Mamdani’s Intifada

Zohran Mamdani, a glib 34-year-old Muslim immigrant from Uganda, cruised to a ten-point victory in New York City’s 2025 mayoral election over Andrew Cuomo — a Democratic establishment luminary, albeit one who’d resigned amid the scandals of his second term as the Empire State’s governor. In a city whose party politics were dominated for decades by Jews, mostly but not exclusively Democrats, one controversy notably did not derail the upstart Democratic Socialist’s bid: his obdurate refusal to condemn the phrase “Globalize the intifada.”

This remains a slogan that rolls easily off the tongues of Mamdani’s core supporters — Islamists and leftists who stoked the blatantly antisemitic uprisings at Columbia University (where Mamdani’s father teaches and his mother has taught) and on other elite campuses across the country. These protests had followed the atrocities of October 7, 2023, when Hamas and its allied Palestinian militants murdered nearly 1,200 Israelis (including 46 Americans), raped and maimed thousands more, and abducted more than 250 hostages, many of whom were killed or detained and tortured for more than two years.

About the Author

Andrew C. McCarthy

Andrew C. McCarthy is a senior fellow at National Review Institute, an NR contributing editor, and author of Ball of Collusion: The Plot to Rig an Election and Destroy a Presidency.

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Zohran Mamdani, a glib 34-year-old Muslim immigrant from Uganda, cruised to a ten-point victory in New York City’s 2025 mayoral election over Andrew Cuomo — a Democratic establishment luminary, albeit one who’d resigned amid the scandals of his second term as the Empire State’s governor. In a city whose party politics were dominated for decades by Jews, mostly but not exclusively Democrats, one controversy notably did not derail the upstart Democratic Socialist’s bid: his obdurate refusal to condemn the phrase “Globalize the intifada.”

This remains a slogan that rolls easily off the tongues of Mamdani’s core supporters — Islamists and leftists who stoked the blatantly antisemitic uprisings at Columbia University (where Mamdani’s father teaches and his mother has taught) and on other elite campuses across the country. These protests had followed the atrocities of October 7, 2023, when Hamas and its allied Palestinian militants murdered nearly 1,200 Israelis (including 46 Americans), raped and maimed thousands more, and abducted more than 250 hostages, many of whom were killed or detained and tortured for more than two years.

About the Author

Andrew C. McCarthy

Andrew C. McCarthy is a senior fellow at National Review Institute, an NR contributing editor, and author of Ball of Collusion: The Plot to Rig an Election and Destroy a Presidency.