The Bloom is Off the Rose

Zohran Mamdani is a nice enough guy. His face is hardening into a mask of stoicism as he experiences the anger of his fickle electorate, but he still manages to squeeze out an occasional twinkle. I saw it in a picture of an October 7 dinner (those finger rings!) where he did a late-night sit-down at Ayat Hinds Hall, a pro-Palestinian restaurant in Manhattan whose menu features an image of a Judenrein Palestine. It’s all Ramallah and no Tel Aviv. It was the first time that day he seemed to smile.

In case you’re wondering, my attitude has shifted. I admired Mamdani for getting things done or at least playing the game at a high level of risk. His administration financed 12,000 affordable housing units in what seemed like the political blink of an eye. Ambulance response times have radically improved and the metrics on crime show that there’s a commitment to public safety. Say what you want, but he’s a pothole mayor, with a granular commitment to on-the-ground improvements. In that sense, he passes the Ezra Klein test by actually doing things or making them seem possible.

The problem, of course, is his reflexive irritability when it comes to matters of Zionism and Israel. Zohran and Co. (his wife, Rama Duwaji) are one-track obsessives. Hindu nationalists under Narendra Modi in India have brutally suppressed their Muslim fellow citizens. The campaign is a lethal and persistent mix of street violence, hate speech, and calls for genocide. But this is somehow outside Mamdani’s concerns. He has intermittently compared India to Israel, but without the insistent drumbeat of hostility. Only Israel is uniquely evil, an obsession which seems to control his rhetoric and exert a deforming power over his mayoral portfolio.

That is not to say that Israel should be exempt or even get much of the benefit of the doubt. Netanyahu and Co. (Ben Gvir and Smotrich) are inimical actors in modern Jewish history who have brought shame to the name of the Jewish State. West Bank Palestinians know this story of complete disenfranchisement and attempted erasure. The transplanted Israeli peaceniks who planned the Mamdani event on October 7 know the same story and feel it deeply. They styled their commemoration to express their solidarity and asked the mayor to join them in their protest. The purpose was to bring two broken communities together and to assure Palestinians that they honored their pain.

But Mamdani couldn’t quite return the favor. The statement he issued on the anniversary of the October 7 slaughter made a pro forma reference to the suffering of Israelis, the burning of their children, the rape and killing of their women, and then went on to focus on the retaliation against Gaza. Bret Stephens of the New York Times called the statement obscene. Put me down as an enthusiastic ditto.

And there were other people who apparently felt the same, albeit from another political direction. Those who attended the protest included the mayor and his team along with the aforementioned Israelis calling for peace. But added to that gathering were plenty of Palestinian activists who heckled the mayor and decried his appearance. Their idea was that Zohran had betrayed their cause by joining their natural allies, the Israeli doves. I think this means that for many Palestinian activists, all Israelis are demons, monsters, and child killers, including the ones who reach out in sympathy. The Muslim Brotherhood manifesto of 1991 would seem to credential this sinister view and its radical rejection of compromise and coexistence. When you kill an Israeli, you are doing God’s work.

I don’t mind saying that this fills me with disgust. It confirms the worst instincts of right-wing Israelis who believe that the work of peacemaking is over. But I will also admit that it offers the satisfactions of schadenfreude. By his obsessive focus on the conduct of Israel, Mamdani has alienated more than one constituency. On this point, at least, he is not a calm, judicious leader, but a bomb-throwing jerk who suffered the consequences.

Our job here is to refine our critique. Jews and their spokespeople have spent a great deal of time ventilating about Mamdani’s so-called anti-Semitism and conflating his attitudes with those of his wife. She appears to hate Israel with a more florid passion and is more resistant to the call for restraint. All this probably gets in the way of communication. We have to concentrate on the essentials and forget the rest. I’m for keeping the message squeaky clean:

Mr. Mayor, it’s time to put aside any distraction that could pull us apart or stoke anger and distrust. The job of a mayor is to build community, and that means focusing on the aspirations and dreams we share. We are not likely to resolve the problems of the Mideast in declarations from Gracie Mansion, but you do have the opportunity to make every citizen feel the force of your unconditional love. Your Jewish constituency is waiting to hear from you with the same care and sensitivity you offer Palestinian New Yorkers. There’s still time to bring us all together.

I wish I believed that Mamdani could do it, but I am afraid that he is imprisoned by his most beloved obsessions. The result is that he has squandered the good will of nearly everyone. Real moral leadership waits for someone else.