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Mamdani and the bigotry of low expectations

For Mamdani it’s all about giving American Muslims, their radicalized supporters and Palestinian Arabs a pass on behavior that he would otherwise find unacceptable, even criminal, if perpetrated by Americans who do not belong to these minority groups.

There can be little doubt that Zohran Mamdani poses a threat to the safety of New York City residents who are not Muslim. Mamdani’s political agenda poses a clear and present danger to all Jews who live within the five boroughs. Mamdani despises wealthy New Yorkers, and their capitalist wealth, which is what built up New York City over the past century, making it one of the greatest cities in the world. Mamdani promises radical socialist change dressed up as moral renewal. Mamdani has been reluctant to expose and explicitly condemn the culture of violence proudly paraded during the Pro-Hamas demonstrations on the streets and campuses of New York City, and is the perfect example of how radicalized socialists embrace and legitimize ideologies based on the bigotry of low expectations. To be perfectly clear, Mamdani is an open anti-Semite who refuses to condemn Hamas, their supporters or their murderous calls to “globalize the intifada” on the streets of New York City.

Mamdani’s does in fact articulate his political promises effectively and convincingly in a manner that even seems to make sense; free public transportation, free universal day care, subsidized and rent freeze on housing, city run grocery stores and supermarkets, are his main selling points. Yet, due to his condescending predisposition, and his bigotry of low expectations, he assumes that the public doesn’t understand that the tax burden will increase in the tune of tens of billions of dollars for all of these free giveaways. Mamdani arrogantly assumes that the State Governor and state assembly of New York State will grant him State approval, when in fact he knows that his political promises are a budgetary non-starter. Evidently, despite Mamdani being of the Muslim faith, he believes in Santa Claus who hands out gifts to everyone, otherwise his promises are a populist agenda that will never see light.

Public safety on the streets of New York City is left to the sidelines of Mamdani’s political agenda despite his plans for sizing down the level of policing on the streets enabling crime and violent civil disobedience to flourish. In a recently unearthed conspiratorial clip on X during an event on September 2023, Mamdani bashed both the New York Police Department and Israel in a wild, unfounded attack: “For anyone to care about these issues, we have to make clear that when the boot of the NYPD is on your neck, it’s been laced by the IDF (Israel Defense Force).”

Mamdani trivialized the quotes by attempting to distance himself from them and comments he made in 2020 when he called the NYPD “racist, anti-queer & a major threat to public safety” and backed “defund the police.” Mamdani’s anti-Semitic and anti-Israel outbursts put him at the forefront of Jew haters within the Democratic Party. His reluctance to explicitly condemn the Palestinian Hamas terrorist group responsible for the barbaric and savage October 7 attack on civilians in Southern Israel, fits nicely alongside his promise to arrest Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu should he set foot in New York City during Mamdani’s watch. All of his statements concerning October 7th, including the one recently released on the 2nd commemoration, minimize Hamas’ brutal terror attack and mostly focus on condemning Israel.

What makes Mamdani so dangerous for Jews is his ability to use Jews to convince other Jews that he is not anti-Semitic and not a clear and present danger to the Jewish community. Just recently, Mamdani met with Haredi Jewish leaders at their sukkahs in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, a community that has suffered the most from Muslim violence in New York in recent years. Mamdani was welcomed to the sukkah of Rabbi Moishe Indig, a leader of the Satmar Hasidic community. One rabbi belonging to the Satmar community announced that Rabbi Indig had called Mamdani “a friend of the Jewish people” and said he would make “the best mayor.” This seal of seeming approval by the Satmar Hasidic community of a blatant anti-Semite is rampant in Jewish history. Jewish history is sadly filled with examples of such betrayals. Jews aided the Romans as they destroyed the Second Temple, Jews turned in their co-religionists during the Spanish Inquisition, and even the Nazis had use for their Jewish collaborators.

It seems as if Mamdani accepts the legitimacy of barbaric behavior on the part of the Palestinian Hamas terror organization as the necessary price Jews must pay for not forfeiting their rights to live in Israel. One must search in vain for his outrage and indignation for the burning of babies alive, the torture, murder and rape of men, women, and children on Oct 7th. Mamdani’s lack of moral indignation can only be explained by a morally corrupt belief that as far as Palestinian Hamas terrorists are concerned, and as far as radicalized American Muslims and their supporters in New York City are concerned, there can be no reasonable expectation that Palestinian Arabs and their American supporters embrace the idea of the sanctity of life or measure up to the high expectations of Western morality. Mamdani’s possible election in the coming days will turn the streets of New York City into an escalating environment of hostility and Jew-hatred that threatens the basic safety of Jews throughout the five boroughs of New York City.

Argentina’s notorious past as a safe haven for Nazi’s, circa 2025

This past week, progressive human rights lawyers filed a criminal complaint in Argentina’s federal courts seeking the arrest of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu should he set foot in the country, amid reports of a possible visit in September. The criminal complaint filed in Argentina federal courts calls for Netanyahu’s arrest in the country and an investigation into the Israeli political and military authorities for an incident in the Gaza Strip on March 23 in which a number of terrorists were killed. According to unverified sources, among those killed were noncombatants. Upon reading this report, many were reminded that Argentina is home to one of the deadliest terror attacks on Jews outside the State of Israel. Around 31 years ago, on July 18, 1994, a bomb-laden van exploded inside a Jewish community center in Buenos Aires. It was the worst such attack in Argentina's history, killing 85 — and injuring 300.

The destruction of the Argentine-Israelite Mutual Association, known by its Spanish initials AMIA, came two years after a 1992 bombing of the Israeli Embassy in Argentina, which killed 29 people. Israeli officials say seven of the victims have never been identified. Argentine prosecutors blamed Iranian officials for plotting the AMIA attack and said Hezbollah operatives carried it out, but even after 31 years, no one has been convicted. Iran has refused to turn over the former officials and ex-diplomats who face charges.

Also this past week, an Argentinian real estate agency published photos of a property for sale in Mar del Plata, Argentina, including their living room displaying the "Portrait of a Lady," a portrait by an Italian master artist from the 17th-century, that was stolen from the 1,000-piece collection of Jacques Goudstikker a leading Jewish Dutch art collector, who fled the Netherlands in mid-May 1940 to escape the invading Nazis but suspiciously died on the vessel carrying him to safety. According to historical allegations, the ship that carried Jewish refugees may have included Nazi officials traveling clandestinely. Jacques Goudstikker died from “falling” into the hold of the ship. Journalists seeing the ad of the property for sale identified the stolen painting, but when police raided the house, they found no trace of the painting. More than 80 years after it was looted by the Nazis from a Jewish art dealer in Amsterdam, we are reminded of Argentina’s sordid involvement in helping Nazi’s escape post war Europe. The Dutch newspaper AD said it had traced the work, which features in a database of lost art and is listed by the Dutch culture ministry as “unreturned” after the Second World War. Some works were recovered in Germany and displayed as part of the Dutch national collection in the Rijksmuseum, “Portrait of a Lady” was not among them. AD said it had uncovered wartime documents suggesting the painting was one of two in the possession of Friedrich Kadgien, a Nazi official, SS officer and senior aide to Hermann Göring.

The progressive human rights lawyers that petitioned for Benjamin Netanyahu’s arrest should he set foot in Argentina, have brought to light Argentina’s anti-Semitic past and its love affair with Nazi’s fleeing Germany after the war. Argentina was a known safe haven for Nazi’s and their families. To get a feeling of how prevalent this was just consider the high share of German surnames in Argentina today.

Argentina, before the Second World War, had closer ties to the Axis nations (Germany, Italy and also Spain) than to the Allied countries of the free world. During the Second World War, Argentina was clearly Pro-Axis. The Juan Peron government in no way was Pro-Jewish. Peron’s Minister of Immigration was a notorious anti-Semite who even wrote books about the danger that Jews allegedly posed to Argentina. The Peron government did not only offer the Nazis’ asylum, they actively imported them from Europe. Nazis were welcome Guests. Some high-tier Nazis even meet with Peron. Peron a populist / “third-positionism” politician- ideology similar to fascism. His politics and style of government were inspired by the regimes of Mussolini and Hitler, hence his government's friendliness towards fascists and Nazi’s fleeing Europe.

Argentina was the chosen home of many notorious Nazi’s after the Second World War. Mengele, "notorious" for his inhumane experiments on Jewish prisoners, arrived in 1949 and lived under various pseudo names. Having felt secure and safe in his adopted home in Argentina, Mengele even filed a request to travel from Argentina to West Germany in 1959, using his real name. Then there is Adolf Eichmann, another SS officer and one of the principal architects of the "Final Solution". He arrived in Argentina in 1950 under an alias. In January 1942, at a lakefront villa in the Wannsee district of Berlin, a conference of Nazi high officials was convened to organize the logistics of what the Nazis called the “final solution to the Jewish question.” Eichmann was to coordinate the details; thus, although it was not yet generally known that the “final solution” was mass execution, Eichmann had in effect been named chief executioner. Thereupon he organized the identification, assembly, and transportation of Jews from all over occupied Europe to their final destinations at Auschwitz and other extermination camps in German-occupied Poland. He was arrested by Israeli secret service agents near Buenos Aires, Argentina, on May 11, 1960; nine days later they smuggled him out of the country and took him to Israel. After settling the controversy that arose over the Israeli violation of Argentine law, the Israeli government arranged his trial before a special three-judge court in Jerusalem. Eichmann was found guilty by the special court in Jerusalem and was hanged by the State of Israel for his part in the Holocaust, and direct responsibility for the Nazi extermination of Jews during World War II.

Argentina has yet to recognize her historical role and responsibility in assisting Nazi’s and their families in evading justice. Argentina has yet to identify and bring to justice those nations and terror organizations that executed the bombing of the Jewish community center in Buenos Aires. Argentina was the home of Mengele and Adolf Eichmann among the greater German community residing in Argentina. So if all this is not enough, this past week the Supreme Court in Buenos Aires discovered Nazi material among its archives. An anonymous judicial authority had exposed that the court had come across boxes of photos, postcards and propaganda "intended to consolidate and propagate Adolf Hitler's ideology" in Argentina during the Second World War.

Unconditional Christian love for Israel

Since the Palestinian terror organization Hamas attacked Israel on October 7, Hamas and their supporters among the global forces of anti-Semitism have engaged in a coordinated campaign to encourage Christians to withdraw their support for Zionism and the State of Israel. These forces of Jew haters are well aware that the last major bastion of pro- Israel supporters are Christian Zionists. Therefore, they have embarked on a campaign to convince Christians that the Jews are the aggressors—even the persecutors of Christians themselves—in the cause of breaking the Christian-Jewish alliance. Despite Hamas and Palestinian aggression against Arab Christians living within Palestinian villages and cities, Hamas propagandists and their supporters among the legacy media, academia, the Democratic Party, and progressive forces everywhere have weaponized historical Christian prejudices. For Hamas and their supporters there has never been a more opportune time for Hamas-affiliated anti-Semites to plant seeds of doubt about Christian sympathy for Jews.

Sometimes it takes a non-Jew to remind us, the Jews, of something we are reluctant to face: who we truly are. In the United States, the two groups that most ardently support Israel are American Jews alongside Evangelical and fundamentalist Christians. Jewish support is relatively easy to explain, but why should certain Christians, most of them politically quite conservative, be so devoted to Israel? There is a second puzzle: despite their support for a Jewish state, Evangelical and fundamentalist Christians are disliked by many American Jews.

The evidence about evangelical attitudes is clear. In 2006, a Pew survey found that Evangelical Christians were more favorable toward Israel than the average American was—and much more sympathetic than either mainline Protestants or secularists. In another survey, Evangelical Christians proved much likelier than Catholics, Protestants, or secular types to back Israeli control of Jerusalem, endorse Israeli settlements in Judea and Samaria and take Israel’s side in conflicts that have erupted over the years in the Middle East.

Evangelical Christians have a high opinion not just of the Jewish state but of Jews as people. That Jewish voters are overwhelmingly liberal doesn’t seem to bother evangelicals, despite their own conservative politics. Yet Jews don’t return the favor: in one Pew survey, 42 percent of Jewish respondents expressed hostility towards Evangelicals and fundamentalists. In comparison, in a study of religious attitudes on a national scale, two scholars from Baruch College have shown, a much smaller fraction—about 16 percent—of the American public has similarly antagonistic feelings toward Christian fundamentalists.

So what is it about Christians and their support for Israel that makes some Jews at times uneasy? I can even imagine what makes Jews – especially Progressive Jews – nervous about this huge group of Israel lovers: their conservative values, an uncompromising stance on the Middle East peace process and support for Israel; the theological slant of their support for Israel. Christians love to love Israel unconditionally, and express love for Jews unconditionally. There is something almost non-Jewish about it. Jews usually do not talk about unconditional love. It’s not something that usually turns us on. We are more into debate, questioning, challenging and rattling the cage. Christians love to love. Jews love to kvetch.

So why do we find so little expression of unconditional love among Jews? Is it because we Jews confuse love with supporting official policy? That is, if we disagree with Israel’s policies, do we find it difficult – even impossible – to express unconditional love for Israel? Moreover, how many Israel supporters who disagree with Israel’s policies can honestly say that their love for Israel is, in fact, unconditional? When one considers the global movement to de-legitimize the State of Israel and the explosion of Jew hatred in recent years, that is, the enemies of Israel are not looking for a debate. Their aim is not to engage or interact but to demonize and eventually annihilate the State of Israel. Their opposition is not open to reason or good will. In short, their hatred is unconditional. This being the current geo-strategic reality challenging Israel, than why should some Jews be so uneasy by Christians’ unconditional love toward Israel?

How better to fight unconditional hatred than with unconditional love? What better weapon against the forces working to delegitimize Israel than a force that unequivocally expresses love of Israel? Of course, we Jews should never stop doing what we do best: argue, debate, challenge and unconditionally “Kvetch”. However, this must be conducted within a common consensus meaning that Israel must remain the national homeland of the Jewish people. For Israel supporters, unconditional love is the emotion that ought to trump all others; the emotion that fuels and gives meaning to our actions. I can challenge my child and rebuke him, but I can never forget to show him unconditional love. Many of our debates about Israel have become coarse and divisive. One reason is that in our zeal to express tough, critical love, we have forgotten about pure love, unconditional love so common among our Evangelical Christian supporters throughout the United States.

We have much to learn from our Christian supporters and how they express unconditional love for Israel. It is this unconditional love that can bind us together, Christians and Jews in our undivided support for the State of Israel and send a strong message of deterrence to the global enemies and supporters of the Hamas Palestinian terror organization,

The lion has roared – who can but fear?” (Amos 3:8).

Exploiting military related suicides to end the war on Hamas

Over the past weeks, the legacy media in Israel has spotlighted a suspected rise in suicides among IDF soldiers since the start of the war and has deliberately given extensive coverage of these suspected suicides of IDF soldiers while on leave or upon completing military service; both among young, enlisted soldiers as well as among older reserve soldiers.

The extensive reporting has consistently presented a reckless and dangerous narrative that highlighted suspected cases while claiming that by prolonging the war, the government of Israel is pushing soldiers beyond their limits and the resulting psychological toll has caused an increasing rate of suicide among IDF soldiers.

As a former IDF medical mental health officer with 25 years of professional military service, the proliferation of legacy media reporting of suspected suicide cases whether true or not has a contagious effect on those soldiers who are contemplating or are at risk of attempting suicide. Soldiers who are experiencing a period of instability or unrelated difficulties in their lives (relationships, family illnesses, financial, and so forth) may very well be affected by the extensive coverage and feel a sense of relief, a sense of legitimization, that’s it's OK to end ones' life similar to what other soldiers are doing.

During pervious cycles of suicides in the IDF (prior to the era of social media), it was proven empirically that media reports of suicides have an impact on the rates of suicides among IDF soldiers. At the time, the major media outlets agreed voluntarily to refrain from reporting on suicides in the IDF, and over the following years, there was a significant drop in suicide rates among IDF soldiers.

According to the data released in January 2025, which reflects a total of 15 months out of the 21 months of war, up to 28 soldiers are suspected of committing suicide since Hamas attacked Israel on October 7, 2023. An additional 10 suspected suicides occurred earlier in 2023, before the war began. These suspected suicide rates mark a sharp increase compared to previous years: 14 suspected suicides were recorded in 2022, and 11 in 2021. Overall, the total number of deaths in the IDF during 2023-2024 — including combat fatalities — was the highest in decades, largely as a result of the ongoing war. These are the statistics that have been used by the legacy media to sway public opinion and demand that the government in Israel end the war on Hamas. The most simplistic extrapolation and statistical analysis will clearly show that the legacy media narrative is not only false but widely misleading and has in itself created the snowball effect of additional suicides that might never have been realized.

Since the outbreak of the war on Hamas on Oct 7, 2023, the size of the standing army in Israel has increased substantially. For context, Israel has a population of about 9.5 million people according to 2023 census estimates. In 2022 the IDF counted 169,500 active-duty personnel and had a cadre of 465,000 reserve personnel in 2022, bringing its total force to about 634,500 individuals.

That equates to about 7% of the population in active or reserve military service. For comparison, America’s total active and reserve military force consists of about 1.74 million or roughly 0.5 % of the population. In addition to the active force, the IDF says that approximately 295,000 reservists have reported for duty since the beginning of the war. In essence, the country has committed about 75% of its armed forces personnel to service in a slate of different roles - basically a full war footing. The average number of days of reserve service is 61 according to the report. Approximately 45,000 reservists have returned to full reserve duty after having been given an exemption from active reserve service. The reservists remain overwhelmingly male at 81% of the reserve force. However, a couple of other numbers jump out. The report’s numbers show that approximately 20% of Israel’s reservists are over 40 years of age. Some 40% of them are parents (115,000 men, 3,000 women).

The war on Hamas has taken a heavy toll with killed in action reaching close to 900 soldiers and thousands wounded. These numbers include those killed and wounded as a result of operational accidents and "friendly fire". The IDF has reported that approximately 9,000 soldiers' mental health has been affected during the war. Of these about 75% have returned to operational activity.

The IDF has increased its active standing army by hundreds of thousands of soldiers. Proportionally speaking, the claim by the legacy media that the IDF is pushing soldiers beyond their limits resulting in a higher rate of suicide is simply incorrect and misleading. The high proportion of older reserve soldiers has created an additional risk factor. Hundreds of thousands of soldiers are returning home between military call ups and take their service automatic weapons home with them, an additional risk factor. The immediacy of a weapon at home may very well be the most significant suicide risk factor for men who develop PTSD (post-traumatic stress disorder), or are exposed to other non-military stress related events while home. Men and women in uniform commit suicide for many reasons, from my professional experience, many of the reasons are unrelated to military service and are a result of psychological stress from civilian life. The proliferation of alcoholism and drug use in civilian life has also contributed to the rate of suicide while soldiers are on leave or home between periods of reserve duty.

The war on Hamas has taken a heavy toll on the mental health of soldiers who have served as well as their families. We as a nation mourn all of our fallen soldiers, whether in combat or outside the combat zones. To claim that the government of Israel should end the war to prevent future suicides is a false and dangerous narrative that will motivate others to consider suicide as an option rather than all that can be done to strengthen the resiliency of all soldiers serving in the IDF