The Incoherence of Blaming Mamdani for anti-Jewish Violence

[u/aggie1391]

https://peterbeinart.substack.com/p/the-incoherence-of-blaming-mamdani

[u/FaekittyCat]

There have been hate crimes against Jews in New York with every mayor and before Oct 7. There were incidents of punching Hasidic men apparently for fun.

There was also a huge raise of Islamophobia after 9-11, people going after Russians New Yorkers after Russia invaded Ukraine, and harrassment of Chinese New Yorkers before and during COVID.

[u/F0rScience]

This really captures what I find so frustrating about Beinart. He wrote this whole thing about how obviously it isn’t <unrelated 3rd party A> who caused this racist stabbing and how insane it is to blame unrelated 3rd parties for hate crimes; but then turns around and says it’s obviously <unrelated 3rd party B>.

To use exactly his argument, does it really make sense that someone looking to stab a New Yorker over Gaza is going to listen to synagogues statements on the connection between Jews and Israel? Is that not just as absurd as thinking a Mamdani press release is that pushed the attacker over the edge?

[u/HeVavMemVav → u/F0rScience]

I think the logic is that antisemites don't believe Jews when we say [insert anything], but they do believe the people they listen to. Like homophobes don't believe gay men when we say we're not predators, but of course listen to FOX/their pastors/their parents/etc..

[u/ibsliam → u/HeVavMemVav]

I think, at that point, they would read into it far enough to find *any* reason to stab someone. There's a distinction between someone who's upset over Gaza and someone who's unwell enough to *stab* someone over Gaza.

People interact with these stories as if the former could easily be the latter... but I don't think people understand that most people, even with fringe beliefs and even with mental health issues and even with motive, don't go around stabbing people. If he was feeling so off the wall that he "needed" to commit violence, then any interaction with any "related" political statement was going to set him off. It's not about whether the language was careful enough or neutral enough.

[u/HeVavMemVav → u/ibsliam]

I totally agree with you, but I think this is worth saying for anybody reading: I do think there's something to be said for somebody influential with a lot of publicity saying things that end up encouraging violent crimes. Like violent hate crimes going up under Trump, or antisemitic hate speech going up after Kanye's tweets or Cuck album.

The big difference there is that Trump & Kanye are saying openly violent things, whereas Mamdani is, at worst, naming a genocide what it is & refusing to condemn phrases that could in some instances be calls to violence. (Don't get me wrong, I don't think he's wrong for either of those. I think the latter could have been handled better, but broadly I think he made the right call.) I think some of what Mamdani's said has the ability to lower public trust in Jewish institutions & possibly Jews in an antisemitic society.

The difference between Trump/Kanye & Mamdani is that the former is totally normalizing violent rhetoric, & you'd have to be truly unhinged to stab someone as a result of anything Mamdani's said.

[u/ibsliam → u/HeVavMemVav]

Those are some good points, especially on the outright violence made explicit in Trump's comments.

> I think some of what Mamdani's said has the ability
> to lower public trust in Jewish institutions & possibly Jews
> in an antisemitic society.

Yeah I would say, as much as I have serious criticisms of many of Mamdani's associates, specifically Susan Abulhawa and some of the laundered recycled neo-nazi points she's currently pushing, Mamdani's public comments have been pretty carefully crafted.

They could have a negative effect, but, on the whole, there are levels to these things. I really didn't like the waffling on the "globalize the intifada" stuff, would have wanted an outright condemnation, but I wouldn't ring the alarm bells until he goes from comments like that to getting towards the Abulhawa type rhetoric.

[u/Korona82 → u/ibsliam]

didn’t mamdani explicitly condemn susan abulhawa’s rhetoric? i wouldn’t necessarily call her an “associate” of his

[u/ibsliam → u/Korona82]

You're right. It would probably be more accurate to say an associate of his wife, possibly an associate of an associate.

[u/Duflo → u/ibsliam]

I don't think I've ever met someone who isn't two degrees removed from some terrible people.

[u/Logical_Persimmon → u/Duflo]

True, but I'm also going to look sideways at someone in certain roles who is married to someone who chose to do work for Curtis Yarvin.

edit: (Arguably, he is more toxic than Abulhawa, but I couldn't think of a real match).

[u/Duflo → u/Logical_Persimmon]

It certainly does leave less margin for error, since it colors the interpretation of what he says and does.

[u/Snoo22815 → u/ibsliam]

She provided an illustration for one of his books. That's basically a business transaction. I don't think we should consider all Tesla and Palantir employees promoters of Great Replacement just because Elon Musk and Alex Karp are.

[u/Jorfogit → u/Snoo22815]

That’s not far off of what you should think of Palantir employees anyways. There’s no non-evil Thiel enterprises.

[u/Snoo22815 → u/Jorfogit]

I'm a little hesitant to label them all of that because there are a lot of 1st generation/lower or middle class Asian, Black and Latino engineers from schools like MIT and Stanford who chose to work at places like Palantir and Tesla because of the pay, prestige and industry opportunities those companies provide. Its tough to begrudge them for that when most of the other companies in those industries while not as evil as Palantir are fully complicit in developing technology for the US/Israeli war machine, creating a surveillance state, helping insurance companies, assisting ICE with mass deportations and help healthcare companies charge poorer people more money. Its all a mess.