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Sure, be mad I voted for Mamdani — I’m still just as Jewish (and Israeli) as you are
Politics was once about hiring someone to do a job, a public service for the greater good. Now it’s about picking a team — and God help you if you cheer for the wrong one.
I’ve been learning a lot from reactions to my recent op-ed describing why I voted for New York City Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani. The lessons aren’t really about Mamdani, or New York, or even about me — they’re about what’s happened to politics and civic life itself.
There was a time when elections were about competence and vision. Voters weighed experience and judgment. Campaigns made the case for why their candidate was best suited to serve the public. Now, it feels like the World Cup. Candidates are teams, voters are supporters, and politics is no longer about governing — it’s about belonging, and the fan bases are vicious.
Almost none of the reactions to my endorsement of Mamdani have had anything to do with whether he’d be a good mayor. In the hundreds of comments and messages I’ve received, not a single one — literally zero — was about his qualifications, his experience, or his readiness to serve. Instead, the conversation has been entirely about which team I’ve joined.
Apparently, as an Israeli and as a Jew, I’m not supposed to be on Mamdani’s team. My support created a dissonance for those who see politics through binary, populist lenses. The response was to tell me I’d defected — to the “other” side. That I’m no longer really Israeli. Not Jewish. That I’ve betrayed my people.
That’s completely illogical and — let’s be honest — stupid. I’ve done 23andMe. I’m about as close to 100% Ashkenazi Jewish as anyone can get. My Israeli citizenship is affirmed by passports and birth certificates. None of this is up for debate.
One friendly acquaintance in Tel Aviv even commented publicly on my Facebook wall, sarcastically asking, “Since when are you Israeli, and in what way?” The question was cloaked in feigned ignorance but carried a real accusation. Rather than do the mental work of asking herself why it seems so preposterous that a proud Israeli-Jewish-American-Canadian leftist — someone who’s spent her life and career believing in and speaking up for justice and shared society across all her homelands — might support a Muslim leftist candidate for mayor, her knee-jerk reaction was to question my identity, my citizenship, my belonging.
I get it. It’s easier to kick me off the team than to deal with my point of view from within it. I also think that’s lazy, and a little bit silly.
But beneath the silliness is a deeper lesson about how hollow civic engagement has become.
Political discourse is now an identity-sorting exercise, a game of tribal belonging where substance is nearly irrelevant and loyalty is everything. There is no greater good anymore, just a tunnel-vision sense of what’s good for me and my team.
And here’s what’s striking: There should absolutely be room for meaningful debate about Mayor-elect Mamdani and his policies. I’ve had tough conversations with myself about his platform, and I landed where I landed, but I don’t think it’s the only legitimate place to end up. I don’t see myself — or my politics — as all-knowing or universally applicable.
We should argue, question, and disagree with each other about leadership and governance in this city. But in responding to my essay, not one person brought up substantive objections involving Mamdani’s legislative record, his housing policy or his approach to social services. No one asked questions about those things, either.
Instead, people threw out sound bites, like Mamdani’s remark that he’d support efforts to have Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu arrested on an International Criminal Court warrant if he sets foot in New York. (The United States isn’t a party to the ICC, making this campaign promise notably hard to realize.)
That line has been used again and again in my mentions as supposed “proof” that supporting Mamdani equals endorsing antisemitism.
But let’s pause on that for a moment. Hundreds of thousands of Israelis filled Kaplan Street for months before the Hamas attack of Oct. 7, 2023, protesting Netanyahu’s corruption and authoritarianism. Since early in the war that followed those attacks, they’ve been out again to demonstrate against his abandonment of the hostages. When Jews around the world staged protests in solidarity in major cities, they were hailed by many as pro-Israel.
The slogans and imagery — Israeli flags held high — were explicit: “Lock him up.” “He belongs in jail and in hell.” I remember one poster vividly: an Israeli flag turned on its side so the blue stripes formed prison bars, with a caricature of Netanyahu clutching them from behind. No one called those protesters antisemitic. They were simply patriots — of the liberal variety.
So when Mayor-elect Mamdani, someone who believes in applying international law consistently, says he wouldn’t make an exception for Netanyahu, why is that suddenly antisemitic? Is it because he’s Muslim? Because he’s not Israeli? Because he’s daring to say what Israelis themselves have shouted in the streets for years?
Even Rabbi Elliot Cosgrove of Central Synagogue in Manhattan, a prominent liberal who famously joined a protest against Netanyahu outside the United Nations in 2023, taking the podium to lambast his corruption, used his pulpit to denounce Mamdani. In doing so, he cited — among many other concerns — that same statement about Netanyahu as evidence that Jews would not be safe in Mamdani’s New York.
What changed? Has Netanyahu’s corruption faded? Has his abandonment of the hostages made him more defensible? Has his tacit support for Hamas — the mutual dependence that has fueled this endless, brutal war — suddenly made him more worthy of protection? Or has the war itself, the issue that brought him before the ICC, done so — despite the broad belief, held within Israel as well as without, that Netanyahu worked to extend that war for personal gain?
The reversal reveals not a change in Netanyahu’s behavior, but in our own political reflexes. When a Muslim criticizes him, it’s alarming. When Jews do, it’s democracy — and even Zionism.
Dozens more people pointed me to a campaign video Mamdani released in Arabic as “evidence” that I was supporting a Hamas sympathizer. Not because of anything he said. Because he spoke Arabic.
That’s not vigilance; that’s anti-Arab hate. Arabic is one of the most widely spoken languages in the world. That includes New York. It’s also one of the languages of Israel, and of Mizrahi Jews. The fact that a Muslim elected official in the U.S. speaking Arabic to his constituents can be twisted into “evidence” of treachery says more about our own moral panic than about him. We’ve reached a point where solidarity across difference — where a Jew supporting a Muslim candidate who believes in justice — breaks people’s mental circuitry.
And in this morass of politics-as-World-Cup, we are not just losing nuance — we’re losing each other. The machinery of division thrives on turning minorities and working-class communities against one another. Jews and Muslims, Black and brown New Yorkers, immigrants and long-timers — somehow, we’ve all ended up pitted against one other to keep the system intact.
It’s a cruel and dangerous game. It’s not sustainable. In supporting Mamdani, I expressed support for a New York City, and a world, where solidarity wins over suspicion, where Jews and Muslims are allies rather than adversaries, and where justice is not conditional on which “team” you’re on. Politics is not the World Cup. It’s the daily act of choosing whether to build walls, or build community.
And for everyone asking: No, I’m not looking forward to a mandatory hijab — since that will never be a policy in Mamdani’s New York. But I am looking forward to my hijabi sisters feeling free and safe here, just as I’m looking forward to feeling that way myself.
The post Sure, be mad I voted for Mamdani — I’m still just as Jewish (and Israeli) as you are appeared first on The Forward.
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Stop Platforming Bigotry and Hate: We Can’t Build Bridges with Destructionists
US Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY). Photo: Mike Jourdan/Flickr.
A society that cannot distinguish between a critic and a destructionist is a society in the process of dismantling itself.
For decades, the leaders of Western institutions — universities, legacy media, and political think tanks — have operated on the Liberal Consensus Model. This model assumes that every stakeholder, no matter how radical, ultimately wants a seat at the table to negotiate a better version of the status quo.
But we are currently witnessing the total collapse of this assumption. Institutions are mistaking a siege for a negotiation.
The “Destructionist” does not want a seat at the table; they want to use the wood for kindling. When an institution offers a “bridge” to someone whose starting premise is the dismantling of liberal democracy or the erasure of a people, they aren’t practicing “inclusion.” They are providing a tactical ramp for an assault.
This is not a “Left” or “Right” problem; it is a vulnerability of the center. Across the political spectrum, we see the same mechanics of “laundering” at work — where moderate leaders trade their institutional credibility for access to a radical’s megaphone.
On the left, we see the normalization of figures like Hasan Piker. When the “Pod Save America” crew or politicians like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) treat Piker as a “bold youth voice,” they are signaling that his destructionist starting points — such as supporting the eradication of Zionism — are within the bounds of a reasonable democratic coalition.
They frame it as “outreach,” failing to realize that they are importing eliminationist rhetoric into the heart of the mainstream.
On the right, the rot is equally visible in the laundering of Tucker Carlson. When Kevin Roberts, President of the Heritage Foundation, or politicians like Vice President JD Vance defend Carlson even as he platforms Holocaust revisionists and Nazi apologists, they are breaking a decades-old covenant. By framing Carlson’s descent into conspiratorial bigotry as “challenging the establishment,” they are laundering a brand of hatred that was rightly ostracized from the movement generations ago.
In both cases, these “bridge-builders” suffer from a form of institutional narcissism: the belief that their own empathy or political utility is powerful enough to transcend a destructionist ideology. They believe they can negotiate a floor plan with an arsonist who has already lit the match.
It is common to lump these figures in with Joe Rogan, but the distinction is critical for understanding where our accountability must lie.
Rogan is a private citizen having a public conversation. While he causes undeniable material harm by uncritically platforming bigoted views –and we should absolutely pressure him to do better — he is fundamentally only representing himself.
Conversely, we must hold the Ezra Kleins, the Jon Favreaus, and the Heritage Foundations to a far higher standard because they represent institutions. When a gatekeeper stops guarding the gate on behalf of an institution, the gate ceases to exist. Rogan is a symptom of a culture that finds fire interesting; these institutional leaders are the architects who were supposed to be building the firewalls. Their failure is not just an error in judgment; it is professional malpractice.
The solution is not state-censorship, but a renewal of communal self-respect. We must re-learn the lesson of how we defeated the KKK: we didn’t “win the debate” at a shared seminar; we made the white hood socially disqualifying.
The path forward requires a two-fold strategy:
1. Enforce “Social Jail”
We must return to a model of principled ostracization. If your starting point is the destruction of a people or the subversion of the democratic covenant, you belong in “social jail.” This is not “cancel culture” — which often offers no path back — but a boundary. Social jail allows for repair. When an individual renounces the destructionist framework and demonstrably accounts for the harm they’ve advocated through public renunciation and restorative action, the door can be reopened. But until then, the line must be held.
2. Critical Friction vs. Laundering
Journalists and pundits must stop acting as facilitators. If they choose to engage with these figures, the “friendly engagement” model must be replaced with hostile exposure. You can interview an arsonist about why he likes fire, but you don’t hire him as a fire safety consultant.
The standard defense for this laundering is the phrase: “I don’t agree with everything he says.”
In the context of eliminationist bigotry, this is not a defense; it is a confession of moral cowardice — or at best, professional dereliction. To be a journalist or a civic leader is to have the courage to name the “tripwire.” If you platform a bigot, you have a professional obligation to state, explicitly, which of their hateful taboos you oppose. If you refuse to name the bigotry — if you treat it as a mere “difference of opinion” — you are not conducting an interview; you are providing a sanitation service.
We have spent years building bridges with people who are committed to destroying them. We have watched as they used those bridges to infiltrate our schools, our media, and our political parties.
It is time to stop being the architects of our own demise. If we cannot say “No” to those who wish to see our foundations destroyed, our “Yes” to progress and our democratic system will eventually mean nothing at all. We must stop exhausting our moral vocabulary on minor transgressions so that we have the collective clarity required to name the destructionists for what they are.
It is time to stop building the bridge and start holding the line.
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78 Years Later, the Palestinian Authority Still Dreams of Israel’s Demise
Lebanese President Joseph Aoun meets with Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas at the presidential palace in Baabda, Lebanon, May 21, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Mohamed Azakir
As Israel celebrates the 78th anniversary of its Independence, the Palestinian Authority (PA) and its government-run media continue to promote the ideology that Israel has no right to exist and is a temporary “occupation” that will soon vanish.
Here are some examples that Palestinian Media Watch (PMW) has documented recently:
PA Jerusalem District Spokesman Ma’arouf Al-Rifai: “Ever since Allah created this land, we have continued to live here and defend it, we are the spearhead on defending these holy sites.
The occupation [i.e., Israel] is ultimately destined to disappear.” [emphasis added]
[Official PA TV, Individuals, Jan. 31, 2026]
Palestinian National Council member Dr. Shafiq Al-Talouli: “This state [i.e., Israel] is revealing the true face of the occupation that has stolen Palestine since 1948, and which relies on the same ideology of carrying out forced expulsion, and which strives through the use of force, committing massacres, starvation, and the like to remove the Palestinian people from its land.” [emphasis added]
[Official PA TV, Topic of the Day, Nov. 6, 2025]
Official PA TV programs, interviews, and documentaries repeat the ideology that Israel’s existence is temporary:
Official PA TV Israeli affairs “expert” Nizar Nazzal: “Palestine is the compass, and here the empires crashed down. Whether it was the Mongols, the Crusaders, or others. Therefore, these empires [i.e., Israe] too, here on the land of Palestine, will crash down.” [emphasis added]
[Official PA TV, Topic of the Day, Jan. 20, 2026]
The PA tells its people that Israelis, deep down, agree that Israel is doomed:
Official PA TV narrator: “Even in the depths of the Israeli public, there is an understanding that their presence here is temporary. The dual citizenship of the soldiers and settlers is not just a coincidence but rather an escape plan ready to be executed if the balance of powers changes.”
Jurist Sufian Siyam: “The Israeli knows in his subconscious mind that his existence on this land is temporary. …In 2006, there was an Israeli soldier named Gilad Shalit. We were surprised to discover later that Gilad Shalit has French citizenship … Israeli soldier Edan Alexander [a hostage captured and released during Hamas’ Oct. 7 war] has American citizenship. Why do the Israeli soldiers and Israeli civilians insist on having another citizenship besides Israeli citizenship? Because deep in his heart, his grandfather before him and his son after him knew that his existence on this land is temporary.” [emphasis added]
[Official PA TV, Time Without Ceasefire, Jan. 28, 2026]
Whether from PA officials or its state media, the message to Palestinians remains constant: Israel has no right to exist, Israel is temporary, Palestinians are permanent, and time will erase the Jewish State.
At the same time, the PA continues to demand Western governments fund this culture of hate and rejectionism while choosing to look the other way.
The author is a contributor to Palestinian Media Watch, where a version of this article first appeared.
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PA Libel: Jewish Scripture Says Non-Jews Are ‘Pigs in the Form of Humans to Serve the Jews’
Palestinians shout slogans at the compound that houses Al-Aqsa Mosque, known to Muslims as Noble Sanctuary and to Jews as Temple Mount, following clashes with Israeli security forces in Jerusalem’s Old City April 15, 2022. REUTERS/Ammar Awad
In addition to its eliminationist rhetoric, the Palestinian Authority (PA)’s brainwashing of its people is ongoing and effective.
Palestinian Media Watch regularly documents that ordinary Palestinians echo the antisemitic and Nazi-like statements by PA leaders and officials. The PA portrays Jews as being “arrogant by nature,” and planning to “subjugate the entire world.” Palestinian citizens adopt and repeat these teachings.
Accordingly, anti-Israeli activists spread the libel that the Jewish Talmud teaches that non-Jews are “pigs in the form of humans [created] to serve the Jews”:
Anti-Israeli activist in the Jordan Valley Ayman Ghraib: “The colonialism began in the [Jewish] religious schools where the colonialists [i.e., Jews] were educated to hate the Arabs and Palestinians and everything that is not Jewish.
We have obtained booklets that contain an exact quote from the Talmudic text — that non-Jews are pigs that God created in the form of humans to serve the Jews … In their religious books it is written that Allah created this [olive] tree for the Jews … and if they cannot enjoy its fruits, they should burn it.” [emphasis added]
[Official PA TV, Crops, April 6, 2026]
The Talmud contains no such statement about non-Jews being pigs.
Even as Palestinians falsely accuse Jews of dehumanizing non-Jews, the PA itself portrays Jews as sub-human.
In the words of PA leader Mahmoud Abbas’ advisor, Jews are “grazing herds of humanoids … apes and pigs.” Recently, a Palestinian in Lebanon expressed a similar view, saying Jews are “pigs and donkeys”:
Lebanese singer and actor Abd Asqoul: “The enemy [Israel] is very stupid. He does not understand that it is impossible, regardless of what will be, there is something that lives inside us [Palestinians] … But this pig is not just a pig, he is a donkey who does not understand.
He thought my identity is a few papers and flour, and it escaped him that I am from the seed of heroes. .. My identity is land and rock and the sand of the beaches with shells and the blue color in their waters, from Rosh Hanikra [i.e., on Israel’s northern border] to proud Umm Al-Rashrash [i.e., Eilat, Israel’s southern border].” [emphasis added]
[Official PA TV, The Creativity of the Refugee Camp, Jan. 20, 2026]
The Palestinian Authority’s antisemitism also portrays Jews as the “enemy of humanity.” A Palestinian academic and former PA deputy minister stressed this recently, specifying that Jews are not only the “enemy” of Palestinians, but of all “humanity”:
Bethlehem University political science lecturer and former PA Deputy Minister of Jerusalem Affairs Sa’id Yaqin: “Jerusalem … is also the strongest symbol in this conflict, which is being waged with this enemy [i.e., Israel]. This is the enemy of humanity and not of the Palestinian people.” [emphasis added]
[Official PA TV, March 14, 2026]
The author is the Founder and Director of Palestinian Media Watch, where a version of this article first appeared.