The danger of crying wolf. Or crying ‘Islamophobia’

Jake, a Jew with a severe stutter, interviews at a radio station for a job at a radio station.

“How did the interview go?” Jake’s father asks him when he gets home.

“They wou-wouldn’t hire me,” Jake answers.

“Why not?”

“Be-because I’m Jew-Jewish.”

Anti-Semitism. Racism. Sexism.

These forms of bias are all real. Members of various minority groups – religious, ethnic, racial, etc. – have suffered because of them.

But they’re also a convenient crutch, an imagined-in-some-cases or falsely-claimed prejudice behind which insincere or manipulative members of minority groups can hide when things don’t go their way.

Take Zohran Mamdani.

Please!

He’s the 33-year-old, three-term Democratic Socialist member of the New York State Assembly, a native of Uganda, born into an Indian family, who threatens to wrest the Democratic Party nomination for New York City mayor this year from former governor Andrew Cuomo, the acknowledged front-runner in the race. In heavily Democratic New York City, winning the party’s primary election is tantamount to winning the subsequent mayoral election.

Mamdani, a progressive who has drawn criticism for his controversial past political positions – notably defund the police – has recently narrowed Cuomo’s lead in pre-primary polling.

Like any politician, especially one who had a relatively low public profile before his sudden emergence during this election cycle, has drawn his share of criticism

Why?

Says Mamdani, “Islamophobia.”

He cites a flier, drawn up but not distributed by the pro-Cuomo Fix the City PAC, with the headlines “Rejects Israel” and “Rejects Jewish Rights,” which carries a photograph of Mamdani. He says the photo was altered to enlarge and darken his beard. To Mamdani’s detriment, he claims – “This wasn’t an accident. Thickening and darkening my beard – playing into racist tropes – was meant to make me look threatening … This is blatant Islamophobia.”

You’d need a micrometer to measure the difference in the size of Mamdani’s beard in reality and in the Cuomo campaign ad.

“Andrew Cuomo is afraid he’ll lose, so his donors want you to fear me,” Mamdani tweeted.

Mamdan, a Shia Muslim, is playing the Islamophobia card – in other words, he is saying, he is the subject of political attacks not because of his politics, but because of his religion.

He’s taking a page out of the political playbook of people like House of Representative members Rashida Tlaib and Ilhan Omar, both fellow Muslims, who have deflected criticism of their anti-Israel/antisemitic statements by also citing motivation of Islamophobia.

Similarly, Sumaya Awad, a Palestinian member of the Democratic Socialists of America, labelled criticism of Mamdani as “textbook post 9/11 Islamophobia.”

This whitewashing of disagreements with politicians who happen to be Muslims does a disservice to Islam – one does not have to be an antisemite in order to be a loyal Muslim.

Like many Muslim politicians, Mamdani has taken many positions that are markedly pro-Palestinian and anti-Israel, if not outright antisemitic.

For example:

• He defended the slogan “Globalize the Intifada” – which the ADL’s Jonathan Greenblatt calls an “explicit incitement to violence,” echoing language of the UJA-Federation of New York — as meaning “a desperate desire for equality and equal rights in standing up for Palestinian human rights
• At a pro-Palestinian protest he led chants in favor of “BDS” — in other words, economically isolate the Jewish state.
• He endorsed Israel’s “right to exist as a state with equal rights” – but not as a Jewish state.
• He refused to sign a pair of non-partisan Assembly resolutions that recognized Israel and the Holocaust.
• He has described Israel’s actions in Gaza since October 7, 2023 as genocide.
• He introduced a piece of legislation – the “Not On Our Dime! Ending New York Funding of Israeli Settler Violence Act” – that would bar non-profit agencies in the state from, according to the New York Post, “bankrolling any groups involved with West Bank settlements.”
• He has vowed, if elected mayor, to arrest Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu if the Israeli leader comes to New York City.
• During a 2021 Jewish Voice for Peace rally in Brooklyn he called pro-Palestinian activism central to his politics.
• During the same year he described the Assembly as “a bastion of Zionist thought.”
• In a 2014 speech at Columbia University he stated “The Palestinian challenge is to persuade the Jewish population and the world … the longtime security of a Jewish homeland in historic Palestine requires the dismantling of the Jewish state.”
• He falsely claimed that city taxpayers were footing the bill for lawmakers’ trips to Israel. The trips actually were a project of the city’s philanthropy-supported Jewish Community Relations Council.
• After October 7 he issued a statement that mourned the deaths of Israelis, but omitted a mention of Hamas, the perpetrator of the terrorism.

If it looks like an antisemite, and talks like an antisemite, and …

All of which has earned the opposition, if not outright enmity, of many members of the Jewish community. Because of his politics, not because of his religious faith.

Mamdani, who represents a district in western Queens that has few Jewish constituents, is clearly no friend of Israel. Or of the Jewish community. His interests are not ours.

Though he denies that he is an antisemite. Confronted with his record during the current mayoral campaign, he said he supports Israel’s “right to exist as a state.” A mild statement. Which enraged some of his supporters.

Though his campaign platform includes a rent freeze on rent-stabilized apartments, free city buses, and city-owned grocery stores, he has made what is ostensibly a foreign affairs issue into a prominent campaign theme in the race for a public office whose duties are primarily local.

Predictably, Mamdani has picked up support from leftist circles (either because of or irrespective of his pronouncements on Israeli/Zionist/Jewish concerns) and coalesced the opposition of traditional conservatives and supporters of Israel.

Now, forced to defend his public record, he is hiding behind accusations of Islamophobia.

Nonsense!

Just as every criticism of Israel is not an indication of blatant antisemitism, not every criticism of a Muslim is a sign of Islamophobia.

According to police statistics, dislike of Muslims is rising in some parts of the United States – but not nearly as fast as antisemitism.

But opposition to one particular Muslim politician, who has made offensive, outrageous statements about issues close to Jewish hearts, does not signify hatred of all things Muslim. Just dislike of one particular Muslim.

One who is hiding behind cries of Islamophobia.

How safe will Jews feel under Mayor Mamdani?

The Democratic Party primary elections will be held on Tuesday – but the exaggerated, illegitimate claims of Islamophobia are certain to continue. This is particularly dangerous in a “woke” climate where the reality of antisemitism is discounted, but sympathy for Muslims — a reflection of the prevailing intersectionality ethos, claims of Jewish “colonialism,” and the Palestinian cause– is rising.

Voters need to be alert. False claims of prejudice – against any group – do a disservice to legitimate political discourse. And to legitimate examples of bias. And to legitimate criticism of Israel.

Even paranoids have real enemies.

Members of aggrieved minority groups deserve to seek succor when their interests are threatened.

When.

People like Mamdani are using assertions of anti-Islam prejudice to boost their narrow interests – electoral, public relations, or whatever.

If you resort to cries of discrimination too often, nobody will listen, or take you seriously when it really takes place.

Peter of “The Boy Who Cried Wolf” almost learned his lesson too late.

The lesson for people like Mamdani: Just as a stuttering Jew is not qualified to work as a radio announcer, an outspoken anti-Israel candidate is not qualified to serve as the mayor of the US’s biggest city.