Mamdani apologists play the fake Islamophobia card
The liberal media and others spin attempts to call out the
Democratic mayoral nominee’s hatred for Israel as hatred for Muslims.
JNS
Jul 1, 2025
It didn’t take long for the Democratic
Party’s media cheering section to demonstrate how far the Overton Window
had moved among liberals with respect to antisemitism. Centrist
Democrats and the liberal Jewish establishment were genuinely shocked by
Zohran Mamdani’s victory in last week’s Democratic Party mayoral
primary in New York City. Within days, however, it was clear that legacy
outlets reflecting mainstream opinion on the political left weren’t
going to tolerate much in the way of criticism of his extremist views
about Israel and the Jews.
Within days, it was clear that anyone who
claimed that Mamdani should be rejected out of hand as a possible mayor
of New York on the grounds of stands that were, at best,
antisemitism-adjacent or, at worst, open endorsements of Jewish
genocide, rather than the candidate himself, were going to be the ones
under fire. Within 48 hours of Mamdani’s win, The New York Times was already using the word “Islamophobic” in headlines describing his critics.
Legitimizing antisemitism
It is fear among Democrats about being
labeled as Islamophobic that explains why so few prominent members of
the party and officeholders are refusing to condemn Mamdani now that the
33-year-old New York state representative has become their party’s
nominee. That’s not just smoothing his path to victory for a fellow
Democrat, despite the horror that many New Yorkers feel about him. It’s
also achieving something the political left has been assiduously working
toward, especially since the Hamas-led Palestinian Arab attacks on
southern Israeli communities on Oct. 7, 2023: the legitimization of
antisemitism in the American public square.
While some of the online reaction to
Mamdani was inappropriate, the attempt by Democrats and their liberal
media cheerleaders to frame the narrative about the opposition to him as
one primarily about Islamophobia is fundamentally dishonest.
Characterizing verbal and written
criticisms of Mamdani as “racist” is not only a matter of inaccuracy or
misinterpretation of those venting their anger and outrage about the
prospect of him being mayor of the most Jewish city in the world outside
of the State of Israel. Such arguments were the next logical step
involved in legitimizing opinions about Israel and Jews, as well as
those fighting to destroy it, along with other radical causes.
The issue is not whether the next mayor of
New York is a Shia Muslim (he practices the faith of his mother rather
than that of his Hindu father). In a city as diverse as New York, few
care about Mamdani’s faith or his background as the son of immigrants
(his mother was a Gujarati Indian Muslim born in Uganda, and his father
an Indian-American of Hindu Punjabi descent).
What matters is the fact that he is a
Socialist on economic issues and an adherent of the ideological war on
the West being waged by the hard left. His extremist views may well be
influenced by his faith and ethnicity. Yet they are just as much a
manifestation of the fashionable ideas that label the West and America
as irredeemably racist, and Israel and the Jews as “white” oppressors
who must be suppressed. In this sense, the New York mayoral campaign has
transcended politics. It is, instead, another manifestation of the
conquest of American elite institutions of higher education by so-called
“progressives” that led to mobs targeting Jews on college campuses
since Oct. 7.
Mamdani has been an ardent advocate for
the cause of “free Palestine,” which is to say the effort to “free” the
territory—meaning, from the Jewish population—of the only Jewish state
on the planet. That is an idea that ought to be rejected by all decent
people everywhere not only because it singles out the Jews for
deprivation of rights, such as that of living in peace and sovereignty
in their ancient homeland, but also because it can only be achieved by
the sort of genocidal wars that Hamas and its Iranian sponsor have long
advocated and continue to pursue. This despicable cause has gained
increasing support on the political left, largely on the strength of
blood libels about Israel committing “genocide” against Palestinian
Arabs in Gaza in its just war against Hamas, endorsed by Mamdani and other Democrats.
Suppressing criticism
If, as the Times and other
liberal outlets insist, Mamdani’s views are to be accepted as legitimate
stands about which we must agree to disagree when discussing them, then
what we are witnessing is not a prejudiced reaction to the rise of a
non-white Muslim politician. Rather, it is an attempt to suppress
criticism of the mainstreaming of antisemitism and other extremist
beliefs by the political left.
This tactic has been a staple of the
anti-Israel movement for years and has achieved some notable successes,
especially during the Biden presidency. The last Democratic
administration balanced the
lip service it paid to the rise of antisemitism on its watch with an
attempt to treat concerns about prejudice against Muslims as being of
equal concern.
While all prejudice is deplorable, the
problem with virtually all of the discussion about Islamophobia in
recent years is that most such attacks against Muslims aren’t actually
racist ones.
To the contrary, the comments and stands
that are labeled as Islamophobic are almost always attempts to call out
the rabid Jew-hatred and virulent prejudicial positions and language
that are mainstream discourse among American Muslims, especially on the
part of those groups, like the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), which purport to represent them.
Such advocacy is based on the false
assertion that Muslims are being subjected to widespread attacks and
discrimination in the United States. The primary source for this claim
is CAIR,
a group that masquerades as a civil-rights organization but was founded
as a cover for those seeking to raise funds for Hamas terrorists in the
United States illegally. CAIR has a consistent record of antisemitism
but also seeks to downplay or rationalize Islamist terrorism, like the
Oct. 7 attacks.
Moreover, the organization’s claims about
the situation of American Muslims and Arabs are simply not backed up by
empirical evidence. This dates back to its false assertions that were
echoed by most mainstream media about a mythical post-9/11 backlash
against Muslims that was largely made out of whole cloth. Contrary to
CAIR’s claims (echoed by most liberal media outlets) that it is Muslims
who are under siege, FBI statistics
have shown for the last two and a half decades that American Jews have
been the primary victims of acts of religious prejudice in the United
States. Attacks on Jews far outnumber those on Muslims by large margins
every year, and that is especially true since Oct. 7, 2023, when a surge
of antisemitism began, fueled largely by the same kind of anti-Israel
bigotry echoed by Mamdani.
Yet at the heart of the Islamophobia
discussion is something more sinister than a group hyping something that
doesn’t warrant serious concern. What is most disturbing about the
attempt to sanitize Mamdani is that it dovetails with the campaign to
gaslight Jews about the prejudice and violence to which they have been
subjected.
While Mamdani insincerely claims to oppose
antisemitism, he is part of a movement that not only endorses terrorism
against Israeli Jews but is also linked to violence against Americans.
What ‘globalize the intifada’ means
In recent months, three separate incidents
of anti-Jewish domestic terrorism have taken place, initiated by people
claiming to act on behalf of the “free Palestine” cause that Mamdani
has embraced. On Passover, Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro’s Harrisburg
residence was the target of an arson attack. In May, two employees of
the Israeli embassy in Washington were gunned down by another “free
Palestine” advocate as they left a Jewish museum. In June, a rally in
Boulder, Colo., to draw awareness to the plight of the remaining 50 or
so hostages being held by Hamas in Gaza was targeted by another “free
Palestine” supporter, who said he wanted to kill all Zionists when he
threw a Molotov cocktail at them. That assault resulted in injuries to
13 people, including eight who were hospitalized for burns; this week,
82-year-old Karen Diamond died as a result.
That is literally what “Globalize the
intifada” means—the chant that Mamdani specifically refuses to
condemn—and other catchphrases like “From the river to the sea”: support
for terrorism against Jews. Mamdani supports the war against Israel. He
opposes its existence as a Jewish state and couldn’t even condemn the
Oct. 7 attacks without also treating the Israeli victims as morally equivalent
to the Palestinian murderers, rapists and kidnappers and falsely
accusing the Jewish state of “apartheid.” To point out the link between
his steadfast refusal to disavow such stands and those who kill Jews in
Israel or the United States is neither prejudicial nor unfair. On the
contrary, it is those that, like the Times or Axios, which assert that it is wrong to link Mamdani’s position to that of global jihad that are wrong.
Moreover, the fact that he has stuck to
these positions while being defended as a victim of prejudice by
mainstream outlets like the Times is yet another sign of how such antisemitism is no longer a barrier to widespread support from Democrats.
Leading New York and national Democrats
could have reacted to the results with across-the-board condemnations of
not only Mamdani’s anti-Zionism and unwillingness to condemn the
genocidal slogans of Islamist terror. While a few leading Democrats,
such as House Minority Leader Rep. Hakeem Jeffries
(D-N.Y.), have asked him to alter the way he speaks about Israel and to
condemn that phrase, they haven’t rejected out of hand the idea of
someone who holds such views representing their party in the nation’s
largest city.
In recent years, Democrats have been vocal
about Republicans needing to disassociate themselves from extremists in
their party. Apparently, they didn’t think the same suggestion applied
to them. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.), who has long claimed to be the shomer
or “guardian” of Israel and the Jews in Congress, and most other
members of his party, showed little sign of taking such a stand.
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.), has refused to take a stand against the Israel-hating extremists in the Democratic Party
Jumping on the bandwagon
The most compelling evidence of how
difficult that would be was not long in coming. Mainstream Democrats
have shown themselves unable to draw a line in the sand against a figure
who is not merely a Socialist but whose candidacy seems to have become a
test case for legitimizing antisemitic views on the left. Sen. Kirsten
Gillibrand (D-N.Y.), who is no conservative, was widely denounced for
criticisms of Mamdani and forced to apologize. As Politico noted,
most Democrats are now more interested in jumping on his bandwagon
rather than in holding him accountable for his radicalism and
anti-Zionism.
Part of this is a “no enemies on the left” attitude. It is an attitude that outlets like the Times,
which has helped lead the assault on the West and America with its
fallacious “1619 Project,” coupled with its biased coverage of the
post-Oct. 7 war against Hamas and its Iranian sponsor, would like
Democrats to adopt. The fact that it is mimicked by “woke right” antisemites like former Fox News
host Tucker Carlson and Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.), both of
whom despise socialism but identify with Mamdani’s animus for Israel, is
unsurprising.
New York isn’t the only place where those
who hate Israel and seek to silence or marginalize Jews are dominating
the party. In North Carolina, the state’s Democratic Party endorsed
smears of Israel and called for an embargo on arms to it. People like
Schumer and other Democratic officeholders who may disagree with such
rhetoric but understand that their party base is not only comfortable
with these blood libels but starting to demand that they go along with
it.
But the way this is enforced is more than
just a matter of base politics. Nor is it primarily bolstered by the
ideological extremism of writers like Michelle Goldberg, Peter Beinart and M. Gessen, who are platformed by the Times and
falsely claim that supporting the destruction of the one Jewish state
on the planet by means of blood libels and a genocidal terrorist war
isn’t antisemitism. It also involves efforts to condemn those calling
attention to the alarming legitimization of Jew-hatred by labeling such
arguments as Islamophobic and therefore beyond the pale.
What the last few days have shown is that playing the Islamophobia card is how the hard left hopes to facilitate its takeover
of the Democratic Party. More than that, it’s a means to whitewash
antisemitism and silence supporters of Israel. Publications, politicians
and even Jewish groups that are just as concerned about falling out of
sync with mainstream liberal opinion as they are about the surge in
Jew-hatred that don’t stand up against this false narrative are as much a
part of the problem as the controversial candidate himself.
