Vile

Hey, everybody! Let's make it more painful!  Mayor Zohran Mamdani of New York City starts his tweet of three years since Hamas Genocide Day by noting "This day is profoundly painful for so many New Yorkers. It marks three years since the horrific war crimes of October 7."  Then he goes profoundly downhill from the sewer in which he lurks.

This day is profoundly painful for so many New Yorkers. It marks three years since the horrific war crimes of October 7. On that day, Hamas killed more than 1,100 Israelis and abducted 251 others. We grieve alongside our many friends and neighbors who still carry that unthinkable loss. The suffering did not begin nor end that day. It instead continued through the Israeli government’s devastating, ongoing genocide in Gaza, in which it has killed more than 74,000 Palestinians—including more than 21,000 children. Even since the so-called ceasefire, more than 1,400 Palestinians have been killed. That suffering has intensified with every Israeli bomb dropped on ambulances waiting outside hospitals, every drone strike targeting a residential building or journalist, and every shipment of food aid turned away at a border crossing. Many New Yorkers are reckoning with this unbearable grief, and we mourn alongside them – all while knowing that our tax dollars fund these war crimes. Three years later, we must refuse to accept a world in which occupation and apartheid continue, where war crimes are met with impunity, and our federal government continues its complicity with every arms shipment. To honor the dead, we must fight for a world in which every person can live with freedom, safety, and dignity.

— Mayor Zohran Kwame Mamdani (@NYCMayor) October 7, 2026

 Eight days after the attack, Robert Satloff of The Washington Institue for Near East Policy noted that it 

killed more than 1,300 Israelis and third-country nationals, including at least 29 Americans, in a country whose population is less than 10 million. In America, that would be equivalent to killing nearly 40,000—13 times more than the number of Al Qaeda victims on 9/11....

As terrible as 9/11 was, tens of millions of Americans woke up the following morning in our vast country not knowing any of the victims or their families. In Israel, a country whose width is less than the daily commute of many Americans, not a single family was untouched by the attack, either directly, through a neighbor, friend or classmate....

The comparison to the 1978 Iranian hostage crisis of 1979-1981 is apt. Satloff continues

Americans sadly recall how the taking of a much smaller number of hostages—diplomatic personnel at the American embassy in Tehran—paralyzed the U.S. government and dominated daily life in our country for 444 days. Obviously, the hostage factor was never a component of 9/11.

And yet, Zohran Kwame Mamdani decided to celebrate the massacre of October 7, not only by repeating the debunked charge of "genocide" but by going on in detail about the suffering of Palestinians he blames on the Israeli government.  Though mentioning (once) Hamas, the mayor did not acknowledge that none of the death and destruction he claims to be distressed by would have taken place without the terrorist group. The word "terrorist," nor any derivative, escapes his lips, nor does "Jew" or any of its derivatives.  Yet, he wields the term "Palestinian" with no concern about any Palestinian outside of Gaza. Hatred is made no more credible mixed with ignorance.

If Mamdani had any sense of decency, any denunciation of Israel would have been suspended for days- or at least one.  When a human being dies, there is no public criticism of the deceased before, nor during, the day of the funeral. When grieving on the anniversary of the death, out of respect, no one airs grievances against the person. 

The best thing, given the mayor's hostility to Jews, would have been for him to say nothing on this anniversary. I checked- it's legal.  Admittedly, in the age of individual self-absoprtion, he would have been denounced. So he could have issued a minimalistic statement, including the first four sentences of his tweet and ending with "we now must redouble our pursuit of peace and justice for all peoples of the Middle East".  The statement would not have been much dissimilar to that issued by the governor of New York State.

There has been much speculation as to why Mayor Mamdani and President Trump appear to like each other personally. It's now clear that they see some of themselves in each other.  Lack of character is a defining feature of both men.

There is a time and place for most things, and the time for condemnation of Israel on October 7 is not the time. Not the time, that is, for any decent person, which leaves Zohran Kwame Mamdani out.

 

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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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