza. Rather than use his power and the resources of the state to uphold international law and pursue bona fide war criminals on his streets, Mamdani is employing the force and resources of the state to protect them. Mamdani appears to consider Muslims in general less worthy of protection than Jews, given the lack of an anti-Islamophobia strategy which would mirror his antisemitism strategy. This is despite four attacks on mosques just since March this year, and numerous random attacks on individual Muslims. And of course NYPD officers themselves have attacked Muslims for opposing genocide, the same NYPD Mamdani is now empowering to protect Jews from people wearing keffiyehs and brandishing watermelon symbols.
Zohran Mamdani is a waste man, a transactional liberal technocrat trading his professed principles for cheaper lettuce, more buses, or whatever minor and inconsequential social policy he has any success in passing. He has betrayed Palestinians, and especially the Palestinians of New York City. And yet there are many on the pro-Palestine left who refuse to raise their standards and insist on defending him. These sorts of people are as bad as any Trump fanatic, treating politics as a team sport, gripping desperately to their MVP in spite of his numerous betrayals. I’ve seen this crowd make numerous excuses since Mamdani announced this strategy, the favourite of which appears to be that his embrace of Zionists is a necessary political calculation to extract the concession he needs to make progress in other areas. Well I’m sorry, if Zionism and genocide is the issue you feel required to concede on, then you definitely can’t be trusted, because that means there’s no issue you won’t concede on in the end.