The man who ran for the mayoralty of New York City on a platform of addressing a “crisis of affordability” there has once again weighed in on foreign affairs. Fresh off his juvenile threats to arrest Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu should he dare appear in New York City, Mamdani labeled the attacks by the US and Israel on the Iranian mullah regime as “catastrophic” and “illegal.”
These were probably meant as obligatory words of condemnation, but they are worthy of note and comment. There is a world of difference between “ill-advised” or “risky” and “illegal.” What makes this operation illegal is not something that Mamdani, in all likelihood, is capable of explaining.
But the charge of “catastrophic” is jaw-dropping. Why? Simply because the regime that Mamdani clings to and defends has been murderous to its own citizens.
As a municipal fiduciary on behalf of the people of New York, Mamdani should have been at the forefront of seeking to defend the people of Iran. Tens of thousands of regular citizens, facing their own crisis of existential affordability, have been brutally mowed down on the streets and in hospitals throughout Iran.
Like almost all other Progressives, infinitely sensitive to non-existent “genocide” by Israelis on Gazans, Mamdani has not dared to raise his voice against the murderous mullah regime.
The catastrophe, as he sees it, is the assassination of the key figures in the world’s most oppressive regime. The catastrophe is the possible usurpation of the regime itself, with the potential for an Iran that could be life-affirming for its citizens, in part because of the cessation of Iran’s imperialistic ambitions to destroy the West.
Mamdani’s enmity for Israel and the US
The real catastrophe is therefore the attempt to defeat the destruction of the West, preeminently Israel and the United States. Mamdani’s enmity for Israel is well known, but he has now tipped his hand as being opposed to the future well-being of the US.
The tip-off, the smoking gun of the revelation of Mamdani’s enmity, was his charge that the Western allies were deliberately bombing civilians. This is a projection on a world-class scale. Not only is it not true, but it is the mother’s milk of those whom Mamdani is trying to protect.
The implication of what Mamdani is saying is truly shocking. The killing, inadvertent though it might be, of Palestinians, hell, of anyone by Israelis, is the stuff of war crimes.
However, the deliberate, brutal, and sadistic murder of Iranian Muslims by a murderous theocratic regime is not something to condemn, and certainly not worthy of delegitimizing the regime itself.
The inescapable takeaway then from this is that there is no human rights concern for the dignity of all, but rather the sectarian and highly politicized interest in who is being killed by whom.
Mamdani ends his finger-pointing sermon by cleaving to his mission to address affordability in New York, as if affordability was inadvertently edited out of the mantra of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.
But his hypocrisy does not enable him to see that the people he is not only ignoring, but is also ignoring their persecution; these people are facing an existential affordability crisis, not just a cost-of-living one.
These are people willing to put their lives on the line because they have been given no hope, no future, no recompense. Their crisis dwarfs the one that Mamdani focuses on, and effectively disparaging it renders him small and inconsequential.
But not unique. Based on the absence of outrage for the protesters on the Progressive Left, one must conclude that they either are siding with the regime or have decided that civilian victims are getting what they deserve because they trusted Trump to save them.
Since the protesters were out in strength before President Donald Trump threw his support to them and encouraged their protests, blaming him for their presence is of a piece with Trump Derangement Syndrome.
But the lack of support, a tacit form of condemnation, is a way of supporting the mullahs. If so, the question is why that should be. And the answer is that all of this is a classic example of “the enemy of my enemy is my friend.”
Progressives share a profound antipathy for the West, rivaling that of the mullahs. They are not inclined to break common bonds and turn on a group that is furthering their own agenda of self-contempt and hatred.
The upshot of all of this should be profoundly disturbing both to those who respect the inherent rights of citizens everywhere and especially those who cherish Western values and civilization.
A failure to condemn mullah repression, compounded by condemnations of actions designed to end it, should be a red flag to anyone caring about the Western future.
Mamdani’s “catastrophe,” the Progressives’ “catastrophe,” is what is keeping the West from descending into a civilizational abyss.
We need to be openly, loudly, and proudly embracing the brave Iranian protesters and the Americans and Israelis who are seeking to alleviate their travail.
The author is the chairman of the board of Im Tirtzu and a director of the Israel Independence Fund.