If Zohran Mamdani is elected the next mayor of New York City, he will face the next anniversary of the September 11, 2001 terrorist attack on America as either an undisguised hypocrite or honest enough to reveal his expansive contempt for a nation that remains the beacon of freedom around the world.
Try as he might, on that solemn day of remembrance, Mamdani will not be able to have it both ways.
To date, his 9/11 references fail to reveal even a suggestion of grief for the thousands of Americans who died that day. Instead, he recounts how the terror attack left him feeling isolated from the rest of us, refusing to suggest that on September 11, 2001, we all became New Yorkers.
The New York Post quotes him as saying, "There is still this illusion...particularly a result of settler-colonialism, that all of us can become New Yorkers..."
For those studying the Mamdani family, this should come as no surprise. He has supped at his father's table, and Columbia Professor Mahmood Mamdani pulls no punches regarding his view of the country that welcomed him and his family decades ago.
Consider Mahmood Mamdani's book, Good Muslim, Bad Muslim, published several years after 9/11. He wrote, "we need to recognize that suicide bomber, first and foremost, as a category of soldier." He also reminded the public that, according to him, suicide bombing must not be "stigmatized as a mark of barbarism."
His comments will come as a chilling reminder to the survivors of the 9/11 terror attack that the ideology Professor Mamdani has offered his students and, one suspects, the current front-running mayoral candidate in New York City. Nor have his observations muted over time.
His most recent book, Slow Poison, seeks to rehabilitate one of Africa's most ruthless dictators, Idi Amin. The author suggests that the bizarre actions and atrocities inflicted by Amin on his fellow Ugandan citizens were simply done in the cause of strengthening his post-colonial nation.
So, what would a Mayor Zohran Mamdani say at one of the most sacred sites in his city, the 9/11 memorial, when the anniversary of that attack on New York is on his official calendar? Will he too suggest the terrorists were courageous soldiers who flew the airliners into the towers for the purpose of attacking "post-colonial" America? That we "deserved" the murder of 2,977 New Yorkers?
If the voters of Gotham decide to give City Hall over to Mamdani in November, they will need to appreciate that their new mayor does not view himself as a "New Yorker." Not now, not tomorrow, and certainly not on 9/11.
Lawrence Kadish serves on the Board of Governors of Gatestone Institute.
