The Blogs: The dangerous charisma of Zohran Mamdani

Only two American organizations hailed the October 7, 2023 attack on Israel: Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP), and Democratic Socialists of America (DSA). Zohran Mamdani has been closely affiliated with both groups. As an undergraduate at Bowdoin College, he founded the Students for Justice in Palestine chapter at the school. Later, he became a member of DSA, an organization that conducted an anti-Israel pro-Palestinian rally on October 8, one day after the October 7 massacre and days before Israel mounted any military response.

If truth be told, on October 7, the day of the attack, SJP issued an immediate congratulations to Hamas. For them, the savage atrocities and murder of 1,139 Jews and more than 50 citizens of Thailand and Nepal (working and studying in Israel) was a “historic win for the Palestinian resistance…. This is what it means to free Palestine, not just slogans and rallies, but armed confrontation with oppressors.” In the minds of Hamas and its American supporters, “oppressors” included the 364 young Jews who were brutalized, tortured, and killed at a music festival.

The Hamas-organized pogrom of October 7 was planned and carried out against Israel in a savage fashion. Dozens, if not hundreds, of women were ruthlessly molested, raped, and tortured (often with knives plunged into their private parts) and Jewish infants and young children were shot to death in front of their parents.

Has Mamdani since condemned the Hamas activities of October 7? Yes. Is his condemnation sincere? I would like to believe it is, and, in any case, I suppose one would have to issue some sort of condemnation if one wants to be mayor of New York or of any city in a civilized country.

But unfortunately, Mamdani’s condemnation is of no significance. The more serious question is, did Mamdani resign his membership or remove himself from any affiliation with SJP after they congratulated Hamas? And for that matter, did he resign membership in DSA after their New York chapter organized an anti-Israel – in effect pro-Hamas rally – on October 8.

He did not.

In fact, Mamdani has been relentless in his support for BDS, the effort to influence people and countries throughout the world to declare a total boycott of Israel, in the hopes of forcing Israel into submission.

Rabbi Leah Sarna, herself a longtime social activist, has described the painful lesson she learned from the awful events of October 7: “For a long time, I believed that peace would come from women. That women, who “collectively bring life into this world at great personal cost, would eventually join together to protect life. That women, who all know fear and vulnerability, would stand up for each other and show the world how to deal with conflict. Instead, the global sisterhood has gone silent, choosing the murderers and rapists of Hamas. It turns out that there is no global sisterhood; she was murdered on October 7 too.”

What has Zohran Mamdani learned from October 7? That if you have an infectious smile and great personal charm, you can oppose Israel’s right to exist as a Jewish state, and repeatedly and falsely charge Israel – three times alone just in the first mayoral debate – with genocide, and still become mayor of New York City. For the record, Israel has not carried out genocide; it is Hamas, Hezbollah, the Houthis, and Iran that want to carry out genocide against Israel. That, of course, is the reason Iran has spent many years and many billions of dollars trying to build an atom bomb and drop it on Israel.

Just a couple of more things to know about two of Mamdani’s favorite groups: Students for Justice in Palestine doesn’t just hate and want to destroy Israel, they hate the United States as well. In September 2024, National Students for Justice in Palestine – the coordinator for the group’s 350 campus affiliates — shared a post stating that “True divestment [from Israel] necessitates nothing short of the total collapse of the university structure and the American empire itself.”

SJP has tweeted “Thank you, Yemen” in reference to attacks on Israel by the Houthis, the Yemenite terror group, while concealing from its American members that the Houthis official slogan includes the words “Death to America” (the full slogan, known as a sarkha, is: “God is great, death to America, death to Israel, a curse upon the Jews, and victory to Islam”). To no one’s surprise, the Houthis are backed by Iran. With considerable wit, SJP’s opponents have nicknamed the organization, “Just Us in Palestine.”

Meanwhile, the Democratic Socialists of America does a lot more than just sponsor anti-Israel demonstrations. They advocate the abolition of the US Senate, and propose the closing of all US military bases outside of the United States, a position that, in addition to greatly undermining America’s strength, would also I suspect be heartily supported by the Houthis, Iran, Hezbollah and Hamas. At its 2025 convention, DSA passed a resolution making any of the following an “expellable offense,” the last one being “saying that Israel has the right to defend itself.”

Fellow New Yorkers, Jews and non-Jews alike, a vote for Mamdani – the proud member of Students for Justice in Palestine and Democratic Socialists of America – is a danger to us all.