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The following analysis was authored by Tablet Magazine columnist and CAM editorial advisor Lee Smith:
In a social media post on Wednesday, the third anniversary of the October 7th massacre, New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani showed his pro-Palestinian bona fides by adopting “resistance” rhetoric to denounce Israel’s “occupation and apartheid,” its “war crimes” and “genocide.” But even slapping Jewish New Yorkers in the face with a black-gloved hand wasn’t enough for the Hamas-supporting mobs that populate America’s largest Jewish city.
“You coward!” keffiyeh-clad demonstrators shouted at the mayor during a candlelight vigil at Union Square Park organized by Israelis for Peace New York. “Zohran, you can’t hide,” chanted the protestors, turning Mamdani’s rhetoric against him, “we charge you with genocide.”
What did they want from a man who’s clearly on their side? The foreign-born Muslim progressive’s meteoric political rise is owing largely to the anti-Israel positions he’s staked out since co-founding a campus chapter of Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) as an undergraduate at Bowdoin College. He believes what they believe, his commitments and causes are the same, a blood-thirsty ideology captured in slogans — “From the river to the sea, Palestine must be free” and “Globalize the Intifada.”
So why are pro-Hamas activists framing the man who since his January inauguration looked the other way as antisemitic hordes marched on Jewish neighborhoods, schools, and synagogues as a weak-kneed quisling?
In reality, there’s no daylight between Mamdani and the protestors — by seeming to outflank him on the left, the extremists make him look like the moderate, the man in the middle who can mediate between them and those targeted by terror. It’s an old trick that’s been used to push the same cause for decades. Yasser Arafat, the father of Palestinian nationalism, famously employed it during his 1974 speech at the UN. “Today I have come bearing an olive branch and a freedom fighter’s gun,” he told the General Assembly. “Do not let the olive branch fall from my hand.” In other words, give me what I want — don’t make me kill you.
“Death, death to the IDF,” they screamed at Mamdani, waving Hamas’ green banners to celebrate the brutal murder of nearly 1,200 people, including 49 Americans, three years ago. “Resistance is glorious,” the blood-thirsty ghouls shouted, “we will be victorious.”
It’s true; it’s a real war, and the post-October 7 battles are fought on multiple fronts — against Iran and its proxies, to be sure, but the conflict is also a moral and spiritual struggle, and the prize is life and light. And if the other side’s forces are victorious, then the light goes out and the world will enter a period of darkness that will last for a span of time impossible to fathom on this side of the abyss. Thus, the future of the free world hangs in the balance.
“The next decade will write the story of the next century,” U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said on October 7. He was in Athens to deliver a speech in in defense of Western civilization. “The course we take will determine whether the West maintains its place at the head of the world,” said Rubio, standing before the Acropolis, the ancient citadel overlooking the timeless Greek capital, “or resigns itself to a future of atrophy, servitude, and decline.”
It’s easy to forget that a long darkness separates us from classical antiquity. Those Middle Ages were governed by superstition, fear, and terror. And that same regime today looks to re-conquer the West and turn it upside down by inverting reality: good is evil, and evil good, murder is life, rape is love, darkness is light.
And thus, throughout the cities that are supposed to be modern-day citadels of civilization, its enemies demand that October 7 be a day of mourning for Palestinians who died as a result of the war started by Palestinians when the Hamas-led gangs crossed the border to hunt and murder Jews.
According to Israeli officials, there were 262 pro-Palestinian protests and events scheduled in 37 countries between October 7-14. The United States has the largest number of planned events, 45, followed by Spain with 40, the UK 19, Italy 16, Germany and Canada 14 apiece, France 10, and the Netherlands eight, and Australia two.
October 7 has been globalized and, only three years later, normalized. What the roster of pro-Hamas protests shows is that all the West is now under threat from the same terror. With massive waves of migration from the Muslim world, the West has imported the causes and commitments, the rhetoric and posture, and eventually also the violence of October 7.
Three years ago, even those with no connection to Israel were horrified by the news and then the images coming out of Israeli communities along the Gaza border. With policymakers in Europe and North America opening their borders to millions of aliens, there was reason to fear the same might happen in London or Los Angeles, Montreal or Madrid. How many among them were violent criminals, how many terrorists? How many were keen to torture children to death in front of their parents before executing them, too?
If it seems that October 7 is getting closer, the fact is it was already upon us. Athens, after all isn’t the only root our civilization springs on. Indeed, our main source of light comes from Jerusalem. Our fate and future depend on our victory in the struggle for light and life that started October 7.
Read more:
Anti-Israel Mob Overwhelms October 7th Memorial Vigil in New York City
