OPINION:
Last week, New York City’s democratic socialist mayor, Zohran Mamdani, dropped any pretense that he is not an unabashed antisemite.
He called the American Israel Public Affairs Committee “monsters” who fear “an end to genocide” and use “dark money” to “turn us against one another.” AIPAC, of course, is nothing of the sort. It is a bipartisan American lobbying group that supports the U.S.-Israel alliance.
This alliance has benefited both countries. Israeli technology startups boost the U.S. economy, and Israel’s Teva Pharmaceuticals makes generic medications that save Americans about $40 billion per year — more than 10 times our investment in Israel’s security.
AIPAC helps heal the world by encouraging support for Israel’s rescue and relief services, including treatments for Rwandan and Kosovar war refugees, and rescuing earthquake victims in Armenia, El Salvador and Haiti. Israel’s Save a Child’s Heart program has treated more than 8,000 children worldwide, mostly from Arab and African countries.
By encouraging initiatives from Camp David and the Abraham Accords, AIPAC has helped Israel pursue peace.
Mr. Mamdani’s “monstrous” slander of AIPAC is demonstrably false as well as hateful and dehumanizing, summoning vile antisemitic tropes and evoking similar rhetoric used by Germany’s leader toward Jews 90 years ago.
This is a mayor who refuses to condemn the genocidal slogans “From the river to the sea” and “Globalize the intifada.” These slogans, respectively, demand Israel’s annihilation and call for violence against Jewish civilians worldwide.
This is a man whose wife celebrated the Oct. 7, 2023, massacre of Israelis on social media and denied Hamas’ documented mass rapes of Israelis. Sadly, Mr. Mamdani’s message of hate is succeeding.
He endorsed three anti-Israel congressional candidates in the New York primary elections Tuesday. One of them attended a pro-Hamas/anti-Israel rally the day after the Oct. 7 massacre.
All three Mamdani-endorsed candidates won. One can imagine him singing “Tomorrow Belongs to Me” from “Cabaret.”
STEPHEN A. SILVER
San Francisco, California
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