Mamdani, Carlson, and Antisemitism in America

Lifelong Democrat Alan Dershowitz and conservative Republican Joel Pollak call for bipartisan leadership in confronting Jew-hatred on both sides of the aisle

Photos by Bryan Berlin and Gage Skidmore, CC BY-SA 4.0, Wikimedia Commons

Editor’s note: As America celebrates the Fourth of July, noted legal scholar and advocate Alan Dershowitz and prominent journalist and commentator Joel Pollak call on the leaders of both major parties to confront antisemitism in their midst. This is the first guest contribution to Jerusalem Journal, but it certainly won’t be the last. Shabbat Shalom from Jerusalem. — A.M.

One day last week — Tuesday, June 24 — tells the story of the predicament American Jews face today. That morning, a ceasefire went into effect in the Middle East, ending the Twelve-Day War, the most stunning victory the State of Israel had achieved since the Six-Day War of 1967. It was a victory achieved with American weaponry and support, culminating in the courageous decision by President Donald Trump to bomb the Iranian nuclear facilities at Fordow, Isfahan, and Natanz.

That evening, socialist Zohran Mamdani won the Democratic Party primary race for mayor of New York City. Mamdani is an extremist who hates Israel; has led marches featuring calls to “globalize the intifada” — that is, the terrorist campaign targeting Israelis and Jews; and is an vocal advocate of the antisemitic Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) movement. He has compared Israelis to Nazis — a form of antisemitism according to the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance — and has vowed to arrest Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu if the latter visits New York during his mayorship.

So while Jews marveled at the miracle of American and Israeli victory against the genocidal, antisemitic Iranian regime, many were also in shock that New York City, a city shaped by Jews and home to the largest Jewish population outside Israel, could soon be run by someone they regard as an antisemite. American Jews have never felt, at once, so strong and so vulnerable, facing threats of antisemitism from both the left and right, a situation that evokes the fears, if not yet the dangers, of interwar Europe.

Mamdani represents what is now a familiar form of antisemitism, which has raged on elite college campuses and on social media platforms since well before the Hamas terror attacks of October 7, 2023. Israel — the product of the most successful liberation movement of the postcolonial era, Zionism — is cast, falsely, as a colonial villain, a “white” nation, albeit with an inconveniently non-European majority. For Mamdani and his supporters, Jews are only acceptable if they renounce or qualify their connection to their spiritual homeland.

But a new antisemitism has arisen on the right, as well. Pushed by podcasters such as Tucker Carlson and Candace Owens, this antisemitism centers around false accusations that Israel and Netanyahu, through American Jews, are “manipulating” Trump into war, eager to send Americans to die for the interests of the Jewish state. These conspiracy theories, once confined to the extremist fringe, have spread in social media, such that nearly half of young Americans now support terrorist Hamas over democratic Israel.

The antisemitic leaders of the so-called “woke right” claim to represent Trump supporters and the “MAGA” movement, though opinion polls suggest they represent no more than 6% of that group. They have outsized influence because of their prominence in alternative media and their appeal to a younger generation of conservatives who have lost faith in “establishment” leaders. Opposed to the left on nearly every other issue, they find common ground in hatred of Israel.

To his credit, President Trump faced down this small but vocal group of extremists in the days leading up to American intervention in the war. He called Tucker Carlson “kooky” and declared that only he could decide what the term “America First” meant — in other words, that it could include foreign intervention to protect American allies, interests, and values. Trump felt free to differ publicly with Netanyahu at various times, but also to present a united military front against Iran, which poses a threat to both countries and to the free world.

Sadly, most leaders of the Democratic Party have not had the same courage to confront haters in their own ranks. After Mamdani won the mayoral primary, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer of New York rushed to congratulate him. So did Representative Jerry Nadler (D-NY) and other New York Democrats — even though Senator John Fetterman (D-PA), a great friend of Israel, had warned his colleagues that Mamdani’s win was “Christmas in July for the GOP.”

The truth is that Mamdani represents a minority of Democrats. Only about one-third of registered Democrats in New York City turned out for the primary election, and Mamdani did not even win an outright majority of those, at least on the first ballot. Most Democrats are not anti-Israel extremists or antisemites, even if the party appears to be moving away from Israel, under the influence of young, radical activists. There is still time to stop the rot from becoming worse.

What is needed — and what President Trump and some Democratic elected officials have shown — is leadership. There can be no tolerance in either party for those who call for the eradication of Israel, or who would stand idly by as Israel’s enemies carried out their genocidal aims. And while radicals on the left and right try to split ideological hairs, claiming that antisemitism is different from anti-Zionism, the fact is that Jews around the world, in every nation, are more secure when Israel is safe and strong.

Antisemitism is still a fringe phenomenon in America, but it is using social media and the disillusionment of a younger generation to make inroads into politics through anti-Israel propaganda. It is well past time for leaders, in politics and media, to speak out against the Carlsons and Mamdanis on both sides of the political divide.

Alan Dershowitz is a longtime liberal Democrat, civil libertarian, defense attorney, and legal scholar. Joel Pollak is a conservative Republican and senior editor-at-large of Breitbart News.