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Zohran Mamdani’s opponents paint him as a dangerous radical. The young, socialistic candidate for New York City mayor wishes to dispel that perception—in some ways. Last week, he appeared on a podcast with The Bulwark’s Tim Miller, a former Republican and the sort of moderate Mamdani knows he needs to win over, or at least neutralize, if he is to carry this week’s Democratic primary. As Miller presented a litany of concerns about Mamdani’s plans to freeze stabilized-housing rent, establish city-run groceries, and other offenses against Econ 101, the candidate expressed a willingness to hinge his policies on outcomes and abandon his plans if they failed.

But when Miller asked Mamdani about the pro-Palestine slogan “Globalize the intifada,” the candidate’s pragmatism and intellectual humility evaporated. “To me, ultimately, what I hear in so many is a desperate desire for equality and equal rights in standing up for Palestinian human rights,” he said.

Mamdani may sincerely believe this, as do some of his supporters. But he then delved into the semantics of intifada, citing the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum’s use of the word as the translation of “uprising” in an Arabic version of an article the museum published about the Warsaw Ghetto. This comparison, to a Jewish armed rebellion against the Nazis, hardly dispels concern about the incendiary implications of the slogan. If the intifada is akin to the ghetto uprising, then it is a call for violence. If its theater of operations is global, then it is necessarily directed against civilians. Days before the Democratic primary, when Mamdani appeared to be gaining momentum, the controversy about his comments on Miller’s show dragged the race’s focus back to the Middle East, a subject that Mamdani has not emphasized in his campaign. Yet this debate has largely missed the significance. What makes the slogan so disturbing in an American context is not the intifada bit. It’s the globalize part.

An unfortunate spillover effect of the war between Israel and Hamas is its extension into U.S. politics. If we are heading toward a future in which even candidates for local office in the United States run on their position toward the Middle East, American politics will come to resemble that intractable conflict. The pluralist alternative is to confine conflict over Palestine and Israel to any national elected office that could have actual influence on U.S. foreign policy. Everybody needs to be willing to live with a mayor who does not share their personal solution to the Israel-Palestine conflict.

Mamdani’s defense of globalizing the intifada has spurred more commentary about his left-wing views on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. But his beliefs about Israel are not the concern. The intifada is taking place inside Israel and the occupied territories. Globalizing the intifada definitionally involves events outside that region.

Even if globalizing the intifada doesn’t have to mean global violence, that interpretation is plausible. Indeed, some people inspired by the free-Palestine movement do take the slogan literally. Supporters of the movement have engaged in harassment, graffiti, and violence and terrorism against Zionists worldwide. In recent months, pro-Palestine activists have carried out homicidal or potentially homicidal attacks in Pennsylvania; Washington, D.C.; and Colorado.

The ambiguity of the slogan is not a point in its defense but a point against it. The dual meanings allow the movement to contain both peaceful and militant wings, without the former having to take responsibility for the latter. If activists refused to employ slogans that double as a form of violent incitement, it would insulate them from any association with the harassment and violence that has tainted their protests. Their failure to do so reveals an unwillingness to draw lines, as does Mamdani’s reluctance to allow any daylight between him and their rhetoric.

Mamdani is neither stupid nor politically naive. He has backtracked on his previous support for defunding the police and, as mentioned, courted moderates (such as my colleague Derek Thompson, in an interview for the latest episode of his podcast, Plain English) by saying that his governing agenda would be driven by outcomes over ideology. If Mamdani is willing to absorb the political pain of tying himself to a slogan that many Jews find frightening, in an election in which they constitute a major voting bloc, his gloss on the slogan implies a genuine commitment to everything the slogan represents.

Mamdani insisted to Miller, evasively, that he won’t repudiate globalizing the intifada because, as he put it, “the role of the mayor is not to police language.” Yet there’s no rule in politics that says a mayor or a candidate can’t criticize political rhetoric. Nor has Mamdani bound himself to such a prohibition: He has policed the terminology of his opponents by, for instance, complaining that he has faced “dehumanizing language” as a Muslim candidate for office.

Mamdani defended himself by denouncing anti-Semitism in broad terms and painting his opponents as cynics for using imputed anti-Semitism as a political cudgel against him. This offers little reassurance. Almost everybody is willing to renounce anti-Semitism on the opposite side of the political spectrum. The far right is stuffed with philo-Semites, who are willing and eager to attack the scourge of Jew hatred so long as it is on the left, while ignoring or apologizing for the rise of anti-Semitism in their own ranks. The key test of principle—the only test, really—is whether you are willing to call out your allies’ hatred. Mamdani’s refusal on this crucial point is a signal that he will downplay anti-Semitism when it springs from the pro-Palestine movement.

American Jews should be willing to accept a candidate for municipal office who does not share their views about the Middle East. (Arab and Muslim Americans have long been obliged to do so.) A candidate who does not take seriously an incitement to violence against other Americans, though, is not something anybody should have to accept.

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Today's episode of insufferable attention whores features the left's favorite rape apologist:

(Link to thread)

And these are the people who wonder why they never win anything lol. Like yeah making your entire personality and political identity that of an edgelord 7th grader who realized he’ll get a rise out of his parents by saying really obviously ugly things is really unappealing to anyone who mentally progressed past middle school

Really, how is this functionally any different from a Republican wearing an offensive T-shirt or MAGA hat to trigger the libs? It’s not. Same thing with the Hasan stans screaming "it's just a joke omfg" on twitter. Republicans constantly deflect criticism against their obviously offensive statements with "omg libs can't take a joke XD"

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of course there are two simon wangs in this years nhl draft (Haoxi and Hong Yu) so they could feasibly go by their given names for differentiation purposes… our other options are making them fight in single combat to see who gets to be the one simon wang or theyre both just gonna be simon wang like that. ahostyle

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I hate them I hate them I hate them I hate them

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just layers and layers to this thing, huh.

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It’s summer and that means the kids are going to camp! Last week the kids were at gymnastics camp at the place they take lessons. This week they’re at kosher culinary camp at the local Chabad.

The difference could not be more stark.

Last week, I drove up outside the front doors for pick up and drop off, shouted their first names through the window of my car, and either received a thumbs up at drop off, or had the kids walk out unaccompanied at pick up.

This week, I had to walk them inside (adults have to present ID to be allowed in the building) and check them in with two separate sets of adults. I had to present ID again (separately from getting into the building) to be allowed to pick them up. If someone who is not their legal guardian is going to pick them up, paperwork needs to be filled out in advance.

Last week, the only people outside the building were a couple of teenagers in orange vests to make sure the littlest of kids got inside the building ok.

This week, the only people outside the building were security guards with walkie talkies on one hip and very obvious pistols on the other.

My kids are signed up for three different Jewish camps this summer. All three of them have sent emails outlining the security measures in place to protect the children. No details, because the more people that know the details, the easier it is for someone with ill intent to discover and subvert them, but I know that there will be armed security personnel at all three camps and they will be coming with on field trips. I know that staff at all three camps have been conducting safety drills in the weeks leading up to camp, and I know that all three camps are partnered with local and federal law enforcement to stay up to date on any threats or recommended security changes.

I have never received information like this from any non-Jewish camp. I have received information like this from every Jewish camp.

This is what Jews are talking about when we say that antisemitism impacts the way we live our lives even when we are not being directly targeted by antisemitism. Summer camps shouldn’t have to hire armed guards to keep kids safe. Going to camp at the JCC should not put you at greater risk for violence than going to camp at the YMCA. Requesting that non-Jews help us live in a world where that’s true is not a ridiculous thing to ask.

And before anyone tries to say “Oh just because you feel like you’re not safe that doesn’t mean you’re actually not safe,” I’d like to point out two things. The first is that the Chabad my kids were at today has received multiple bomb threats in the last couple of years. We feel like we’re not safe because people have made it clear that they would like to attack us. We are, in fact, actually not safe.

And the second is that even if we were actually safe, and all the people out there who were saying that (((Zionist))) institutions should be attacked were just running their mouths and were not going to act on it (disproven by recent (and not recent) violent attacks, but we’ll accept the premise for the sake of argument), isn’t it pretty messed up that antisemitic actions have made Jews feel like this is necessary? Like, if one person in a couple was constantly so verbally threatening to their partner that the partner was 1) fearful for their safety and 2) felt it necessary to reach out to law enforcement, we would rightfully call that abuse. Why can we easily recognize that behavior as being immoral in that scenario, but find it acceptable in the local/national/fucking global treatment of Jews?

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06.19.25

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Playing my favorite songs that no ones enjoying but me

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i wanted to start reposting my art that was deleted when i deleted my old blog and figured that this old sasha painting might be a good place to start 🐆🐀🏆🏆

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oh my god he’s really going through with it

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a funny thing about having a Problematic Blorbo is that you'll periodically come across a post along the lines of "um let's not forget that [Blorbo] is a bad person..." listing their various crimes, and if you have a modicum of intellectual honesty you find yourself nodding along and saying yeah it's true... but it's the greyness of their character that makes them so compelling... At the same time though you have a little Saul Goodman in your ear going "your honor in their defense: who cares like omfgggg who caresssssss like come onnnnnn"

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you guys gotta stop deactivating your blogs cause you're making it harder for me to go back in a reblog chain to remove the annoying additions

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thank god for jason isaacs.

plain text:

Your parents ended up emigrating to Israeli in 1988 when you were in university. You wore a yellow pin honoring the October 7 Israeli hostages at The White Lotus premiere in February. I always wear it if I’m on a red carpet and a press line.

Public sentiment on Gaza seems to have shifted a lot since then. I wonder where you are right now on the issue? Where I am is either a full magazine or no comment about it, because two or three sentences in a profile are not enough to deal with the issues. I wear the hostage pin because there are innocent people who were taken from their homes. Most of them are peace activists who lived in border communities where they were ferrying sick kids to hospitals and working with people from Gaza constantly. There are Holocaust survivors, there are children who were taken, there are people being starved and tortured and raped who have no access to the Red Cross. People are rightfully talking and thinking about all the civilians that are in danger everywhere else. But those people in tunnels, it’s now 600 days they’ve been there, they’ve been forgotten entirely. And so I wore the pin once and the hostages’ families got in touch with me and they thanked me enormously. I now am aware that they are watching me and that it matters to them. If my son or sister or daughter or father was being kept in a tunnel somewhere and weighed 25 kilos now, or may have been strangled or shot, and it felt important to me that some actors somewhere wore the yellow hostage pin, then who am I to not wear it?

So when it comes to more nuanced arguments about Netanyahu and the right-wing lunatics in the cabinet, or whether the IDF is or isn’t doing things, or this new Gaza Humanitarian Foundation is or isn’t handing out food correctly, or whether Hamas’s press releases should be printed as fact, and whether there aren’t journalists in there — there are so many complicated arguments. It isn’t a place to dip one’s toe or to have a simple quote on it. What I wish for everybody, obviously, is peace. Who doesn’t? I don’t know anybody, apart from the extremists on all sides, who want either continued war or tension.

The argument that you make for the ribbon is a humane one. Why don’t you think more actors have worn them? Because just for wearing it, I’ve been called a Zionist baby killer, a Zionazi. Even a yellow hostage pin for innocents is deemed political, which it isn’t.