Zohran Mamdani Is A Tool Of Empire

Yesterday the mayor of New York City, Zohran Mamdani, condemned people for protesting against the sale of land in the West Bank, sales which were happening in a New York synagogue. As part of his condemnation, he labelled Hamas a terrorist organisation.

I did a tweet in response that said this.

Lots of people didn’t like it. It was reposted by the editor of Current Affairs magazine, Nathan Robinson, who said this.

I stand by everything I said.

If the people you elect to fight fascists are regurgitating fascist propaganda, propaganda that manufactured consent for a genocide, A GENOCIDE, then that is, on a very material level, more harmful to justice than the fascists themselves.

To me this is not complicated.

It’s not the fascists who rob you of hope and the possibility of justice, because they offer none in the first place. The people who rob you of hope and the possibility of justice are those who claim to stand for hope and justice then side with the oppressor.

An ally who stabs you in the back is worse than an enemy who stabs you in the chest.

Again, I struggle to see how this is complicated.

What Mamdani said was shameful, utterly shameful.

Labelling Palestinian resistance ‘terrorism’ is literally how consent was manufactured for a genocide. Doesn’t everyone know this? Did we not just watch two years of Israeli politicians and western Zionists cry ‘Hamas’ to defend, cover and justify genocide? Surely everyone saw this, including Mamdani.

So given this, how can anyone defend what he said? And how can anyone defend what he didn’t say?

I wrote specifically about this a few months ago. I wrote about how western media laid the groundwork for a holocaust by repeating the phrase ‘terror group Hamas’ over and over for twenty-odd years, brainwashing the public into granting Israel the license to murder whoever it wanted in Gaza, whenever it wanted.

“It was essential that in the western mind Gaza was synonymous with terror, so when the timing and conditions were right for a final solution, Israel could apply that final solution without friction. Hamas is the civic authority in Gaza. The armed wing of Hamas has never attacked outside Israel and the occupied territories and never wanted to. Why would they? Hamas is a local resistance group struggling against a nuclear-armed oppressor who stole their land, stole their homes and inflicted generations of apartheid on them. Only ten countries in the world proscribe them as a terror group. Do we believe it’s because these are the best, right and most moral countries in the world? Of course not.”

And Mamdani didn’t even bother both-sidesing it. He didn’t condemn the illegal sales of Palestinian land being held on his watch, in his city. No. He only condemned the people protesting against this.

He picked a side.

He picked the side of Zionism.

Openly, blatantly, unabashedly.

He chose to stand with empire, to stand with the oppressors and against the oppressed, and repeat the brainwashing propaganda that for decades has justified genocide and apartheid.

It’s utterly shameful.

Yesterday when asked why he only condemned anti-apartheid protestors and not the illegal sales of West Bank land, he conceded that the sales break international law. So he knows international law is being broken in the city he runs, but does, and says, nothing about it. His condemnation of the protest and his insistence on ‘protecting worshippers’ ignores the only context that matters. He makes it sound as if protestors are protesting Jews for practicing their religion, when he knows they are protesting direct and illegal complicity in apartheid.

I can only think that defenders of Mamdani have a belief in resistance to apartheid and genocide which is primarily aesthetic. Their main concern is feeling good about their guy, and about the system of American liberal democracy which produced him. The only reason I can think of for a leftist to defend genocidal rhetoric and actions is if you believe, naively, in political heroes. If you’re desperate for the system to prove it can produce good guys.

On some level I get it. We all want to believe that despite our cynicism, despite our knowledge of a crooked electoral system controlled by billionaires and corporations, the possibility still exists that we can find the right combination that unlocks the right candidate who delivers justice.

But honestly, if leftists are not going to set the bar at ‘repeating Israeli talking points that led to a genocide is bad and unacceptable,’ then I have no idea what we’re doing. If they’re not going to condemn their man for facilitating apartheid and the breaking of international law in his city, then we may as well pack up and go home.

I think the fear of Robinson and defenders of Mamdani is that their man might be proof, yet again, that the system is irredeemable. But they can’t bring themselves to see this. Because if liberal electoralism isn’t the answer, what is? Clinging to a belief in electoralism staves off painful revolutionary thoughts.

I suppose the latest from Mamdani is actually not that surprising. He retained ultra-Zionist Jessica Tisch as police chief, partied with celebrities who donate money to the IDF, has droned on about antisemitism since his election, and caved on ‘globalise the intifada’ under Zionist pressure.

I’m not the big shot editor of a New York magazine. I’m just a guy with a blog who wanted, like everyone who cares about Palestine, justice and the future, for Mamdani to be better than this.

But when the evidence is stacking up that he’s not that guy, I’m going to call it out, and I hope most of my readers appreciate that.

What I’m not going to do is ignore obviously appalling actions by progressives in positions of power to protect the sensibilities of liberals and aesthetic leftists like Robinson.

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