Responses on Mamdani and Those Rabbis #1
Posting two very different answers, first from TPM Reader J.S. …
I bet you’re not surprised that I disagree on this point. The No. 1 threat facing Jews in the United States today is stochastic terrorism from both the left and right and from Islamic terrorists, whether it’s the Tree of Life shooting (right wing), the Boulder attack (left wing), or the very recent Manchester shooting (Islamic), or, in my community, an actual attempt bombing of local synagogues (right wing). It’s a heart attack; Fascism – or whatever you want to call what Trump does – is like cancer. At this point, living until cancer kills you is lucky. That doesn’t mean you’re not trying to cure cancer, but first and foremost.
Finally, Mamdani is not “anti-Semitic”. Okay, great. He has Jewish friends and country beards. So according to the norm, no one accepts regarding any other group, he is not anti-Semitic. But the genocide libel relies on a series of inferences that depend on anti-Semitic premises. If we want to pretend to be subtle enough to spot the difference between what is and what isn’t, we can be subtle enough to examine how this accusation is based on a bunch of out-of-context quotes from Israeli readers and only if you believe in sinister conspiracy theories about Jews does it all make sense. Remember that these accusations began before any Israeli retaliation and continue even before October 7.
So, I don’t know, man, if you need to hold a bunch of nasty beliefs about Jews (the non-“good ones”) to draw conclusions that cause you to go out into the world and talk about it for years, I have a hard time thinking that’s not a Jew-hater and still a threat to Jews, just like Trump telling the Proud Boys to stand by. And all of this is absolutely relevant for a city with a huge Jewish population.
Anti-Semitism is also present in a second-order view. No other group would have to explain all of this. If Mamdani had a problem with Puerto Ricans and said that Puerto Rico is a colonial enterprise that should be returned to Native Americans, I don’t believe for a moment that New York’s Latino community would have to explain to liberals why that wasn’t something they needed to hear in a time of escalating anti-Latino violence.
Mamdani is exactly the kind of person Democrats are looking for these days. And they’re going to get it. Good and hard. Then I guess we can worry about the incipient fascism of the Rubio or Vance regime.
If you don’t think about spreading the genocide smear and talking about how Israel is the cause of all the world’s woes, as Mamdani obsessively did throughout his tenure, all life is the cause of this stochastic violence, so I guess we fundamentally disagree. But I think you understand that because you’ve talked about it in other contexts, like the political violence fomented by Trump’s comments, for example.
Finally, Mamdani is not “anti-Semitic”. Okay, great. He has Jewish friends and country beards. So according to the norm, no one accepts regarding any other group, he is not anti-Semitic. But the genocide libel relies on a series of inferences that depend on anti-Semitic premises. If we want to pretend to be subtle enough to spot the difference between what is and what isn’t, we can be subtle enough to examine how this accusation is based on a bunch of out-of-context quotes from Israeli readers and only if you believe in sinister conspiracy theories about Jews does it all make sense. Remember that these accusations began before any Israeli retaliation and continue even before October 7.
So, I don’t know, man, if you need to hold a bunch of nasty beliefs about Jews (the non-“good ones”) to draw conclusions that cause you to go out into the world and talk about it for years, I have a hard time thinking that’s not a Jew-hater and still a threat to Jews, just like Trump telling the Proud Boys to stand by. And all of this is absolutely relevant for a city with a huge Jewish population.
Anti-Semitism is also present in a second-order view. No other group would have to explain all of this. If Mamdani had a problem with Puerto Ricans and said that Puerto Rico is a colonial enterprise that should be returned to Native Americans, I don’t believe for a moment that New York’s Latino community would have to explain to liberals why that wasn’t something they needed to hear in a time of escalating anti-Latino violence.
Mamdani is exactly the kind of person Democrats are looking for these days. And they’re going to get it. Good and hard. Then I guess we can worry about the incipient fascism of the Rubio or Vance regime.
If you don’t think about spreading the genocide smear and talking about how Israel is the cause of all the world’s woes, as Mamdani obsessively did throughout his tenure, all life is the cause of this stochastic violence, so I guess we fundamentally disagree. But I think you understand that because you’ve talked about it in other contexts, like the political violence fomented by Trump’s comments, for example.
Finally, Mamdani is not “anti-Semitic”. Okay, great. He has Jewish friends and country beards. So according to the norm, no one accepts regarding any other group, he is not anti-Semitic. But the genocide libel relies on a series of inferences that depend on anti-Semitic premises. If we want to pretend to be subtle enough to spot the difference between what is and what isn’t, we can be subtle enough to examine how this accusation is based on a bunch of out-of-context quotes from Israeli readers and only if you believe in sinister conspiracy theories about Jews does it all make sense. Remember that these accusations began before any Israeli retaliation and continue even before October 7.
So, I don’t know, man, if you need to hold a bunch of nasty beliefs about Jews (the non-“good ones”) to draw conclusions that cause you to go out into the world and talk about it for years, I have a hard time thinking that’s not a Jew-hater and still a threat to Jews, just like Trump telling the Proud Boys to stand by. And all of this is absolutely relevant for a city with a huge Jewish population.
Anti-Semitism is also present in a second-order view. No other group would have to explain all of this. If Mamdani had a problem with Puerto Ricans and said that Puerto Rico is a colonial enterprise that should be returned to Native Americans, I don’t believe for a moment that New York’s Latino community would have to explain to liberals why that wasn’t something they needed to hear in a time of escalating anti-Latino violence.
Mamdani is exactly the kind of person Democrats are looking for these days. And they’re going to get it. Good and hard. Then I guess we can worry about the incipient fascism of the Rubio or Vance regime.
