Zohran Mamdani: is NYC about to fall to the Islamo-left?

New York City has experienced first-hand the violent nature of jihadist ideology. About 2,700 lives were lost in the 9/11 attack on the World Trade Centre complex in 2001. The city’s skyline was forever distorted. The ashes of the Twin Towers remain in its soil. The ground where the towers once stood is sacred. The cry since that time has been ‘never forget’.

But today, as New Yorkers are on the verge of electing a mayor with ties to radical Islamists, it seems many of them have forgotten the horror that jihadism brought to New York. A sign of how far memories have faded came last week, when Zohran Mamdani – the 34-year-old socialist, Muslim and current frontrunner in the mayoral race – posted a photo of himself smiling alongside Imam Siraj Wahhaj, a radical Islamist and terror apologist, when the two met at the imam’s Brooklyn mosque.

Wahhaj’s record is notorious. The Department of Justice listed the cleric as a potential co-conspirator for the first World Trade Centre attack in 1993, which killed six people and injured more than a thousand. Wahhaj testified on behalf of Sheik Omar Abdel Rahman, the infamous ‘blind sheik’, who was convicted of masterminding that bombing and other plots. He is a longtime defender of other convicted terrorists, raising funds for their legal defences, and has reportedly called for the destruction of America. Zohran Mamdani’s terror-linked imam ally once called America ‘filthy’ and ‘sick’. He’s also known for homophobic rants. In 2024, Wahhaj’s son was sentenced to life in prison after being convicted of keeping a band of malnourished teens in the New Mexico desert while training them to carry out terror attacks across the country.

Following their meeting, Mamdani praised Wahhaj, presenting him as a benign figure. ‘Today at Masjid At-Taqwa, I had the pleasure of meeting with imam Siraj Wahhaj, one of the nation’s foremost Muslim leaders and a pillar of the Bed-Stuy community’, he wrote on X. Mamdani is perfectly aware of Wahhaj’s history, and his photo-op with the radical imam served to legitimise him.

This was a slap in the face to the mainstream majority of American Muslims, who want nothing to do with terror apologists like Wahhaj. As Muslim scholar Dalia Ziada, research fellow at the Institute for the Study of Global Anti-Semitism and Policy, told Fox News: ‘By embracing Wahhaj, Zohran Mamdani is sidelining moderate Muslims and normalising an extremist ideology that once inspired terror on American soil and still fuels radicalisation within segments of the Muslim community today.’

Mamdani’s embrace of Wahhaj shows provides a troubling glimpse into what his mayoral reign may bring. New York City has the largest Muslim population of any American city, estimated to be 750,000 to one million or about nine per cent of residents, and Mamdani’s outreach is clearly an attempt to win their votes. But the Mamdani-Wahhaj connection is more than the typical electoral glad-handing. It exemplifies the emergence of a newer development in American politics: the Islamo-left alliance, a convergence of radical Islamists with leftist groups.

While the union of these two seems bizarre (one can only wonder what Wahhaj makes of Queers for Palestine), this unholy alliance is based on shared grievances and a mutual disdain for the West. Islamists’ antipathy towards the West stems from an ideology that believes Islam should guide political and social life. The left’s anti-West stance is propelled by identity politics and anti-colonial ideologies. Starting from different places, they come together in rejecting the West’s foundational values, such as liberty, free speech and individual dignity. They are also united in hating Israel, a country that is viewed as a stronghold of the West in the Middle East, and a ‘settler-colonial’ oppressor.

Indeed, what really binds Mamdani and Wahhaj is that they both view Israel as the common enemy. While describing himself as a socialist, Mamdani’s anti-Israelism is not an exotic add-on to his politics, it is core to his political development and career. He may talk about the ‘affordability’ of the city and other quotidian topics, but what truly revs his engine is his passionate animus towards Israel. Indeed, the one consistent theme in Mamdani’s rise is his hostility to Israel and its supporters.

As a New York Times profile explained, ‘There was one issue that was most formative to Mamdani’s political identity, the one he knew he would never compromise on: Israel and Palestinians.’ He founded Bowdoin College’s chapter of Students for Justice in Palestine. After graduation, his interest in the anti-Israeli boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) movement led him, in turn, to the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA). During a failed stint making rap videos (performing as ‘Mr Cardamom’), his songs included one expressing ‘my love to the Holy Land Five’, a group of Islamists who were convicted of funnelling more than $12million to Hamas.

Running for office in the New York state assembly in 2020, Mamdani talked about – you guessed it – Israel and Palestine. After winning his seat, he continued his obsession, using his position as a soapbox for his cause, in the assembly and at various demonstrations around the city. His attempt at lawmaking was to introduce state legislation threatening to strip New York non-profits of their tax-exempt status if their funds were used to support Israel, a bill deemed by anti-Semitic by Jewish groups and others.

In a statement the day after Hamas’s attack on Israelis on 7 October 2023, Mamdani did not condemn Hamas, nor did he mention the hostages taken. Instead, he blamed Israel and called for ‘ending the occupation and dismantling apartheid’. During the war, he repeatedly accused Israel of ‘genocide’. Critics, including his mayoral opponent Andrew Cuomo (running as an independent), have challenged Mamdani to disavow the pro-terror slogan ‘globalise the intifada’, which, as Cuomo said in last week’s debate, translates to ‘kill the Jews’. But Mamdani has steadfastly refused, saying only that he would ‘discourage’ its use. In the aftermath of the recent ceasefire between Israel and Hamas, Mamdani equated the return of hostages with the release of Palestinian terrorists. In an interview, he refused to answer when asked if Hamas should lay down its arms (days later, when asked the same question in the debate, he replied ‘of course’).

There is no reason to think that Mamdani would stop his manic anti-Israel agitation in the mayor’s office. For instance, he has vowed, if elected, to arrest Benjamin Netanyahu the next time the Israeli prime minister visits the city. This is despite the fact that New York City has no authority for any such arrest, and the US does not recognise the authority of the International Criminal Court, which issued arrest warrants for Netanyahu in 2024.

As Mamdani’s campaign for mayor has proceeded, he has increasingly leaned into his identity as a Muslim. The high-profile photo with Wahhaj is part of that self-conscious projection, but that’s not all. He told the New York Times magazine that he felt the most connected with the city during Ramadan, in March, when he toured mosques. ‘Mamdani has placed his faith, his Indian-Ugandan roots and his pro-Palestinian activism at the centre of his campaign’, the profile said.

Mamdani knows that, in playing up his identity, he is appealing not only to fellow Muslims, but also to the ‘renters, young people and progressives’ who he sees as forming his coalition. Supporting a Muslim candidate is a way for that latter group to demonstrate their anti-Western credentials. Mamdani is even going on the offensive with his Muslim identity, as when he called out Cuomo in last week’s debate for not visiting mosques or being able to name a mosque. But since when has visiting a mosque (or church or temple, for that matter) been considered necessary for a candidate in a US election?

For New York’s Jewish community, Mamdani’s rise is deeply troubling, with serious negative consequences for their safety. The city is home to the largest Jewish population outside of Israel. It has also seen a disturbing increase in anti-Semitic attacks in recent years. Jewish students at Columbia University have had to put up with verbal abuse and physical assaults from protesters occupying the campus. The streets of the city regularly host anti-Israel demonstrations featuring pro-Hamas chants.

As the rabbi of a prominent Manhattan synagogue recently said, Mamdani is a ‘danger to the security of the New York Jewish community’. A mayor who refuses to condemn Hamas and cosies up to radical Islamist clerics can hardly be depended upon to protect Jews. With Mamdani in command of the NYPD, anti-Semitic mobs on university campuses and the streets will be given free rein. Indeed, electing Mamdani as mayor will be like putting a protester in charge of City Hall – just swapping his keffiyeh for a suit and skinny tie.

With rising anti-Semitism and the prospect of Mamdani as mayor, many Jews are apparently debating whether to flee New York City because they no longer feel safe. Such an exodus would be incredibly tragic – New York is unimaginable without its Jewish people.

Many factors local to New York City politics have led to Mamdani’s ascent. In recent years, the Republican Party has been weak and almost a non-factor. The Democratic Party establishment has been lethargic and cowardly in the face of DSA infiltrators like Mamdani and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. The city is home to a high proportion of recent university graduates and the foreign-born, who are disproportionately Mamdani supporters.

But while locally driven, Mamdani’s election, if it materialises, will pose a challenge to American politics nationally. It will embolden Democrats across the country who want to go down the same anti-Israel and socialist trail that Mamdani has blazed. It is likely to inject anti-Zionism and anti-Semitism into the mainstream in American politics and culture. It will show that the Islamo-left alliance is a reality in the halls of power.

When Mamdani shows his eagerness to meet with radical Islamists like Wahhaj, we can’t say we weren’t warned. If Hamas or any other terrorists were to inflict an attack like 9/11 on NYC today, do any of us know which side a Mayor Mamdani would be on? That we even have to ask such a question should set off alarm bells. The barbarians could soon have a fanboy inside the gates.

Sean Collins is a writer based in New York. Visit his blog, The American Situation.