Zohran Mamdani is still driving Zionists crazy after he was inaugurated at Midnight on New Year’s Eve. During the campaign, of course, Mamdani was the subject of vicious attacks by Israel’s supporters for his support for Palestinian rights, BDS, and characterization of Israel’s conduct in Gaza as a genocide.
Now, Mamdani is the mayor, and in one of his first acts, he repealed two last-minute measures by the departing Eric Adams to shield Israel from accountability. Adams signed an order to prohibit the city from boycotting the state of Israel and adopted the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance definition of antisemitism. The latter is a highly partisan, cynical, and Israel-centric definition of antisemitism designed to mislabel every criticism of Israel as hate speech and subsequently ban it. Mamdani was elected, in part, on ending the impunity for Israel in American political culture, so his rescinding of Adams’s order was predictable.
Zionists were not having: In typical fashion, they engaged in historonic accusation that Mamdani’s repeals of orders that were not even in place a few years ago endanger the safety of Jews in the city. In actuality, many Jews welcomed Mamdani’s actions, not only because they are in defense of the bad faith attempts to undercut the pro-Palestine movement, but also ’cause the IHRA definition conflates Jews with Israel, which is itself antisemitic.
Zionists seem to have the odd idea that, after failing to defeat Mamdani at the polls, they somehow should still expect that their preferred policies should be upheld. It will be an adjustment period.
