The Mayor Has a Problem

Zohran Mamdani, born in Uganda, is a great political talent. However, his narrow-minded extremism on one topic should not be forgotten.

Appearing Sunday on ABC's This Week Without George Stephanopoulos, the New York City mayor did give a very good answer to two questions. One involved the constitutional requirement that the President must be a natural-born citizen which, if not superceded by an amendment, would prevent Mr. Mamdani from ever serving in the highest office in the land.

The other indirectly pertained to Israel. Host Jon Karl noted that an owner of a coffee shop in Brooklyn, at which Representative Dan Goldman had purchased coffee, had in a (since deleted) tweet stated that he would not do so again because of the congressman's support of "genocide." Asked whether he has "a problem with (that)," Mamdani stated "I do believe that that's a response that goes beyond that."

That's a good answer considering that the Mayor agrees with the coffee shop's position on Gaza and had supported the challenger who upended Goldman in the state's primary earlier this month. Nonetheless, Mamdani blew a more substantive question about Israel. This is how that segment transpired:

 

Karl: Israel is a Jewish state. That’s in the charter. Do you support that?

Mamdani: I’ve said time and again that I support the state of Israel as a state with equal rights.

Karl: As jewish state?

Mamdani: I believe that any state that privileges one religion over another is… pic.twitter.com/WFIqM9PAib

— Acyn (@Acyn) June 28, 2026

In October of 2017 Pew Research reported that out of 199 nations

More than 80 countries favor a specific religion, either as an official, government-endorsed religion or by affording one religion preferential treatment over other faiths, according to a new Pew Research Center analysis of data covering 199 countries and territories around the world.1

Islam is the most common government-endorsed faith, with 27 countries (including most in the Middle East-North Africa region) officially enshrining Islam as their state religion. By comparison, just 13 countries (including nine European nations) designate Christianity or a particular Christian denomination as their state religion.

But an additional 40 governments around the globe unofficially favor a particular religion, and in most cases the preferred faith is a branch of Christianity. Indeed, Christian churches receive preferential treatment in more countries – 28 – than any other unofficial but favored faith.

Although Christianity is the second most common official religion worldwide

Islam is the world’s most common official religion. Among the 43 countries with a state religion, 27 (63%) name Sunni Islam, Shia Islam or just Islam in general as their official faith.

Most of the countries where Islam is the official religion (16 of 27, or 59%) are in the Middle East and North Africa.

And in how many countries is Judaism is the official religion? That would be, of course, one (Israel), which as of 2017 was one-twenty seventh as many as had one form or another of Islam as its major religion.  For those keeping count at home, that would be 3.7% as many nations fully embracing Islam as there are embracing Judaism. Pew "coded" Israel as having an official religion " in part because the Israeli government gives legal authroity to the chief rabbinate and provides special benefits to Judaism, such as support for religous study."

Moreover, the country can be considered a "Jewish state" merely because 

Jewish individuals can obtain Israeli citizenship almost automatically through a process called Aliyah, which literally means “ascending” in Hebrew. Israel’s Law of Return grants every Jewish person the right to immigrate and receive citizenship upon arrival, and a 1970 amendment extends that right to their children, grandchildren, and spouses. The process involves proving your eligibility, gathering documents, applying through an authorized agency, and completing administrative steps after you land in Israel.

That is the situation within the country itself, which extends westward from Jerusalem to the Mediterranean Sea and northward from the Gulf of Aqaba to the border of Lebanon (in the northwest, to Syria). Its territory is approximately .002% as large as the USA and slightly smaller than New Jersey.

By contrast, Saudi Arabia, which also has a state religion, is approximately 23% as large in area as is the USA. and is far larger than any USA state, including Alaska. Additionally, not only do Muslims have more rights there than do Jews or anyone else, Muslims in the Kingdom have less religious freedom and less political freedom than they do in Israel. And then Mandami and many others describe Israel incredibly as an "apartheid" state.

Still, Israel and Saudi Arabia have a few things in common. One of those is that the mayor and chief executive of the largest city in the USA, who says "I believe that any state that privileges one religion over another is one that I cannot support," has implied that they, along with roughly 80 other countries, should vanish.

Admittedly, Mayor Mandami couldn't be that ignorant. Rather, he was probably thinking only of Israel when made his remark.

Mamdani is smart. He surely knows that Israel has no state religion and that it's a Jewish state in that it's the state of the Jewish people, not the Jewish religion.

But he's playing this little game to avoid saying Israel has a right to exist as it is.pic.twitter.com/C9JDcfXQMv

— Avi Mayer אבי מאיר (@AviMayer) June 29, 2026

And it could have been avoided. Asked whether he supports Israel "as a Jewish state," he might have replied "yes, I support the Israeli people and their Jewish state but vehemently oppose many of its government's actions in recent years."   Few who proudly consider themselves "Zionists" and/or support Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu would have taken issue with that. The objections would have come almost exclusively from individuals and organization, who like Zohran Mandami, have a thing about Jews.

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