NYC: October 7th’s Latest Victim
It is not hyperbole to assert Zohran Mamdani’s electoral win has made New York City the latest victim of Hamas’ October 7 attack against Israel and the aftermath that followed. World events beginning October 7 and continuing for the past two years set the stage for an election result in NYC that previously would have been unimaginable.
Before October 7, a candidate for mayor of the city with the largest Jewish population in the world who unabashedly accuses Israel of apartheid and genocide, supports globalizing the intifada, praises Hamas, and questions the very legitimacy and validity of the Jewish nature of the State of Israel would not have won the primary of a major political party, nor would he/she have been taken seriously. Conventional political wisdom held such a candidate would alienate too many voters in a politically active demographic that the thought of him/her winning a city-wide race to be laughable. But, that is exactly who Mamdani is and what he represents. And instead of dismissing past remarks or videos of anti-Israel political activism as “the former, younger Zoran” or asserting that he has now grown and matured and his views on Israel have changed, or at least softened, he has owned them, leaned in, and promoted them as his identity. Instead of a political liability, those views have become a political asset – his calling card, his identity, his rallying cry.
How was this possible? Simple. October 7 happened and the world turned upside down. Anti-Israel protesters (they are not pro-Palestinian, they are simply against Israel) have done a masterful marketing job framing the entire conflict as a binary oppressor v. oppressed choice and made it cool and chic and humanitarian (who doesn’t want to stop the killing of children???) to stand on the side of the allegedly oppressed. We know there was no famine in Gaza and that the blood-libel accusing Israel of such was a concocted narrative by those all too eager to create “facts” that smear the Jewish State. Legal briefs and accusations of genocide were drafted and ready to go well in advance of October 7 and Israel’s detractors tripped over themselves to bring the issue to the kangaroo-court ICJ. For not only was there no genocide, but the total number of non-combatant deaths was at such a historically low level that Israel and the IDF should be commended, not vilified, for having a non-combatant/combatant ratio of deaths so low while fighting in the most complex urban environment where the enemy is trying to increase, not decrease, civilian death in order to further smear Israel. Fact became fiction, truth became lies, and the absurd became reality.
It was in this political environment that Mamdani was able to flourish. For two years the political far-left organized around the false narrative that they were trying to stop a genocide taking place in Gaza. “We’re on the right side of history” they believed because they were only trying to stop the mass killing of children! Every do-gooder in NYC lined up to protest the big, bad oppressor starving and killing innocent women and children. In these circles, at these rallies, on these chat groups the vilification of Israel and the assigning of the worst attributes humanity has to offer – genocide, apartheid, forced famine – onto the Jewish State not only became acceptable, it became required. For if you failed to agree and join that bandwagon, then you were ostracized from other left-leaning, progressive causes.
Enter Zoran, stage left. The far left was organized and energized and ready for a smart, charismatic, eloquent leader (yes, he is all of those things) to swoop in and take previously taboo attitudes and positions regarding Israel mainstream. They were no longer a detriment. No, these positions won him votes, they didn’t lose him votes.
Where does that leave us now? To state the obvious, this leaves Jews, and specifically pro-Israel Jews, scared and wary of what is to come. While Mamdani can say all of the right things regarding antisemitism and that he will protect all New Yorkers equally, the proof will be in the kugel (sorry, couldn’t help myself). Will his NYPD Commissioner devote as many resources to not only protecting synagogues but pro-Israel rallies? The Israel Day Parade? The 92nd Street Y when an Israeli author comes to speak? Or Madison Square Garden for an Omer Adam concert? Our concern is well-founded.
And politically where does this leave us? If moderate/centrist democrats like myself – which is how I believe a large percentage of U.S. Jews would identify themselves – previously felt on an island politically: not willing to hold their nose and vote for Trump yet clearly not aligned with the Bernie- AOC-Squad wing of the democratic party, then now we feel like that island is an iceberg melting quickly. Until now, I was able to legitimately claim the “far-left” was just that: the fringe, the outliers. That is clearly not the case anymore.
So yes, Mamdani’s victory and the hopefully not irreparable harm to NYC that is to come, is a direct result of what happened in Israel on October 7, 2023. That event was a watershed moment with victims not only in Israel, but effects and repercussions being felt by Jews around the world to this day. It softened the ground. It created the framework in which previously unacceptable political discourse became normalized and acceptable. NYC is therefore just the latest victim of this dark chapter in our history. But as we say, גם זה יעבור – gam ze ya’avor – this too shall pass.