The New York Times profile of Zohran Mamdani reminds us that his obsession with anti-Zionism remains unhealthy in the extreme. But it also reveals that his brand of “pro-Palestinian” activism has nothing to do with Palestinians; it’s all about the Jews.
The same goes for the Young Republicans whose private chats showed some of them chasing clout by one-upping each other’s racism and anti-Semitism. Whatever cover story the anti-Israel contingent on the right tells itself, it has nothing to do with geopolitics. It’s all about the Jews.
After the war in Gaza, this trend will either intensify and normalize a new level of Jew-hatred in political discourse, or it will retreat into pretend criticisms of “Israeli policy” and hide behind “America first” tropes. Whichever is the case, the essential driving force will be the same. We’d do well to keep that in mind.
In Mamdani’s case, his insistence on arresting Banjamiin Netanyahu—a declaration of lawlessness that should disqualify him for office even if it weren’t also a declaration of his own bigotry—it getting renewed attention because he also declined to say Hamas should disarm. “I don’t have opinions about the future of Hamas,” the New York mayoral frontrunner said on Fox.
To Mamdani, all that matters is that the Jewish state is punished and its supporters are kept out of the liberal coalition. “Whenever you are at peace with the making of an exception, you make it easier to make another exception,” he told the Times; the exception he’s referring to is support for Israel. This was by way of explaining why his position on the conflict should be a litmus test for participation in respectable left-of-center politics.
The author of the profile, Astead Herndon, then asked others on the left if they shared Mamdani’s predilection to compromise on virtually anything except the virulence of his anti-Zionism:
“Arresting Netanyahu is also not a primary goal of Mamdani’s leftist base. When I asked Gustavo Gordillo, who leads the New York City chapter of the D.S.A., about what he sees as Mamdani’s nonnegotiable campaign promises, he named the affordability agenda. I asked Murad Awawdeh, who leads the New York Immigrant Coalition and knows Mamdani from the Muslim Democratic Club, if arresting Netanyahu was important to him as a Palestinian. He said no.”
So the Democratic Socialists of America, a thoroughly anti-Semitic organization that has ridden a wave of Jew-hatred back to semi-relevance, thinks there are more important things than hating Israel. Crucially, a key Palestinian-American figure in the progressive activist movement said that, as a Palestinian, arresting Netanyahu isn’t important.
The reason Mamdani holds his positions is that he doesn’t care about Palestinians. As a Good Progressive, arresting Netanyahu is important to him. He isn’t Palestinian, and his Palestinian-activist friends are less obsessed with Netanyahu than Mamdani is. And why doesn’t Mamdani care if Hamas disarms? For the same reason. Hamas has spent the time since the ceasefire began executing dozens of Gazans who belong to clans or families that oppose the terror group. Hamas is currently carrying out a Khmer Rouge-like ideological cleansing of Palestinians in the Gaza Strip. Mamdani can’t be bothered to pretend to care.
For what do Palestinians have to do with Mamdani’s position on Gaza, after all? They are a non-factor.
Mamdani has “Jews on the brain.” That’s all this ever was, and he has mostly stopped even trying to hide it.
Similarly, we are told the “young right” is turning against Israel because it has bought into this or that libel about a “genocide” in Gaza. But their private messages somehow keep ending up saying “I love Hitler.” The groypers and Mamdani and his supporters aren’t interested in human rights. It’s a cover.
And that cover is increasingly transparent. It’s not at all surprising to see the right-wing influencer Myron Gaines, whom I wrote about in my May essay “The Anti-Semites in the Conservative Manosphere,” respond to the Young Republicans chat leak by tweeting “Yeah we like Hitler.” He added: “If can israel(sic) deny a genocide with 4k video proof, I’m questjoning(sic) everything you guys have said about the painter during WW2.”
Nobody who says “we like Hitler” unironically is actually evaluating Israeli policy. From left to right and back again, the political activist class considers the Palestinians an excuse to foment anti-Semitism in America. After the war, they will move on to another excuse to foment anti-Semitism, and another after that. Because the anti-Semitism is the point. Everything else about their political worldview is a pretext.
