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<\/a>The Mamdani victimhood narrative and the American future<\/a><\/strong><\/span><\/span><\/h3>\nJonathan S. Tobin<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n Last week was a tumultuous one for New York City, its mayor and its Jewish population. Over the course of several days, the city was confronted with events that in any other era might have been considered not only deeply shocking but would have resulted in immediate and serious consequences.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Reporting about the fact that Rama Duwaji, the wife of Mayor Zohran Mamdani, had liked\u00a0social-media posts\u00a0<\/a>celebrating the Hamas-led terrorist attacks in Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, and denying the rape of Israeli women, was followed by the news that the city\u2019s first couple had\u00a0hosted<\/a>\u00a0two well-known terror supporters at their Gracie Mansion official residence. But before the public had a chance to absorb any of that, the mayor and most of his liberal-media cheering section sought to\u00a0downplay<\/a>\u00a0and then confuse the public about the fact that Islamist terrorists, apparently inspired by ISIS, had attempted to bomb an anti-Mamdani demonstration.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Taken as a whole, it painted a dismal picture of how the mayor and his supporters were not only doubling down on support for terrorism against Israelis and Jews, but also seeking to treat domestic Islamist terror as a minor issue. The fact that these events, like so much else about Mamdani, were generally treated as not that big of a deal says volumes about where Americans are as a society. And that, as much as anything else, is something that ought to be sounding alarm bells for Jews and everyone who cares about the consequences of cultural decline, as well as tolerance for antisemitism and violence.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Mamdani\u2019s ability to shrug off these incidents while being\u00a0proclaimed<\/a>\u00a0by\u00a0The New York Times<\/em>\u00a0as \u201cone of America\u2019s most popular politicians\u201d is an indication not only of how left-wing media and the Democratic Party have his back. Like his election victory in November, it\u2019s also a sign that American society may be at a tipping point when it comes to tolerance for antisemitism. And anyone who thinks that won\u2019t have an impact on Jewish life and the country as a whole hasn\u2019t been paying attention to what has been happening in recent years.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n At such a time, it\u2019s essential to remember that when Mamdani was elected mayor of New York City last year, optimists told everyone not to be too upset about it.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n It\u2019s true, they conceded, that the 34-year-old was a longtime opponent of the right of Israel to exist as a Jewish state and a supporter of the discriminatory BDS movement. It\u2019s true that he was a founding member of the Students for Justice in Palestine chapter at Bowdoin College in Maine, a campus group that routinely traffics in Jew-hatred. And it\u2019s true that his brief political career was rooted in activism targeting Israel and its Jewish supporters. He\u2019s also backed left-wing economic and cultural doctrines associated with some of the worst horrors of the 20th century and the collapse of liberalism in the 21st.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n But as everyone was told, having a mayor with such repugnant views wouldn\u2019t really affect Jewish life in New York, let alone impact what goes on in the rest of the United States or its foreign policy. The mayor would be too busy trying to run the country\u2019s largest city to do any real harm to the Jews or anyone else. In fact, it was predicted, he would soon sink under the weight of the costly and misguided boondoggles that his long-discredited socialist policies would create.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Some of that is true.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n The most hysterical predictions on social media of what his arrival at Gracie Mansion would entail were overwrought and inaccurate. New York in 2026 is not Berlin in 1939. Jews are not being rounded up; anything even remotely like that is not possible. Jewish life in all its complexity and vibrancy continues, and there\u2019s no reason to believe that\u2019s about to come to an end. It\u2019s also true that\u2014as has been the case throughout most of its 400 years of existence\u2014New York is, in many ways, both good and bad, a very different place from the rest of America. What happens there doesn\u2019t necessarily impact the nation as a whole.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Still, as the\u00a0Times<\/em>\u00a0asserts and polls\u00a0confirm<\/a>, Mamdani is viewed favorably by most New Yorkers. And if his conduct doesn\u2019t change that\u2014and there\u2019s little reason to believe that it will\u2014then that illustrates the shift in public opinion about Jews in the city with the largest demographics outside of Israel.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Let\u2019s acknowledge that there is nothing really new concerning the revelations of Duwaji or the couple\u2019s decision to host\u00a0Mahmoud Khalil,<\/a>\u00a0the organizer of the pro-Hamas demonstrations at Columbia University, or\u00a0Abdullah Akhil<\/a>, another cheerleader for the genocidal group, at their home for Ramadan. Mamdani has tried (with help from sympathetic left-wing journalists) to spin his opinions about the Middle East as support for the \u201cPalestinian cause.\u201d Their backing for the ideology behind Oct. 7 goes beyond his tolerance for the genocidal chants of \u201cGlobalize the intifada\u201d and \u201cFrom the river to the sea\u201d heard on college campuses. Even a cursory look at his conduct and his statements demonstrates that his views are no different from those of his wife, both of whom cheered for and also denied the victimization of Jewish women and even the kidnapping of\u00a0children<\/a>. Whether his media fans admit or not, they are Hamas supporters.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n His unwillingness to condemn the social-media posts endorsed by his wife, even as he tried to say her opinions were not necessarily his own, spoke loudly about his stance. And by inviting in those who also cheered for the largest mass slaughter of Jews since the Holocaust, they also demonstrated that in Mamdani\u2019s New York, such sentiments are not only considered within the bounds of acceptable opinion but are actually laudable. He\u2019s now made it clear that the house that mayors of New York have lived in for the past 80 years is a place where such persons are not merely welcome but honored.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Just as with his qualified encouragement of a\u00a0siege<\/a>\u00a0of a Manhattan synagogue last fall, in which he sought to argue that Jewish support for Zionism \u201cviolates international law,\u201d the new mayor has laid down a marker that has normalized Jew-hatred.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Perhaps even more ominous, however, was the way the mayor and much of the media reacted to the terror attack that took place on March 7 outside of Gracie Mansion. On that day, two Muslim Americans from Pennsylvania threw bombs (fortunately, they didn\u2019t explode) at demonstrators who had come to protest Mamdani.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Two groups had gathered outside the Upper East Side landmark\u2014one composed of right-wing demonstrators protesting an alleged \u201cMuslim takeover\u201d of New York, and another supporting Mamdani and the influx of Muslim immigrants. In a scene that can only be described as surreal, one of the terrorists came up behind a Mamdani supporter speaking through a bullhorn about the need to welcome everyone to the city and shouted\u00a0Allahu Akbar\u201d\u00a0<\/em>(\u201cGod is great\u201d). He then\u00a0hurled<\/a>\u00a0the explosive device with anti-personnel shrapnel over his shoulder. After another failed attempt to explode a device in the midst of the anti-Mamdani group and a brief scuffle with police, the assailant and his accomplice were arrested.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n What is key about this incident is the way that most media in New York and nationally, as well as the Mamdani administration, sought to blame the violence on the peaceful demonstrators, who were the terrorists\u2019 intended victims. It\u2019s true that the initial scene was confusing, but for days, leading media outlets and leading left-wing commentators, like\u00a0CNN\u2019s\u00a0<\/em>Ana Navarro<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0Abby Phillip<\/a>, have continued to obfuscate the truth about which side the terrorists were on.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n The same was true of most New York City\u00a0politicians<\/a>, including Mamdani, who, as the\u00a0Times<\/em>\u00a0diplomatically put it,\u00a0\u201cchose his words carefully\u201d<\/a>\u00a0when speaking about what happened in an effort to deflect the blame for the crime on his critics, rather than those who shared his enthusiasm for the \u201ccause\u201d of attacking Jews and other opponents of political Islam.<\/span><\/p>\n This was disgraceful in and of itself. But it also showed the commitment of the mayor and much of the liberal media to a narrative of Muslim victimhood in which the real problem is \u201cIslamophobia,\u201d rather than the troubling support for Islamist hate and terror. Had the violent culprits been those extremists who had turned out to oppose Mamdani, no one can doubt that the condemnation of their conduct and their ideas from both the mayor and the liberal media would have been unqualified and vehement. Instead, the crime was depicted as mainly the result of the allegedly bad opinions and behavior of the victims.<\/span><\/p>\n So successful was this media campaign to spin the incident as an attack on Mamdani that Pennsylvania\u00a0Gov. Josh Shapiro<\/a>\u00a0actually called him to sympathize and ask if he was alright. Shapiro was the intended victim of a firebombing at his official Harrisburg residence last year during Passover. He has\u00a0sought<\/a>\u00a0to push back against growing tolerance for antisemitism within the Democratic Party that he hopes to lead in 2028 and has criticized Mamdani for his stands. But even he is vulnerable to being influenced by a narrative in which Islamophobia is the real threat, rather than the Jew-hatred and rhetorical support for Islamist violence that Mamdani and others have promoted.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n That there is a direct connection between this and Mamdani\u2019s attempts to depict the unspeakable orgy of murder, rape, torture, kidnapping and wanton destruction of Oct. 7 as primarily the fault of the Jewish victims. The mayor would, no doubt, prefer it if Muslims did not toss bombs, whether they explode or not, in the vicinity of his residence. Still, the effort to portray him as a victim of anti-Muslim intolerance, rather than as someone who gives his official seal of approval to those who applaud such actions when Jews are the victims, isn\u2019t merely outrageous. It essentially normalizes and distorts the debate about anti-Jewish hate.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n The main takeaway from this story must be a realization that the dystopian fantasies about the consequences of a Mamdani mayoralty are already starting to come true. Had his opponents in the 2025 election said that if he were elected, Islamist thugs would be tossing bombs aimed at their critics on the streets of New York, they would have been denounced as hysterics trying to foment anti-Muslim hate. Yet that is what has happened, and the response from much of the media has been to do everything they can to twist the discussion about it to one about the awfulness of the mayor\u2019s political opponents.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n At the moment, there is little that New York\u2019s Jews or anyone else can do about the mayor, who continues to enjoy the enthusiastic backing of his party and its leading media outlets like the\u00a0Times<\/em>. But they can draw conclusions from these incidents and act accordingly.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n At the very least, no self-respecting member of the Jewish community or anyone else with claims to a moral compass should accept an invitation from Mamdani as long as he hosts those who cheer for Jew-killers and condones his wife\u2019s pro-Hamas stands.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Jews\u2014or at least those who are willing to be dubbed as \u201cbad Jews\u201d by leftist media because they oppose terrorist murderers either in the Middle East or the United States\u2014should not serve in a Mamdani administration. And it should also be said that his political opponents, like President Donald Trump, should stop cozying up to Mamdani or treating him as if he were a normal politician on the other side of the aisle with whom one can agree to disagree.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n The normalization of Mamdani\u2019s conduct may be inevitable in a political culture where antisemitism has become fashionable orthodoxy on the political left. The costs of that attitude will become increasingly apparent in a city and a national culture where tolerance of hate for Jews is regarded as either nothing out of the ordinary or an acceptable opinion. A city where people like Zohran Mamdani and Rama Duwaji are not held accountable for supporting the atrocities of Oct. 7 and Jew-hatred in general is one in which, sooner or later, Islamist violence will not only occur but be tolerated, rationalized and excused in the same manner as Hamas\u2019s crimes.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n Zawarto\u015b\u0107 publikowanych artyku\u0142\u00f3w i materia\u0142\u00f3w nie reprezentuje pogl\u0105d\u00f3w ani opinii Reunion’68,<\/em> The Mamdani victimhood narrative and the American future Jonathan S. Tobin The embrace of terror supporters by the mayor and his wife, coupled with the media\u2019s efforts to confuse the public about an Islamist terror attack, is a tipping point in American society. New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani and his wife, Rama Duwaji, arrive […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[6],"tags":[33,24],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/128830"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=128830"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/128830\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":128846,"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/128830\/revisions\/128846"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=128830"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=128830"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=128830"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\nThe embrace of terror supporters by the mayor and his wife, coupled with the media\u2019s efforts to confuse the public about an Islamist terror attack, is a tipping point in American society.<\/strong><\/h4>\n<\/div>\n
![](\"https:\/\/me.jnsi.org\/uploads\/2026\/01\/55016824402_146e54392a_o-1320x880.jpg\")
New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani and his wife, Rama Duwaji, arrive at City Hall for his Inauguration on Jan. 1, 2026. Credit: Michael Appleton\/Mayoral Photography Office<\/em><\/span><\/p>\nThe mayor\u2019s popularity<\/strong><\/h4>\n
Spinning terror support<\/strong><\/h4>\n
Muslim victimhood narrative<\/strong><\/h4>\n
A dystopian scenario<\/strong><\/h4>\n
\n![](\"https:\/\/me.jnsi.org\/uploads\/2024\/06\/Jonathan-S.-Tobin-480x480.png\")
Jonathan S. Tobin<\/strong> is editor-in-chief of the Jewish News Syndicate, a senior contributor for The Federalist, a columnist for Newsweek and a contributor to many other publications. He covers the American political scene, foreign policy, the U.S.-Israel relationship, Middle East diplomacy, the Jewish world and the arts. He hosts the JNS \u201cThink Twice\u201d podcast, both the weekly video program and the \u201cJonathan Tobin Daily\u201d program, which are available on all major audio platforms and YouTube. Previously, he was executive editor, then senior online editor and chief political blogger, for Commentary magazine. Before that, he was editor-in-chief of The Jewish Exponent in Philadelphia and editor of the Connecticut Jewish Ledger. He has won more than 60 awards for commentary, art criticism and other writing. He appears regularly on television, commenting on politics and foreign policy. Born in New York City, he studied history at Columbia University.<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n
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