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The following is a Combat Antisemitism Movement (CAM) editorial:
According to Commentary Magazine editor John Podhoretz, New York Magazine‘s recent controversial “Habibi City” series glorifying Palestinian terror and likening Zionism to a variety of racism to be overcome, sent a chilling message: “Jews aren’t welcome in Mamdani’s NYC.”
In truth, the package — consisting of several articles, including one that described October 7th as a kind of unifying awakening for New York’s Middle Eastern hipsters — was designed to erase the Jewish contribution to the making of the second-largest Jewish city in the world. And replace the Jews with what exactly?
“Under James Murdoch,” according to the Washington Free Beacon, referring to the youngest son of media mogul Rupert Murdoch and the magazine’s new headline, “New York Magazine Tilts Toward Hamas.”
And indeed, there’s evidence to suggest the left-wing son of the English-speaking-world’s most famous publishing magnate has been influenced by Hamas’s sponsor, the emirate of Qatar — which is also in business with Murdoch.
In May, James Murdoch’s Lupa Systems announced it was buying New York Magazine and Vox. The deal closed in July. In February 2022, Lupa partnered with Indian media executive Uday Shankar to launch a separate investment platform called Bodhi Tree Systems — and Qatar’s sovereign wealth fund, the Qatar Investment Authority (QIA), committed $1.5 billion to the venture.
That doesn’t mean Qatar is dictating New York Magazine‘s editorial decisions. It’s almost certain that editor-in-chief David Haskell commissioned the “Habibi” package well before the purchase was finalized last month. Presumably it’s been in the works for some time.
After all, it was more than seven months ago that pro-“Globalize the Intifada” Zohran Mamdani started his first term as mayor, so the magazine’s staff had plenty of time to cook up a ghoulish celebration of a city where Jews are harassed in their communities, schools, and places of worship.
But what the financial stake in Murdoch’s nascent media empire does show is that Qatar is making a concerted effort to shape America’s public space against Jews and Israel.
It’s all part of the same putsch. In New York, antisemitic mobs swarm Jewish neighborhoods with the goal of pushing out communities that have helped build the city for over a century and a half. Similarly, the “Habibi City” article issue is purposed to rewrite that history, deleting Jews from the record and replacing them with Jew-haters.
It’s the same on the level of global strategy where Doha wants to replace Israel as America’s top Middle East partner and ultimately help Israel’s enemies destroy it.
It’s not a coincidence that “Habibi City” author Zaina Arafat called the Jewish state “the land mass currently called Israel.”
It’s worth noting the extent of her ties to the petro-emirate. A novelist and professor at Barnard College, Arafat is also author of a forthcoming essay collection, Our Arab: On Longing, Belonging, and Hope, due out in September with Little, Brown & Company, an imprint of the Hachette Book Group.
The French company is the third-largest trade and educational publisher in the world and a subsidiary of the French media conglomerate Lagardère, in which the QIA has a 11.5% ownership stake. QIA executive director Qatari native Fatima Fikree sits on Lagardère’s board and is a member of the corporate audit committee.
When Qatari billions are tied to U.S. media properties, Americans are right to ask how this money is influencing not only our foreign policy but our domestic peace as well.
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