New York Times columnist Bret Stephens devotes his column to attacking New York Mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani for his views of Israel and the Palestinians. I don’t want to assess Mamdani’s views except to say that mine are somewhat different, but that I share his opposition to what Israel has become and what it has done to the Palestinians in Gaza, the West Bank, and Israel proper. What I want to comment on is a certain kind of criticism that Stephens makes in attacking Mamdani’s views — a criticism that is sometimes made of my own views.
Stephens writes, “One of the ways anti-Zionists tend to give themselves away as something darker is that the only human-rights abuses they seem to notice are Israel’s; the only state among dozens of religious states whose legitimacy they challenge is Israel; the only group whose suffering they are prepared to turn into their personal crusade is that of the Palestinians. What gives?” The question is: why has Mamdani focussed so much on the plight of the Palestinians? The answer, I’d argue, is fairly obvious: Mamdani is a Muslim, and the preponderance of Israel’s victims in Gaza and the West Bank are Muslims.
