Globalized Infantilization
“…ignorance gives one a large range of probabilities.” – George Eliot, Daniel Deronda
Children, lacking sufficient knowledge, think true a great many nonsensical things; adults don’t have the excuse of immaturity to excuse their prejudices or justify their fantasies. In today’s global political environment, though, the cult of youthful certainty in the truth of what one “feels” (no matter whether it be true or not) has become normalized. Ignorance masked as certitude runs rampant. A case in point played out in last month’s New York City Democratic mayoral primary.
An anti-Israel activist, Zohran Mamdani, won that race. He has plenty of Jewish defenders. Warned of the danger he poses, they denied, rationalized and ignored – and so welcomed an extremist into the American political mainstream.
While celebrating Mamdani’s victory, one rabbi chastised, “Personally, I find his ‘explanation’ of the incendiary phrase ‘globalize the intifada’ to be irresponsible and reckless.”1 Yes, the indulgent father who scolds his golden child for bad behavior while doing nothing to stop it.
But is Mamdani’s militant rhetoric a mere adolescent indiscretion, to be overlooked since it pales by comparison with what’s really important and highly laudable: his crusade for economic justice? Such rationalization jibes with Mamdani’s image of “youth and inexperience,”2 whose foibles we may gloss over (right?) because the mission itself is righteous, the convictions sincere, the commitment passionate, the charisma electrifying.
No, Mamdani, even at age 33, is a sophisticated political operative whose ideological preferences and policy aims are clearly defined and deeply ingrained. He’s well-schooled in his prejudice, having grown up in a household that normalized hostility toward the Jewish State; his highly educated, sophisticated parents taught him to view Israel as a malign Western colonialist interloper.3
As a New York State Assembly representative, Mamdani came to the mayoral race with a history in politics and already before that a long record of activism, much of it in support of anti-Israel causes.4
He does not acknowledge Israel’s right to exist as a Jewish state,5 has backed groups (notably, Democratic Socialists of America, Students for Justice in Palestine, Within Our Lifetime, and BDS) dedicated to Israel’s elimination, lent aid and comfort to a Hamas front posing as a charity,6 blamed Israel rather than Hamas in the immediate aftermath of October 7,7 labeled Israel’s military response to that pogrom a “genocide,”8 doubled down on a spurious analogy between Palestinians’ above-mentioned intifada (a murder campaign against Israeli Jews) and the Holocaust-era Warsaw Uprising9 (a Jewish self-defense action against murderous Nazis), and sees “ending the occupation and dismantling apartheid” (translate: abolishing Israel’s identity as a Jewish state) as the first step toward “a just and lasting peace.”10
As for that slogan, “Globalize the Intifada,” a call to internationalize attacks on Jews and friends of Israel, there’s no way (although plenty of folks are trying) to explain away, neutralize or soften its vicious import.
But he expresses revulsion at attacks on Jews and says he sympathizes with victims of anti-Jewish and, indeed, all forms of violence. He has stated, accordingly, that he believes “in universal human rights”11 and “equality.”12
This broad sentiment stops short of allowing for Jewish people’s right to national self-determination but, in keeping with an anti-colonialist, anti-Western liberation bias running through the academic work of his father, a Columbia University professor, implicitly characterizes Israel’s distinctively Jewish character as an affront to “Palestinian human rights.”13
Singling out Israel for rejection among myriad nations (especially those in the Arab-Muslim dominated Middle East!) defined by their ethno-religious character amounts to a double standard reflecting an attitude of selective universalism, which negates Jewish peoplehood and fosters notions of Jewish subservience that are congruent with classic Christian theological tradition and Mamdani’s own Muslim religious heritage. Mamdani’s public statements and posture, notwithstanding the insistence that he opposes “antisemitism,” reflect the same outlook.
So much about the candidate. What about people – Jews included – who cheer him on? They’re victims of their own credulity, which finds in Palestinian grievance an ideal validating premise. Palestinians themselves have succumbed to the infantilizing effects of fact-free conviction.
The story Mamdani totes reassures them that they’re innocent victims of someone else’s ill-will rather than of their own and that their century-long lethal temper tantrum was justified and can go on with impunity.
Scholar Adam Louis-Klein sums up the fraudulent narrative well:
“The term Nakba, now central to Palestinian national memory, was coined by Constantin Zureiq, a Christian Arab nationalist and key figure in shaping modern Arab nationalist ideology. As detailed…by Daniel Szeftel, Zureiq was part of an intellectual movement in the 1930s and 40s that openly admired fascist and even Nazi models of anti-Western power, seeing them as templates for Arab revival.
“When he introduced Nakba in his 1948 book Ma'na al-Nakba (The Meaning of the Disaster), it did not refer to Palestinian suffering or displacement. It referred to the Arab League’s failure to destroy the newly declared State of Israel and the humiliation of Arab armies. It was a political lament over defeat, not a humanitarian reflection on refugees.
“Only later was it linked to the ‘right of return’ for Palestinian refugees, a policy heavily promoted by the Arab League and eventually formalized through the United Nations. But this ‘right of return’ wasn’t about refugee welfare – it became a political tool designed to prevent Israel from continuing to exist as a Jewish state by flooding it demographically.”14
Mamdani is no child even though misconceptions and fabrications he enlists exploit and indulge others’ childishness.
He draws energy from their naïve, shallow and simplistic attempts to make sense of a complicated world in a way that reassures them by validating their delusion that they’re on the side of virtue. In a morally unstable landscape, where a flood of bad information swamps attempts to correct the record, for an uninformed electorate to end up wallowing in ignorance the range of probabilities is, indeed, large. This is a dangerous situation.
Jews and their allies should keep on the alert lest the nightmare of globalized intifada come true, beginning locally, in New York City, where Mamdani, in solidarity with Progressive dogmatists and fanatical Islamists, has harnessed infantilizing influence of social media – for a test run of a project being primed to execute on a global scale.
Jay Michaelson, “Mamdani’s victory is an opportunity for Jews to relearn the art of disagreement,” Forward, June 25
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/other/how-zohran-mamdani-turned-youth-and-inexperience-into-assets/ar-AA1HpqYh; https://www.thenationalnews.com/opinion/2025/06/23/cuomo-zohran-mamdani-new-york-city-mayor-democrats/ ; https://thehill.com/opinion/campaign/5374228-democrats-leftward-polarization-zohran-mamdani/ ; https://americanalmanac.com/zohran-mamdani-stuns-in-new-york-citys-democratic-mayoral-primary-defeating-andrew-cuomo/
https://www.jpost.com/israel-news/article-858965
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/nyc-mayoral-candidate-zohran-mamdani-draws-criticism-intifada-remarks-rcna213967
https://www.timesofisrael.com/liveblog_entry/nycs-mamdani-says-globalize-the-intifada-and-from-the-river-to-the-sea-show-desire-for-palestinian-rights/
“From Fascist Fantasies to Refugee Mythologies; The Ideological Origins of the Nakba Narrative” / https://substack.com/@conformalperson/p-167466699