Why New York Can’t Ignore ‘Globalize the Intifada’

On July 1, New York made a choice that has left many of the city’s Jews uneasy, and should make everyone feel the same, regardless of their religion. Zohran Mamdani won the Democratic primary for mayor, putting him on track to lead America’s largest city, home to the second-largest Jewish population in the world, if he wins the November 4 election. For years, Mamdani has styled himself as a bold progressive and outspoken critic of Israel. But when asked to draw a clear moral line around calls for terrorism, he refuses.

That refusal is not theoretical. When questioned by NBC’s Kristen Welker on Meet the Press about protests where supporters chanted “Globalize the Intifada,” Mamdani declined to condemn the slogan, which has echoed at rallies across New York since October 7.

This phrase is not just harmless protest language. Its ideological roots trace back to Abdullah Azzam, a Palestinian cleric from near Jenin who mentored none other than Osama bin Laden and built the network that became Al-Qaeda, the same organization that carried out the attacks of September 11, 2001, the deadliest terror attack on American soil.

In a speech at the Islamic Association of Palestine’s conference in Oklahoma City in 1988, Abdullah Azzam openly supported the 1987 Palestinian Intifada and praised Hamas leader Sheikh Ahmad Yassin as the man who inspired a generation to rise up against Israel. For Azzam, the Intifada was a step in the expansion of global jihad.

So when the candidate who wants to run the second-largest Jewish city in the world and the man who inspired the network behind September 11 stand on the same rhetorical ground, it means the moral standards that once defined the West have been broken.