Mayor Mamdani gave a brief address denouncing Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu as a war criminal and genocide perpetrator but announced that, regretfully, he cannot order his arrest if he attends the annual UN meeting in New York City in September. However, he did encourage his followers to commit violent acts if Netanyahu shows his face.
Oddly, the Mayor and the Prime Minister have some interests in common regarding the upcoming UN meeting and Netanyahu's potential visit because of the upcoming Israeli elections in October. Current polling shows Netanyahu's coalition losing to the opposition. If Netanyahu comes to NYC in September and faces more outrage from Mamdani and protestors it will help his reelection chances. It is in the Prime Minister's interest that such demonstrations occur and the worse, the better for him.
For Mamdani, who knew all along he had no authority to arrest the PM, he gets to level a factually inaccurate but inflammatory set of accusations which pleases his supporters. It is also in his interest to foment unrest in the city if Netanyahu comes in September, precisely because his goal and the PMs are similar. They both want Netanyahu to be reelected. From Mamdani's perspective, Netanyahu is the perfect villain and having him continue in office advances the Mayor's objectives - the isolation and eventual destruction of Israel. Many of those who have taken the pro-Hamas side blame everything on Netanyahu, including experienced but delusional types like Tom Friedman and Chuck Schumer, thinking if only he were gone everything would be nice and calm. Mamdani knows the truth that when it comes to Hamas there is not a lot of difference between Netanyahu and his opposition. Mamdani and the groups that support him want Israel destroyed. They do not want a two-state solution. They recognize that continuing to personalize the enemy via Netanyahu is to their advantage.
The mayors of the two next largest American cities, Karen Bass in LA and Brandon Johnson in Chicago, are incompetent and not very smart (Johnson is downright stupid). Mamdani is an evil man but he is clever, charismatic, and dangerous. Mamdani claims it was his hatred for Israel that set him on the path to becoming a socialist.
My paternal grandfather Louis came to the U.S. in 1905 after deserting the Russian army. He promptly joined the U.S. army, serving two 3-year enlistments, being discharged as a sergeant and gaining his citizenship (we still have his discharge and citizenship papers). Louis spoke six languages but insisted that only English be spoken in his presence. As a Jew he encountered prejudice but he was proud to be an American. This was his country.
My maternal grandfather Nate was born in the U.S. three years after his parents emigrated from Russia. Unlike Louis, who passed before I was born, I had the opportunity to know Nate and learned his hero was Abraham Lincoln. As a Jew he encountered prejudice but was proud to be an American. This was his country.
My parents were the same. They taught me to be grateful for the opportunities we had in America. Yes, they had some criticisms of conditions but they were proud to be Americans which they considered the best country in the world.
What about Zohran Mamdani and his upbringing?
His father is Mahmood Mamdani, an Indian born Muslim who grew up in Uganda, but was educated in the United States, obtaining a doctorate from Harvard (the worst anti-Americans are created by Ivy League universities). Mamdani and his family were expelled from Uganda in 1973 by the crazy Idi Amin, returning in 1980 after Amin's overthrow. Since then Mamdani has spent most of his time in the United States and Uganda where he has a villa. He remains a citizen of Uganda and is not an American citizen.
After serving as director of Columbia's Institute of African Studies, in 1999 he became the Herbert Lehman Professor of Government at Columbia, a position he still holds.(1) From 2010 to 2022 he was also executive director of the Makerere Institute of Social Research at Kampala University in Uganda.
Professor Mamdani's life work can best be summarized as blaming every problem in the Third World on Western Colonialism. In his work, people and institutions in the Third World have no agency or ability to influence events, even after colonialism ended. This requires tortuous convoluted "logic", leading to writing that the genocide in Darfur was not a genocide but whatever bad that did happen there was the fault of the U.S.
He's argued that America pioneered "settler-colonialism" and genocide and ethnic cleansing, which influenced later projects, including Nazi Germany. And who was the American figure most responsible for these atrocities? None other than my grandfather Nate's hero! Mamdani claimed:
"With the Civil War, Abraham Lincoln generalized the solution of reservations. they herded American Indians into separate territories. For the Nazis, this was the inspiration - Hitler realized two things: one, that genocide is doable. Second thing Hitler realized is that you don't have to have a common citizenship."
Mahmood married film maker Mira Nair in 1991 after they met in Uganda. Zohran is their only child. Born and raised in India, Nair attended (surprise!) Harvard in the mid-70s and is a naturalized U.S. citizen. She's had a very successful career making theatrical (we enjoyed Mississippi Marsala) and TV films as well as documentaries. She opposes the existence of Israel.
A very affluent, privileged couple given education, refuge, and acclamation in America, a country they despise. In their view both Israel and America are settler-colonialist societies which deserve to be destroyed.
Regarding her son, Nair gave an interview in 2013 in which she stated:
"He is a total desi [South Asian]. Completely. We are not firangs [Westerners] at all. He is very much us. He is not an Uhmericcan [American] at all. He was born in Uganda, raised between India and America. He is at home in many places. He thinks of himself as a Ugandan and as an Indian."
Until 8th grade Zohran attended the Bank Street School for Children, which proudly announces its progressive bona fides on its website.(2) After attending the Bronx High School for Science, Zohran went to Bowdoin College, a small progressive liberal arts school in Maine where he majored in Africana Studies (one of those new majors that is about indoctrination) and founded the college's Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) chapter. SJP calls for the dissolution of Israel and celebrated Hamas' October 7 attack as a "historic win for the Palestinian resistance".
Zohran was designed from birth by his parents as a weapon against Israel and the United States. His purpose is to gain the political power that allows him to accomplish those goals. He's learned to be slicker than his parents about how he shows his contempt for America but it shines through when he speaks about Israel.(3)
Zohran Mamdani became a naturalized American citizen in 2018. He should never have been allowed to become a citizen with this background and he perjured himself by taking the oath of citizenship requiring him to defend the Constitution. This points out the importance of this country becoming more diligent and responsible in deciding who is granted the privilege of citizenship. Screening is essential because once citizenship is granted, the person is entitled to all the rights, privileges, and due process of his fellow citizens. Zohran makes a powerful case for enhanced immigration and naturalization restrictions.
(1) That Mahmood Mamdani holds an endowed chair from the family of Herbert Lehman is an insult to a real American and a sign of how degraded Columbia University has become. Lehman served as Governor and Senator of the state of New York. The Jewish Lehman also served on the boards of the American Jewish Committee and the Anti Defamation League.
(2) Its current website boasts of its dedication to DEI ("students learn to analyze systems present in society today and become prepared to address injustices, advocate for marginalized people, and make change inside and outside of their communities"), and equity ("Our work encourages leaders, educators, caregivers, and families to examine the systemic racism that is internalized by all of us and engage in anti-racist practices and interventions that dismantle systems of oppression in schools and communities.").
The school's website reads like a perfect parody of current progressive ideology. Worst of all is the pride the school takes in its Affinity Groups designed to create resentments and divisiveness among and between students and families.
(3) Mamdani plays a word game in which he always refers to Judaism as a religion but not to Jews as a people. We are both. From his perspective a religion should not have a country; I know that is inconsistent with the 22 Arab Muslim states and the 50+ state members of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation but never mind. In his world view, Jews would be fine practicing their religion as long as they are subordinate to his politics and would be tolerated as long as they follow his rules. It is a rejection of the idea of toleration as not something bestowed, but that which we owe to each other, as George Washington expressed in his letter to the Jewish congregation of Newport, Rhode Island. Just another aspect of Mamdani's reject of American ideals.
