Mamdani rises on scapegoating

OPINION:

Imagine if a candidate for high office called for removing Black people from the United States and promoted lynchings. That candidate would immediately be condemned and ostracized. The calls for rejection of the person making such statements would be quasi-unanimous. No one would publicly accept such outright racism and bigotry.

Yet there is a candidate for high office who has been toying with such a philosophy, only not with respect to Black Americans, but rather to Jews (couched fashionably, of course, in the form of opposition to the actions of the government of the state of Israel).

Zohan Mamdani, the recent winner of the Democratic primary for mayor of our largest and most important city, is a purveyor of outrageous and unacceptable prejudice. The call to “globalize the intifada,” which Mr. Mamdani has echoed, is nothing more than a call for Jews to be removed from their homeland, Israel, and be eliminated. After all, “intifada” is an Islamist term applied to the undisguised goal of removing all Jews from Israel and making the land Jew-free. Espousing such a call is fundamentally no different from the efforts by some to seek the exclusion of people of color. Yet, when Mr. Mamdani was asked to retract his intifada support, he refused.

Seemingly, Mr. Mamdani can get away with his espousal of bigotry against Jews because, among the extreme political left and now among many Democrats, Jews are not considered worthy of protection. The old cliches about Jews are resurfacing. Jews are rich. They are powerful. They either control the banks or are disruptive communists. It really doesn’t matter. The important point is that Islamists and their supporters are steadily dehumanizing Jews. It’s the very process that led Nazi Germany to perpetrate the worst genocide in recorded history.

Mr. Mamdani’s mostly smooth and smiley scripted delivery of platitudes and fantasies makes for easily digestible propaganda, and it readily deludes the gullible. The real Mr. Mamdani occasionally emerges, and he is far less likable. His hidden persona is revealed in an unscripted video of him attacking Tom Homan, the “border czar,” as Mr. Homan seeks to enforce our immigration laws. Mr. Mamdani is shown angrily shoving and screaming at Mr. Homan. He is violent and appears almost demented.

These are the signs of a demagogue, the smooth snake oil salesman who is actually a scheming and often vile individual.

Like the snake oil salesman of yesteryear, Mr. Mamdani, who stands on the threshold of becoming mayor of New York, has been peddling an array of promises that are as unrealistic as his refusal to denounce antisemitism is despicable. His pledges are obvious fantasies. None of his panoply of promised goodies — public transportation, public grocery stores with inexpensive food, free child care, defunding the police, obstructing U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement in its efforts to enforce federal law — is feasible.

There is little doubt that these promises are merely deceptive tools to achieve power by a young man whose most prominent accomplishments are serving without much distinction as a New York assemblyman and, yes, rapping. Devoid of any practical managerial or executive experience, Mr. Mamdani promises anything people want to hear, not bothering to explain how he would fulfill these extravagant promises without devastating New York City.

This might be considered harmless puffing, not to be taken seriously. However, making preposterous promises can easily become a kind of drug. The effects of such impossible propositions can deceive for a time and bring about electoral victory, but that deception cannot last forever. When the curtain falls on the deception, real consequences can emerge.

History reminds us that when lofty promises fail to materialize, there is a tendency to place the blame on scapegoats. Josef Stalin had his kulaks, Mao Zedong had his “rich farmers,” and Adolf Hitler had his Jews. Diverting attention by pointing accusatory fingers at vulnerable minorities is an obvious and easy diversion.

This only emphasizes that anyone who can blithely accept a call for the destruction of a people (through a “global intifada”) has little reluctance to find a scapegoat when his promises fail to materialize. In this case, the likely scapegoat would be none other than the Jews, the people Mr. Mamdani clearly considers dispensable and even lynchable, as demonstrated by his refusal to denounce calls for a global intifada.

By itself, this potential scenario should be frightening enough. However, this scenario would take place in the highly charged international context in which we find ourselves. As Israel continues to defend itself against an array of Islamists and other terrorists, accusations against it and Jews will abound. If Mr. Mamdani’s giveaways go awry, a man who has sided with the anti-Israel crowd may find it only too convenient to openly join the antisemites.

A person’s past, just like history itself, is prologue. Mr. Mamdani’s unabashed antisemitism is such a prologue. The danger he poses is clear for all to see. It is now up to the intelligent voters of New York City to vote in November and to do so with their eyes wide open.  They need to eschew the smooth-talking snake oil salesman. Anything less is unthinkable.

• Gerard Leval is a partner in the Washington office of a national law firm. He is the author of “Lobbying for Equality, Jacques Godard and the Struggle for Jewish Civil Rights during the French Revolution,” published by HUC Press.