Drilling down on Mamdani and Trump

Abraham Foxman has grave misgivings about Zohran Mamdani.

Mr. Foxman, who lives in Bergen County, is the longtime now-retired head of the Anti-Defamation League and a prominent voice in the American Jewish world. Mr. Mamdani is the Democratic party’s candidate for mayor for New York City.

To set the stage for those readers who might have been on vacation or just avoiding the news for the last month or so, Mr. Mamdani was the surprising victor in the ranked-choice election that saw more than a dozen candidates vying for the office. The race was complicated. Voters had the difficult task of choosing five people, some well-known, one a famous once very successful nepo baby tarred by scandal, and then one going by the name of Paperboy Love Prince, out of a much larger list, and then  ranking them.

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Still, the scandal-tarred candidate, Andrew Cuomo, who is a former New York governor and the son of Governor Mario Cuomo, was expected to win.

Mr. Mamdani, who is 33 years old, was born in Uganda to Indian parents; he’s Muslim, and a member of the Democratic Socialists of America.

His platform focuses on the cost of living, and promises to lower rent, make buses free, and impose some government control on supermarkets. He also — and this is why he’s relevant here — has been clear about his dislike of Israel since he first began making public statements. He’s supported the Boycott Divestment and Sanction movement since he was in college and ran into trouble at the end of his campaign when Tim Miller, the host of the Bulwark podcast, asked him about the phrase “Globalize the Intifada,” which he’d used. His reply was mealy-mouthed and alarming to many Jews.

Mr. Foxman is very worried about all of this.

“I do not think that Mr. Mamdani is an antisemite,” he said. “I think that he is a political opportunist. He grew up spoiled and privileged” — his father is a professor of post-colonial studies at Columbia, and his mother is a filmmaker — “and I would say that at best he is insensitive to Jews. At worst he might be antagonistic.

“But he was convinced that if he goes in the direction of antisemitism today, he might succeed.

“If it happened in Chicago or Portland, it would be serious” — in fact it did happen in Chicago, with the election of Mayor Brandon Johnson, whom many Jews believe to be antisemitic — “but possibly to happen in New York? To have a candidate in the number one spot in the most populous Jewish city in America who is insensitive to the fear that Jews are experiencing?

“It sends a very serious message to Jews, not only in New York but far beyond it.”

The danger is not in what Mr. Mamdani could do, but in what he represents. “I think that if he gets elected mayor, thank God he will not be able to do very much. But the symbolism — that the city would elect somebody who totally doesn’t care about our sensitivities — is frightening.

“If he doesn’t like Israel, fine. That’s his prerogative. If he doesn’t want to visit Israel, or even the Israel parade, fine. I think that it will hurt the city, because Israel does a lot of trade with the city, but fine.

“But he cannot stop being a hypocrite. He says that the reason he wouldn’t visit Israel is because Israel does not treat other religions with respect. I don’t think there are many Muslim countries that treat Christians and Jews with any respect. So I hope that he won’t visit them, and that he won’t welcome the heads of state of any of these countries that do not respect religious rights or human rights or civil rights.

“So he’s not the secretary of state, and what he does doesn’t really matter. But he chooses to play word games and semantics with a very serious issue, and he’s doubling down on it. And he’s not a fool. In fact, he’s very smart.

“He declines to support Israel’s right to exist as a Jewish state, but he has no problem with Christian or Muslim states. Hypocrisy.

“You can argue that the phrase ‘From the river to the sea’ deals only with the Arab-Israel conflict” — that’s it’s anti-Zionist but not antisemitic — but you can’t make that argument about ‘Globalize the intifada.’ That’s not about Tel Aviv or Jerusalem. That’s about New York and Amsterdam and Paris and Chicago.

“He can say that mayors don’t tell people what to say. That’s absolute sophistry. Mayors do tell people what to say. That’s how they lead. How else are they going to fight hate and sophistry? How else are going to get across the message that no, I don’t want people to advocate lynching or killing immigrants in my city.”

Mr. Foxman points, with horror, to Mr. Mamdani’s statement about Karen Diamond, the woman who died early this week after having been firebombed — that is, murdered in a particularly horrifying way — for having gone to a Run For Their Lives meeting, advocating for the hostages still in Gaza. Her murderer shouted about Free Palestine as he threw Molotov cocktails.

Mr. Mamdani’s tweet about Ms. Diamond’s death read: “I am heartbroken by the news from Colorado where Karen Diamond, a victim of the vicious attack earlier this month, has passed away. May Karen’s memory be a blessing and a reminder that we must constantly work to eradicate hatred and violence.”

This statement is “meticulously sanitized so as not to offend some interest or handler,” Mr. Foxman said. “Mr. Mamdani is unable or unwilling to mention the victim as a Jew. She did not ‘pass.’ She was murdered, and not by a phantom but by a Muslim extremist, and because she was Jewish and sought the freedom of the hostages held by Hamas, not by some invisible force.

“These are more word games to cover his advocacy of global intifada.”

Yes, Mr. Foxman acknowledged, there is antisemitism on the right as well as on the left. “I know that the GOP also has antisemites, and people who are not sensitive to antisemitic views,” he said. “But for me that does not justify or explain Mr. Mamdani. Democrats have a responsibility to clean their house.”

Then he moved on to President Donald Trump.

“The relationship between Mr. Trump and the Jews continues to be very complicated for us,” Mr. Foxman said. He thinks that Mr. Trump has been enormously helpful to Israel, most recently in its war with Iran, and “what he did with the Abraham Accords is historic.”

The problem, though, is that even when Mr. Trump does things that Mr. Foxman thinks are very good for the Jews, “he is totally unpredictable. He has no loyalty. But even with his lack of loyalty, he can do good things.

“We should be able to say thank you, Mr. Trump, for all of these things, but we also should be able to say no thank you, Mr. Trump, for what he is doing to democracy.

“He is doing good things for Israel, but his getting involved in the prime minister’s case is terrible.”

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has been charged with bribery, fraud, and breach of trust. The charges were brought in 2019, and the case has been delayed repeatedly; it was supposed to go to trial this week but did not.

Last Saturday, Mr. Trump posted a very long tweet demanding that the charges against Mr. Netanyahu be dropped and threated to withhold U.S. aid from Israel if that were not done.

“Trump is inserting himself in Israel’s judicial due process, which is bad enough, and then he ties it to support of Israel. That is terrible. And then he told Israel to turn its planes around.” That was about a week ago, when Israel’s planes were heading toward Iran but Mr. Trump wanted the ceasefire to hold, according to the president. “If he wants to do that, at least he should do it privately,” Mr. Foxman said.

“So our dilemma continues. When do we criticize? When do we not criticize?

“This came clear in the mayoral election. There’s the issue of whether nonprofits can be critical of candidates because of their 501c3 status.

“I applaud the American Jewish Committee and U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum for speaking out against Mamdani’s position. They felt that the danger to the American Jewish community was serious enough for them to criticize the candidate, although that’s not the norm.

“I am disappointed by my successor, who said that he couldn’t say anything about the mayoral race because the ADL is a 501c3,” Mr. Foxman continued. That’s Jonathan Greenblatt, who took over the helm of the ADL when Mr. Foxman retired. “He said he couldn’t get involved in political issues.”

Then Mr. Foxman told a story.

“Many years ago, when I was the director of the ADL, we had three candidates who were antisemitic — Lyndon LaRouche, Pat Buchanan, and Jesse Jackson.” All three were perennial presidential candidates.

“I said to my leadership that I am going to call them antisemites,” Mr. Foxman said. “And my lawyers, and people within and without the ADL, said, ‘No. You cannot do that. We are a 501c3.’

“But I said ‘No. We are not in the business of being a nonprofit. We are in the business of fighting for the Jewish community. This is a risk we have to take.’

“I won that battle, but Lyndon LaRouche filed a complaint, and we paid a fine of $160,000 or so. And to this day we are proud of it, because our job is not to protect the 401c3. It it to work toward peace and democracy.