Avi Lichtschein

Mamdani's statements are usually not worth any response. But this one combines so many lies, distortions, and expressions of bigotry in one space that it's important to try to catalog, for the record, at least some of them because the sheer volume of falsehoods he is throwing out may allow a few to slip through no matter what is attempted in response. Therefore, while so many other people of decency and integrity are expressing their disgust at the mayor's words, it is still worth adding to them to contribute to the collective effort to address all of his dishonest malevolence. Equivalence: to begin with, as a general note, moral equivalence between Hamas and Israel is sufficiently despicable and would by itself disqualify his entire statement. Still, it is worse than that. His placing the two together not only falsely equates them but presents a benchmark that makes his allegations against Israel even more egregious. Oct. 7: similarly, his choice of October 7 to make his "two-sided" statement, despite the fact that Israel's ground offensive did not even begin until weeks after, compounds several distinct wrongs: the hijacking of a day of unimaginable pain for Jews, omitting even any mention of Jews, and denying them even the ownership of that single moment, clearly intentionally; participation in a strategy to put Israel in a position where it is forced to respond and then have that response condemned, regardless of what it entails, as displayed by his own accusations of genocide immediately after October 7, before the response; and a complete falsification of history. Indeed, the "suffering did not begin nor end that day": it began at least a century earlier, including the 1929 riots in Hebron, which differed from October 7 only in the number of victims, but not the degree of savagery. It continued without interruption throughout every Palestinian leadership until the current moment, including in the months preceding October 7, when several atrocious acts of terror each killed multiple family members, an intense horror that has been completely eclipsed by what came soon after. "Genocide": there is not nearly enough space here to go through every aspect of the absurdity of the genocide libel. It will have to suffice for now to say that he is alleging as fact something that has not been proven or ruled upon by an international court, and that should be considered a category error when referring to a defensive war, which presents a fundamentally different inference of intent from that of destroying a people "as such" that constitutes genocide. His phrasing here goes even beyond that, by making it clear that he thinks Hamas' effort to slaughter every man, woman, and child they possibly could was a "war crime", while the defense against that is somehow a "genocide". "Ongoing": The evidentiary basis for the genocide charge is lacking enough when applied to the entire war. It is even less clear what attaches that label to the current state of things, even if he refers to the ceasefire as “so-called” without mentioning how Hamas' continued state of armament and belligerence impacts the state of the ceasefire. "It has killed more than 74,000 Palestinians": no acknowledgement at all of: how many were killed by Hamas; how many were combatants; how many died from other means; whether in his opinion any at all could be legitimately killed in a defensive war. "More than 21,000 children": What is his definition of children? How many undeniable Hamas fighters are included in that number, especially as this week it was further established that Palestinian terror organizations use soldiers as young as 13? Are they all to be granted "impunity", when they shoot and stab others? And how many innocent children died because Hamas hid behind them, both metaphorically and literally? How many Palestinian children die because Hamas knows that endangering them and sacrificing them is a sure path to automatic condemnation of Israel? Moreover, how could he or anyone else in his camp pretend to care about children when Palestinian terrorism has targeted children for direct and brutal execution throughout the past century, and unquestionably on October 7? How many children on that day were burned alive, shot in the head, forced to watch as their parents were murdered in front of them, or were slaughtered first while their parents watched? How dare he pretend to care about children? "dropped on ambulances": Who is responsible for making it the case that ambulances can never be trusted not to be filled with terrorists, and for doing the same to the credibility of hospitals and doctors? Not only does that legally and morally impact their protection, but excluding them from war status under those circumstances guarantees that terrorists will continue to hide and that there will be no safe space for anyone. Targeting journalists. He has no shame saying this, even immediately after so-called journalists continue to be directly identified by the IDF as active Hamas members? Once again, continuing this line guarantees that terrorists will simply act as journalists further, enabling their crimes while eliminating the viability of that crucial role. "Tax dollars fund these [...] continues its complicity with every arms shipment." On top of everything else, this popular claim of the Bernie Sanders camp has its own particularly egregious nature. The basic premise is that Israel is gleefully murdering as many people as it possibly can and the only check on that process is firepower. Hence, fewer arms, fewer dead Palestinians. Setting aside the fact that Israel is obviously not doing anywhere near the damage it could be, it is further the case that the more fully equipped their forces are, the more they are able to specifically target combatants rather than fire more broadly. Hundreds of soldiers have died because they endangered themselves going in personally instead of carpet bombing and killing more Palestinians. The correlation of weaponry to Palestinian deaths is likely the opposite of what he and his ilk are claiming. What has international aid actually funded? Miles and miles of tunnels, comparable in size to the New York City subway system, all there to turn Gaza into the Death Star, and none of them to protect Palestinians. Billionaire leaders living in luxury in Qatar. Somehow, all of this is accepted as normal, without raising an eyebrow. Without continuing to focus on these many egregious details, let's pretend for a moment that he actually equally condemned Hamas and Israel, and let's forget the day that he chose to do that. Even that would be far worse than simple moral equivalency. Hamas does not care a whit if it is condemned. They are completely unaffected by criticism coming from anyone. All they care about, as part of their entire strategy, is to create a situation where condemnation is directed at Israel, an actual functioning democracy that genuinely cares about morality and interacting with the nations of the world. Condemnation of "both sides" is meaningfully only a condemnation of Israel and is a complete validation of Hamas' strategy. It is far worse than equating them. There is so much more to say without even getting to "occupation" or "apartheid". There isn't enough space or time to say all that should be said about all that he is saying. It should go without saying that not only do New York Jews deserve more from their mayor, humanity deserves more than leaders who would make their greatest possible contributions by never saying anything.