Book 'Em, Mamdanno!

Summary

The Commentary Magazine Podcast: "Book 'Em, Mamdanno!" — July 22, 2026

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Overview

In this episode, Jon Podhoretz and his Commentary Magazine colleagues dissect the political and cultural earthquake following New York City Mayor Zoran Mamdani's official statement regarding Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. The panel focuses on Mamdani's false and incendiary allegations against Netanyahu, the implications for New York's Jewish community, rising antisemitism in America, and alarming precedents for political rhetoric and behavior. The conversation then segues into U.S.-Saudi relations, nuclear proliferation, and the broader existential dilemma facing Jews in America and worldwide.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Mamdani’s Statement on Netanyahu: A New Line Crossed?

• Event: Zoran Mamdani, NYC's mayor, publicly declared that he considered Netanyahu a "war criminal," listing widely debunked claims: deliberate starvation in Gaza, targeting hospitals, killing 70,000 people, and genocidal behavior.
• Community Impact: Jon Podhoretz describes widespread panic in his largely Democratic-leaning day school chat group, signaling a seismic, perhaps irreversible, shift in attitudes toward Jewish safety in NYC ([03:45]).
  • "Their reaction to this...is absolute panic that the Rubicon has been crossed on the matter of Israel and open antisemitism in a way that...has taken this to a very frightening new level." (Podhoretz, [03:26])

2. Accusations as Modern Blood Libel and the Power of Public Ritual

• Abe Greenwald's Analogy: Compares Mamdani’s theatrics to medieval Passion plays that incited violence against Jews. The core argument is that such public displays are designed to channel and stoke latent antisemitism ([06:48]).
  • "The passion play format, which is how I view what he did yesterday, is a call to action, even if it's implicit." (Greenwald, [08:29])
  • Host clarifies: Passion Plays dramatized Christ's death, focusing on Jewish "guilt" while erasing Roman involvement, often followed by violence against Jews ([07:28]).

3. Mamdani’s Rhetorical Focus and Its Consequences

• Selective Targeting: Mamdani singles out Netanyahu but, as the hosts note, by indicting an elected head of state, he projects guilt onto the wider Jewish and Israeli populace ([09:56]).
  • "He focuses it on Netanyahu...The elected prime minister...can be said...to have done so not only in the name of, but with the backing of the nation of Israel. And therefore they too are in the docket." (Podhoretz, [09:56])
  • Seth Mandel notes Mamdani's history of anti-Israel rhetoric, seeing this as an official escalation rather than a new development ([11:14]).

4. From Unofficial to Official: Why the Statement Matters

• Formality and Escalation: The style—sitting at a desk, music, grave tone—elevates Mamdani's statement from activist rhetoric to an ominous official pronouncement ([15:34]).
  • "There's a difference between unofficial words and official words...It's very produced, very deliberate, very planned, and therefore all the more frightening." (Podhoretz, [15:34])

5. Democrats and Cost-Free Anti-Israel Politics

• Eliana Johnson's Caution: Johnson questions whether Democratic leaders' cost-free anti-Israel gestures will change when they hold real power. She notes Mamdani's inability to fulfill his campaign promise to arrest Netanyahu, raising doubts about performative radicalism versus actionable policy ([18:43]).
  • "They are contributing to the heightening of hostility towards Israel and towards the Jews that have no practical political consequence..." (Johnson, [18:43])

6. Implicit Calls to Action and Legal Gray Areas

• Encouragement of Vigilantism: The panel worries Mamdani's words offer moral, if not legal, justification for direct action against Jews and supporters of Israel, echoing modern left-wing conceptions of justified law-breaking for a "higher cause" ([21:31]).
  • "Were you to take action on your own in some fashion against this barbarity, you would have moral standing to do so, even if you don't have legal standing..." (Podhoretz, [21:32])
• Declining Prosecutions: Abe Greenwald references DAs who don’t prosecute anti-Israel protestors, feeding the sense of legal impunity ([22:22]).

7. Escalating Antisemitism: Evidence and Symbolism

• Concurrent Acts: Incidents like synagogues in Queens being vandalized, attempts to disrupt Zionist meetings in synagogues, and silence from officials form a disturbing pattern that feels unprecedented in the U.S. ([23:29]).
  • "Things are happening that have not happened before. That's a new thing." (Podhoretz, [23:29])

8. The Historic Pattern of Targeting "One Jew"

• The Blood Libel Debate: The defense—"we’re just criticizing Netanyahu, not Jews"—misses the historical pattern where such targeted accusations lead to violence against entire communities ([27:39]).
  • "Clearly there are some Jews like that. Would you deny there are some Jews who would do that?...You'd have to ignore all of history to not see what he's doing." (Greenwald, [28:08])
• Chilling Effect: Such rhetoric is meant to push Jews out of the public square and suppress self-identification ([28:08]).

9. The Shifting Overton Window and Politicians’ Roles

• Mainstreaming Radicalism: The election and behavior of Mamdani, following figures like AOC and Ilhan Omar, pushes the Overton window such that anti-Zionist and even antisemitic rhetoric become mainstream ([32:09]).
  • Mark Ruffalo’s recent hostile statements against Jews are flagged as unthinkable from a public figure just a few years ago ([36:52]).

10. Money, Networks, and Radicalization

• Funding Radicalism: Seth Mandel and Jon Podhoretz discuss radical protest funding by wealthy heirs like Fergie Chambers, who has been arrested for supporting terror ([40:06]).
  • "This is really happening. So merge a lot of money with a lot of passion and the increasing acceptance of the abuse of this very small group of people..." (Podhoretz, [42:48])

11. Existential Fears: Is it Time for Jews to Leave America?

• A Tipping Point?
  • Podhoretz previously dismissed the idea that American Jews should leave for Israel. Now, he questions whether worsening trends prove him wrong ([42:48]).
  • "Maybe I was wrong. It's now almost August and worse stuff is happening…I don't think this is where the American people are. But could really bad things happen?" (Podhoretz, [42:48])

12. Internal Tensions in City Government

• Jewish City Officials: Asks when moderate Jewish officials like NYPD Commissioner Jessica Tisch will be purged from Mamdani’s administration ([46:53]).
  • Johnson sees retaining competent bureaucrats as intentional political strategy ([47:21]).

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On Blood Libel:
  "Every single one of the claims that Mamdani makes...is a lie...That this is an actual blood libel." (Podhoretz, [04:24])

• On Escalation:
  "It's definitely an escalation because it's a Passion Play...public displays have their own purpose." (Greenwald, [06:48])

• On political rhetoric:
  "There's a difference between unofficial words and official words...With ominous, mournful music...very produced, very deliberate, very planned, and therefore all the more frightening." (Podhoretz, [15:34])

• On defending Mamdani:
  "'You’re the one who’s making it about all Jews. I'm just accusing one person...' You have to ignore all of history to not see what he’s doing." (Greenwald, [28:08])

• On communal anxiety:
  "Really bad things could happen if this is what people say now, if the mayor of New York feels free to say what he said now…" (Podhoretz, [42:48])

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Timestamps for Important Segments

• Introduction and Topic Setup: [00:45]–[06:48]
• Passion Play Analogy & Explanation: [06:48]–[08:29]
• Focusing on Netanyahu as "One Jew": [09:56]–[11:14]
• Mainstream Jewish Reaction and Significance: [14:05]–[16:31]
• Performative vs. Practical Anti-Israel Politics: [18:43]–[20:44]
• Public Statements as Calls to Action: [21:31]–[23:29]
• Vandalism and New Kinds of Antisemitic Incidents: [23:29]–[24:59]
• Rebutting "It's only Netanyahu" Defense: [26:16]–[28:08]
• Overton Window & Celebrity Rhetoric: [36:52]–[38:30]
• Funding and Radicalization: [40:06]–[42:46]
• Existential Threats & Jewish Emigration Debate: [42:46]–[47:21]

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Tone and Language

The conversation is urgent, deeply personal, and often grim, reflecting escalating concerns about antisemitism in America. The hosts balance analytical rigor with palpable fear and frustration. The language is direct, historically grounded, and draws upon both scholarship and lived experience—with references ranging from medieval blood libels to modern protest tactics and city bureaucracy.

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Segment: U.S.-Saudi Nuclear Deal & Jewish Existential Questions

13. U.S.-Saudi Nuclear Agreement: Strategic or Reckless?

• Surprising News: The U.S. agrees to Saudi ambitions for uranium enrichment, raising proliferation concerns ([48:56]).
  • "If you had told me in 1982…that 44 years later, the United States would be making an agreement with Saudi Arabia to allow them to enrich uranium… I would have thought that you were insane." (Podhoretz, [48:56])
• Panel Reaction:
  • Seth Mandel: Fears destabilization, worries normalization with Israel may be less likely ([52:43]).
  • Abe Greenwald: Argues normalization should have been a precondition, noting interconnectedness of U.S., Israeli, and Saudi regional policy ([55:55]).
  • Eliana Johnson: Points out Trump's amoral, business-centric foreign policy, plus Saudi insecurity given erratic U.S. behavior ([58:47]).

14. Final Reflection: American Zionism’s Ultimate Justification

• If it can happen here...
  • Podhoretz connects Mamdani’s rhetoric with historical existential threats to Jews; asserts that Israel's strength and security are the best insurance against possible disaster for Jews in diaspora ([60:19]).
  • "If things break down here the way they have in Europe, then the refuge state for Jews becomes everything… there will be no survival of the Jewish people outside of Israel." (Podhoretz, [60:19])

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Conclusion

The episode is a sobering meditation on the nature of modern antisemitism, the perilous shift in political and cultural rhetoric, and the ways in which official words and actions catalyze societal change. The hosts draw clear lines connecting contemporary accusations to ancient blood libels, challenging rationalizations that target "just one Jew." With amped-up rhetoric, rising incidents, and high-profile political actors testing new boundaries, the panel debates how American Jews should respond, all while searching for hope and strategic wisdom in an increasingly unsettling world.

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For Full Context:

• Listen at [key segment starting: [03:45]] for the initial recounting of communal anxiety about Mamdani’s statement.
• For the Passion Play analogy, start at [06:48].
• For the practical and existential Jewish questions, refer to closing remarks at [60:19].

Transcript

[Abe Greenwald]

Foreign.

[Jon Pothorts]

Expect the worst Some drinks and pain

[James Patterson]

Some die of thirst no way of knowing which way it's going Hope for

[Jon Pothorts]

the best Expect the worst Hope for the best welcome to the Commentary Magazine daily podcast. Today is Wednesday, July 22, 2026. I am Jon Pothorts, the editor of Commentary magazine. With me, as always, Executive Editor Abe Greenwald. Hi Abe.

[Seth Mandel]

Hi John.

[Jon Pothorts]

Senior Editor Seth Mandel. Hi Seth.

[Abe Greenwald]

Hi John.

[Jon Pothorts]

And Washington Free Beacon editor Eliana Johnson. Hi Eliana.

[Eliana Johnson]

Hi John.

[Jon Pothorts]

Want to talk to you guys about the statement that Zoran Mamdani released on X yesterday afternoon explaining why he and his legal department determined that they did not have the authority to arrest Benjamin Netanyahu, the Prime Minister of Israel, if and when he comes to New York next. I just want to say I participate and have for a decade in a group chat of friends and parents at the day school that my my kids have attended to. The majority of the people in this group chat are have been Democratic voters most of their lives and surely voted for Hillary and Biden and likely, but less likely, but likely more or less voted for Harris. Their reaction to this statement, this two minute statement by Mamdani, is absolute panic that the Rubicon has been crossed on the matter of Israel and open antisemitism in a way that while we have been charting this for the last almost three years, has taken this to a very frightening new level because this is after all, the elected mayor of the largest city in New York and the largest ingathering of Jews outside of Israel, and for a time the largest in gathering of Jews anywhere on earth. And he begins his statement by saying Benjamin Netanyahu is a war criminal and then lists a series of claims that he states as fact. Deliberately starving the children of Gaza, deliberately targeting hospitals, deliberately killing 70,000 people, murdering children, continuing to behave in a manner that is genocidal toward Hamas despite the I think what he called the so called ceasefire. And I think the reason that my friends and I and maybe all of us and people listening are in a different kind of state about what happened here is that every single one of the claims that Mamdani makes in this two minute statement is a lie and therefore taken except for the death toll, which is I believe around 70,000, although according now to most honest and not Zionist calculations, 50,000 of the 70,000 who died in this two year war that was started by Hamas were combatants, making it in terms of urban warfare, the least deadly war for civilians that the world has likely ever seen. And by saying he is a child killer, he is A genocider. He deliberately wanted to harm and kill people in hospitals and starve people. That this is an actual blood libel. Now the literal blood libel was the original claim that Simon of Trent, a little boy in Britain was taken, killed and his blood used for Passover matzos. But the term blood libel has now come to mean an accusation of horrific behavior on the part of Jews. That did not happen. But that is designed publicizing. It is designed to rally public opinion against Jewry and possibly promote violence. And you know, I think if New York City were a state in the union, if I remember correctly, it would be somewhere around the 26th or 27th largest in terms of population alone. So panic. Do we have to move? Do we have to move to Israel? Do we have to get out of here? Where is this going to go? Mamdani took it to a different level in their view. Do you guys think that he has taken it to a different level or is this more of the same? And that he escalated the terminology. Not that he hasn't said all of these things before Sariatem, but because he was trying to please and coddle his followers who want him to do things like arrest Benjamin Netanyahu, because he was actually explaining that he wasn't he couldn't do it, but that he nonetheless agreed with them in every particular.

[Abe Greenwald]

Well, it's definitely an escalation because it's a Passion Play. You know, you can. The story of Christ is not an, you know, on its own, something that you know, necessarily inspires any sort of anti Jewish fervor. But the reason that Passion plays were put on throughout the years was to focus the public's attention on the Christ killers as they, as they called them. And what followed Passion plays were often violence in the streets. That these were. The thing about Jewish history is that there is this latent.

[Jon Pothorts]

By the way, we should stop for a second just to explain because you're making a great analogy. People don't really know what this is. The Passion Play was a play staged mostly in Germany, but most famously in Ober Ammergau, Germany. But it's the depiction of the trial, sentencing and crucifixion of Christ. And it lays. And the Romans are mostly, as I understand it, nowhere to be seen. And the depiction, the Passion Play is of the Jewish authorities who of course did not put Christ to death as the people who basically put Christ to death or spoke in the Romans ears and seduced them with their barbaric magic to do this. And so that is what the Passion Play is, which was Staged all over Europe from the late Middle ages into the 18th to 19th century. Okay, go ahead. I'm sorry.

[Abe Greenwald]

And so the public displays have their own purpose. It's one thing to have an opinion, and it's one thing to be sitting in an interview and have someone say to you, do you think that Israel committed genocide? But the passion play format, which is how I view what he did yesterday, is a call to action, even if it's implicit. And he says at the end of it, look, he says, while we cannot end the genocide on our own, we can decide whether our silence will become another weapon and we can examine every tool we have to defend the humanity and the dignity of all people. That is my commitment to you. It's a call to action. And it's the fact what he's discussing specifically the ICC warrant is a, is an illegitimate thing. I don't want to get into the details of whether the ICC has jurisdiction here or there. Whatever. It's a court made up. A bunch of countries got together and decided that they are going to arrest people within those countries that agreed to their jurisdiction. Outside of that, it's literally just an organization that has no bearing whatsoever. So what he's talking about is extrajudicial. That's the truth. The ICC is not a real court. Not if you're not a part of it. He's talking about vigilantism. And I just think the whole spectacle raises it to another level.

[Jon Pothorts]

The question Abe, would be, since he focuses the charge in this two minute act of barbarity and monstrosity, but he focuses it on one guy. He focuses it on Netanyahu. He says Netanyahu is the architect of the genocide and therefore, I suppose gives himself room to say, well, he's not saying all Israelis, he's not saying all Jews. It's this one evil person who did this who is responsible for this one evil thing. Now, this evil person is the elected prime minister of the country. And therefore can be said in his actions as architect to have done so not only in the name of, but with the electoral backing of the nation of Israel. And therefore they too are in the docket because their elected leader did this. And they did not rise up to boot him out or, you know, call a parliamentary vote of no confidence and kick him out and end the war. So, but he is careful, right, to say Netanyahu is the villain?

[Seth Mandel]

Well, I think he's. The appearance of his being careful here, I think really is owing to the fact that he made this little presentation as a way of reassuring his, his Israel hating supporters that all because he recently got pressed on the question of whether or not he could or would try to arrest Bibi in New York. So he had to come up with a way to say, I can't, so I won't. But I'm going to give him this, this parting shot. You know, I'm gonna make it clear where I stand on this horrible monster. So that's why I think this was narrowly focused on Bibi. I don't think it was because he was looking for a way necessarily to have some room there to say, I'm not talking about the Jewish state, because he's already on record also lying about the nature of Israel and why he doesn't support Israel because as in his words, it privileges one religion over another. And you know, we know that Shortly after the October 7th attack, the next day his social media post was already criticizing Israel for. For what? For the Gaza pre October 7th. So I don't think so. All of which is to say that for me personally, this isn't when the Rubicon was crossed. It was crossed long, long ago. But I hear what you're saying, John, in terms of the group and what you're hearing from them. A lot of people, for a lot of different reasons sort of realize who he is, who some other people are on their own schedule. And so to the extent that this has made some people who were not reluctant but just sort of didn't quite see it, that he is real as a threat to the Jews and he means it. And in the end, there's no glossing over this level of antisemitism to the extent that we now have another strata of people who realize this, that's good because I don't think anything has changed otherwise.

[Jon Pothorts]

Okay, so, Eliana, I think where Abe may be eliding something is I'm not talking about people who woke up last night to the idea that Mamdani was an anti Semite. All of them voted against him. 75% of the Jews in New York City voted against Mamdani in the election in November of 2025. But this is his first official statement on this matter as the elected representative of the people of the city of New York, 11% of whom are Jews.

[Seth Mandel]

Now, I just want to jump in. There's another reason also. He's sort of done so much on this along these lines that I can forget some of it. His statement when there was a huge protest, harassing a synagogue for having a meeting, for allowing a group that helps Jews make aliyah there. And Mamdani's office described this as. What was the language again? Holding an event in violation of international law or something. You know, so this is. You know, to me, it's all. It's all been there this whole time. Now I'll stop.

[Jon Pothorts]

I mean, I agree that it's been there the whole time, and I think so would these people. But there's a difference between unofficial words and official words. It's a difference between his state, his administration, talking, blathering, trying to figure out what to say, and him making a statement, by the way, backed, sitting at a desk like he's the President of the United States. With ominous, mournful music. The video has a musical background score. It's sort of like. Like that, like. Like he is, you know, delivering a eulogy or something like that. So it's very produced, very deliberate, very planned, and therefore all the more frightening.

[James Patterson]

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[Eliana Johnson]

Foreign.

[Eric Gertler]

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[Jon Pothorts]

Elian. So are you with Abe? Are you with My. My group chat friends.

[Eliana Johnson]

I'm gonna say something and I'm not sure if I really think it, but it's something that occurred to me on the campaign trail. Mamdani said, if Bibi comes into New York, I'm gonna arrest him. I'm gonna have him arrested. And then he comes out and gives this official statement that he's a war criminal and he's committed every other abuse in the book, but I can't actually do it. And Democrats in Congress, in the House and the Senate have taken votes where we see more Democrats than ever before, including every prospective Democratic presidential candidate, take votes that they know are ultimately going to fail to cut off funding for Israel. And I do wonder how much these Democrats are willing to engage in what are essentially for them politically cost free exercises where they are contributing to the heightening of hostility towards Israel and towards the Jews that have no practical political consequence and whether that will change when they are running the show and there are actual consequences for their actions. And I do think it's telling that Mamdani said I am going to do this. And then went in office, couldn't actually put his money where his mouth is, which is something we all knew, but said still, you know, he's still a bad guy. And I think there's something to that. And what are the Democrats in Congress gonna actually do when they're in charge?

[Jon Pothorts]

So you're. This is an interesting point, cuz it takes us to the level of the purely practical. He made a campaign promise he could not fulfill. And in an effort to explain away how he could not fulfill it, he said, of course what I wanted, what we all want is good and true. And just because our enemy is a barbaric monster who needs. Needs to be destroyed. Unfortunately, my law department can't find a way around the law so that we can do this. So maybe. And. But justice will be served eventually. Which is where. Which is where the rhetoric. I agree with Seth. Not that you want to be Talmudic about it and over. Over ant or Straussian and like overanalyze the text of the speech.

[Seth Mandel]

But.

[Jon Pothorts]

But it does have an implicit suggestion that were you to take action on your own in some fashion against this barbarity, you would have moral standing to do so, even if you don't have legal standing, which is obviously an important idea on the left, which does believe that since so many wonderful things happen in America as a result of people standing up against bad laws, the civil rights movement and various other things, that resistance, nonviolent resistance in the form of Martin Luther King, violent resistance in the form of the Black Panthers and the Nation of Islam, that these are all noble. So you could say that that's coming out of this.

[Abe Greenwald]

And they also come from states or cities where the local district attorneys drop, routinely drop charges against, you know, people who cross criminal lines, quote, unquote, for Palestine. We saw it, you know, obviously not that that was during the Mamdani is more recent than that, but we did see it during the Tentifada protests. You'd see a bunch of people storm a building in Colombia and elsewhere, and, you know, the DA would just simply drop the charges. And so that's. That's another aspect of this, is that it function. It technically illegal, but is it. Is it even functioning? Like, is there in terms of encouraging people to do something, it seems like it's worse than it would otherwise be because there is this understanding that you might actually get away with it. And the people who are in charge of charging crimes and prosecuting crimes in his own city don't necessarily think it should be illegal, et cetera, et cetera. The whole thing is portrayed as kind of a gray area.

[Jon Pothorts]

Well, you know, we're talking here about a city in which I'm trying to find the date, Monday or Tuesday of this week. Two synagogues in Queens were spattered with some combination of motor oil and feces on their door and on their doorsteps. Now, why do I bring this up? It's two synagogues, city of eight and a half million people. You know, there are hundreds and hundreds of synagogues. And so, you know, you don't want to overreact or say that. That's, you know, that proves that Mamdani shouldn't believe what he believes or say what he says. But things are happening that have not happened before. That's a new thing. The protest that Abe cites toward the Nefesh b' Nefesh group at Park East Synagogue, which did happen in New Jersey the year before, same kind of protest, but then happens on the streets of New York on 67th street, site of famous protests for 30 years, 20 years, against. There was the Soviet mission to the United nations on 67th street, and there were protests in front of the Soviet mission about Soviet Jewry and the abuse and torment and torture of Soviet Jewry in refusing their exit visa so that they could leave the prison, anti Semitic prison in which they were living in the Soviet Union. And here we are like 30 years later, and people are trying essentially to break into Park East Synagogue to January 6 meeting, which is about how to buy real estate in Israel if you want to make aliyah. This is all. And of course, as Abe said, the administrative. The mayoral administration trying to look for a way to say that this was acceptable because it's just obviously people have the right to free speech and you can protest outside somewhere and all of that. We are. And the excuse that I think people will make that he's saying Netanyahu is evil, not that all Jews are evil. How do we respond and answer that claim? Because you watch, that's what you're gonna see when people say this is like unprecedented antisemitism on the part of an elected official in the United States. They're gonna say, no, it's not. He's just talking about one person. You're the one who's taking that one person and saying that it's all Jews that he's abusing. What's our answer to that objection.

[Seth Mandel]

That his case against this one person is built on lies. And the exact type of lies, as Seth was talking about earlier, that are historically always invoked to demonize Jews. And. And that you wouldn't. He would. No one would make such a false case against any other country that was attacked, any other government that responded to such a vicious attack. By the way, Mamdani never mentioned the Hamas attack at all. Of course, he spoke as if the entire past three years were that the conflict was something that Israel had initiated, that Netanyahu had just struck out, gone and done. The very fact that this is some sort of case, that anyone thinks that there is this case against Netanyahu and it's so fantastical in what it considers to be evidence, is. Is. Is proof of the anti. Semitism and also the.

[Abe Greenwald]

The blood libel itself was, you know, the boy. The boy washed up, got stuck in the drainage system underneath a particular Jew's house. Right. And. And that would. And that was either he was placed there to frame the Jew or. But he was in the drainage system. Apparently that's one house.

[Jon Pothorts]

This is in the 12th century. We should say just so people.

[Abe Greenwald]

Right.

[Jon Pothorts]

We're talking about.

[Abe Greenwald]

I'm talking about the way you mentioned before, the Simon of Trent.

[Jon Pothorts]

Yeah.

[Abe Greenwald]

So this is, you know, you could say, well, he washed up in. You know, he's under one house. So in. In a normal situation, let's take religion and society and faith and whatever out of this and say, you know, a citizen of this country, there's some circumstantial evidence he may have been involved in the murder of a child. So legal system, take it away. But that's not what happened. What happened were mass anti Jewish riots and murder and rape and, and, and bloodletting. That's what happened each time. And so, so you can say like, well, I'm not, look, I'm not saying he's, you know, they're all like that. But clearly there are some Jews like that. Would you deny that there are some Jews who would do that? You would deny that there are some Jews who are incapable of doing so. You know, it gets into this whole thing where you're sort of backed into a corner where they're like, you're the one who's making it about all Jews. Because I'm just, I'm just accusing one person of, of murdering a Christian child and smearing his blood on their matzah. Just one person, I'm saying had their seder with blood matzah. I don't know if the rest of you do it. So that, that sort of thing is like where I just, I don't really care for the, you know, I think he'll have some success against people who, who, with people who are already on his side about all this and they'll light up social media with that excuse. But it, you know, that's, you have to ignore all of history to not see what he's doing. And the other thing is that what's the practical effect of this? Bibi Netanyahu is coming to New York, right? That's why he's doing this. He's coming to New York for the UN General Assembly. The, that is, he is coming as the, to represent the Jewish state. And what Mamdani is doing in a secondary level, I think not quite on the level of the passion play, as I said before, but, but on a secondary goal of his is to make it very difficult for Jewish Americans to show themselves in public during this time, to go into certain places while he's here to say they support Israel and then to just sort of make that the new status quo. It is to chill pride, it is to chill Jewish self identification, all this stuff. It is to push them out of the public square. Because Bibi is not just one person in this situation. He is, according to Mamdani, the guy under whose house Simon of Trent may have washed up.

[Jon Pothorts]

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[James Patterson]

now that

[Jon Pothorts]

it's summer, I took a bag, I took all my sweaters. I put my sweaters into a vacuum bag to put them away so that I could replace them with my summer clothing from Quince which has been stored away for these warm months. And of course, just as the days are a little more relaxed, so is the clothing that I'm wearing. And that's Quince summer clothing. Well made essentials that naturally become those everyday staples that you want to live in all summer long. Quince's 100% European linen pants and shirts are breathable, easy to throw on in the summer. Upgrade your rotation needs and they start at just 34 bucks. Tees soft enough to live all day. Lightweight cotton sweaters, exactly what you want when the summer nights cool down. Everything at quints is priced 50 to 80% less than similar brands. They work with ethical factories and cut out the middleman. So you're paying for exceptional quality, not brand markup. And I'm just telling you, people say to me, are you wearing quints? And I say yes because I am now so associated with quints. So make your summer wardrobe easier. Go to quints.com commentary for free shipping on your order and 365 day returns now available in Canada too. That's Q U I n c-e.com commentary for free shipping and 365 day returns. Quince.com commentary. In the sense that his election represented the shift in the Overton window that he made thinkable the possibility of electing somebody who, if not an explicit jihadist, is nonetheless basically a philosophical supporter of a certain type of jihad. He's both very left wing, but he also has this Muslim layer and The Gaza. The support for Hamas and Gaza is oddly more Islamist than it is, in some fashion, than it is socialist. The Omni cause is mixing them all together. But, you know, the victory of Darieliza Chevalier and Adamawi and whatever is going to happen with Al Dul El Sayed and all of that all become thinkable because of what he pulled off last year, even though he was also standing on the shoulders of others like aoc, who made thinkable the idea of somebody with no political history, very young and very extreme, sort of like lapping the pros and the hacks and with his own brand of excitement and taking the levers of power away. If he has shifted the Overton window, Bibi Netanyahu is a war criminal. We already talked yesterday about how Jake Sullivan, the National Security Advisor of the United States to Joe Biden, tells the New Yorker he's having trouble sleeping at night because he helped participate in. He was involved in decisions that prolonged the war in Gaza and led to more suffering and did stop the Israelis from doing more depravatory things. That too. That's part of the opening of this window and where as the acceptable space for attacking Israel starts moving into the acceptable space for attacking supporters of Israel, for supporting Israelis who act. Mark Ruffalo last night saying he didn't want to talk to Jews or Israelis anymore because they're all bad. The actor Mark Ruffalo like things that he also.

[Abe Greenwald]

And not to interrupt, but also he played the same game, by the way, which I think is important, which is that he lied about these people he's talking about, rather than said, I can't talk to people who are on a different moral plane than I. He just flat out lied and said, all these people say either all Palestinians deserve to die or the all Palestinians are human shields and therefore, in his words, deserve to die because they're human shields. So just to put it that way, again, it's important to lie about the evil of the Jews that he's talking about and not just make a moral statement on the conflict.

[Jon Pothorts]

So there's him. He's saying something that nobody in public life like him would ever have said before. He's a TV star. I liked him. In the show Task, he plays the Hulk. He's playing that. He's gonna be in Brand New Day in a week and a half playing the Hulk. He's a major American pop culture figure. He did what you say he did three, five years ago, even though he was already anti Israel and stuff. It would never have said anything like this no anti Israel politician in the United States would have said the things that Mamdani is saying in the way that he said them. Five years ago people weren't throwing feces at synagogue doors. Five years ago people weren't throwing, trying to break into synagogues to break up meetings of Zionist groups inside a shul. 5 years ago Things are happening that didn't happen before. Rhetoric is being used that wasn't used before. Two kids killed outside the Jewish Museum in D.C. the woman murdered in Boulder. Again, these are separate incidents of very small number and very small bore. Right. They're not a nationwide wave. They're not, you know, a systematic form of, you know, rioting and abuse. But they could be in three, four, five years. I mean they, how do we, how do we know?

[Abe Greenwald]

And they get, you know, the protests not to. Sorry, I know, I'm going. No, no, the protest, the protests, you know, they get funding, the groups get funding from, you know, from the, the sort of trickle down funding from the, the you know, these liberal federate organizations that you know, trickle funding down to, to various sort of almost proxies and then they give a grant and then they give a grant and then they give a grant and at the end of it one of the, or two of the grants goes to you know, attentive protest, whatever. So first of all they are getting, they are within the, in a certain sense the mainstream pipeline of political action because of that. And the second thing is AOC is showing up to their protests at Colombia. Ilhan Omar's daughter is there and Ilhan Omar is, you know, Ilhan Omar's daughter is getting suspended for a protest at Colombia set up while the President of Colombia is testifying to Congress, being berated by Ilhan Omar in Congress. So that's the other thing is that if you're going to make, if you have politicians, powerful politicians, influential politicians who are going to make pilgrimages to these protests, I think we have to take them out of the category entirely of you know, some kind of grassroots or, or whatever into they are being. There is organization and, and there are connections and there are networks and they are being egged on and encouraged openly because if you throw one of these anti Jewish parties, you may get AOC to show up.

[Jon Pothorts]

Look, very important point here in Ibiza, Spain last week, I believe came the arrest of Fergie Chambers. Who is Fergie Chambers? Fergie Chambers is the great grandson of, of the Democratic nominee for president in 1920, James Cox. He is from a multi billion dollar family he himself received part of an inheritance of $250 million five years ago or something like that, upon his 30th birthday, some version like that. He is now considered one of the two or three leading funders of radical causes inside the United States. He converted to Islam after October 7, and he was arrested in Ibiza because the Justice Department has gathered sufficient evidence that he is an open supporter of terrorist. He's a funder of terrorist groups. He calls himself a communist. Right. He lived in a started a revolutionary Marxist Leninist collective called the Berkshire Communists. He has done various other things and gives a lot of money to the people who protest pipelines, the people who protest whatever. And he is like Soros. There are four or five of these extraordinarily rich scions of privilege who have been doing the funding that you're talking about, Seth, and he has been arrested for not only funding, not for funding them, but for funding actual terrorist enterprises in violation of US law and of course, all moral law. Not that that's in the indictment. That's a real thing that just happened. This isn't like we're not conspiracy theorizing. He did it. He's not the Holy Land Foundation. He's a rich white kid who read, funnily enough, because Abe mentioned this in his newsletter yesterday, who got radicalized at the age of 12 from reading Howard Zinn. He read A People's History of the United States at the age of 12 and realized that he was a scion of white privilege and part of this incredibly unjust system that enriched his family at the expense of others.

[James Patterson]

So

[Jon Pothorts]

this is really happening. So merge a lot of money with a lot of passion and the increasing acceptance of the abuse of this very small group of people who we do punch above our weight in terms of political power, political influence and all of that. But there's all this effort being made to push us down, push us down. Don't publish Jewish books anymore. Jews were the most reliable book buyers of the 20th century. Very interesting, by the way, that now publishers don't want to publish books by Jews or are afraid to publish books by Jews. In the 1920s and 1930s, among the best selling authors in the United States were Isaac Bashevis's Singer, Israel Joshua Singer, who wrote seven bestsellers in a row, and Shola Mash, a controversial figure. I'm not going to get into his position, but sold some of the best selling books of the first half of the century. Jews are book buyers. Jews are cultural proof, creators, purveyors, and so Punching above our weight here. And what's going on. There is a systematic effort to push us, not publish our books, you know, throw us out a pen, say that Israeli work shouldn't be published, and all of that. And that's all happening before our eyes. And it's all in this stew that Mamdani just, you know, poured another beaker of poison in, as far as I can tell. But I do think that there is something about him being the chief executive of a city of 8 million people that takes us somewhere else, somewhere new. This is not happening. This is not some far right politician in Poland who is an anti Semite. It's not, you know, it's not Jean Marie Le Pen talking about Jewish influence. It's not any of that. He is the mayor of New York City. And so I don't know what to tell my friends when they say, is it time to move? For many years I've told friends of mine who say, is it time to move? That that's ridiculous. I have a piece in the July, August issue of Commentary saying America is still the golden land for the Jews and people like Zoram Hamdani can't take that away from us. And I wrote that in June or late May. And maybe I was wrong. It's now almost August and worse stuff is happening. I don't think I'm wrong. I don't think that this is where the American people are or where the country is. But could really bad things happen if this is what people say now, if the mayor of New York feels free to say what he said now. And by the way, don't think that this is no joke like, you know, there's. He's got a little bit of a guard phalanx up because Jessica Tisch, a Zionist billionaire's daughter, you know, you know, popular figure in New York, is his commissioner of police. I. She was once my intern. So I only knew her, you know, when she was 20 years old. So I can't speak for what her views are now. But if you think that there aren't conversations inside the Tisch household about whether or not she can continue to serve after she was. After her boss said that he wanted to arrest, use her police department to arrest the prime minister of Israel on the grounds that he is a committer of genocide. I. That conversation is going on, I am guessing,

[Abe Greenwald]

and also going on within. On the other side of the administration, which is on the Mamdani side of the administration. When do we toss her overboard? When do we no longer need to have this sort of facade. When do we no longer need Tish in office to. And when do we no longer need to present any sort of moderate or even handed bearing?

[Jon Pothorts]

Right, okay.

[Eliana Johnson]

Actually.

[Jon Pothorts]

Oh, yeah.

[Eliana Johnson]

I actually think that having her is part of his concerted strategy. And we see him putting the loony ideologues in jobs and on boards and in places that don't really matter that much, and the bureaucrats

[James Patterson]

who,

[Eliana Johnson]

you know, people like Jesse Tisch in important jobs who have more of a sense of what they're doing. I think he's very smart, and I think this Netanyahu thing is indicative of that. Where he told his supporters on the campaign trail, I'm going to do this. He knew, of course, he couldn't do it. And he's come out with a video that is, again, going to ignite their passions. But, you know, he sold them. He really sold them a bill of goods. And I don't think it's going to be interpreted that way by his supporters.

[Jon Pothorts]

One last question.

[Eliana Johnson]

I don't see him. I don't see him tossing her overboard and putting in some lunatic. And as head of the nypd, because I think he understands what happens, you know, when you put in a chase of boudin or, you know, a nut and have actually. Actually have no. No law enforcement in the city.

[Jon Pothorts]

So. Okay, maybe we should. Let's. Let's move on to less apocalyptic subjects. Although it's interesting that I say this is less apocalyptic, because if you had told me in 1982, when I was finishing my bachelor's thesis at the University of Chicago on U.S. saudi relations, that 44 years later, the United States would be making an agreement with Saudi Arabia to allow them to enrich uranium in a way that might allow them to get a nuclear bomb, I would have thought that you were insane. It would already been, you know, there'd been a huge fight in 1981 over whether or not the Saudis could purchase a defensive radar aircraft called the AWACs on the grounds that you only need a defensive aircraft like that if you're intending to mount offensive actions against another country. The only, and that country might have been Israel. And so there was a real effort to block the sale of those AWACS craft that failed, and the AWACS were, in fact, sold to Saudi Arabia. There was a huge battle in 1981. Here we are 25 years later, excuse me, 45 years later, and Trump is agreeing to the potentially enriching of uranium in Saudi Arabia. What's funny about this is that 10, 12 years ago or 20 years ago, when we first started talking about the danger of the Iranian nuclear program, the threat of the Iranian nuclear program was nuclear proliferation in the Middle east, that if Iran gets a bomb, the Saudis, who are, of course not their mortal enemies, but whom, they have a contest over who the Iranians would like control over the holy sites of Islam that the Saudi royal family has and that they are both, they are the leading representatives of the two sort of fighting clans of Islam and that we needed to stop Iran from getting a bomb, to stop a race to the bomb in the most unstable part of the world. I don't know what to make of the fact that we are participating in this idea with Saudi Arabia, which might sound okay in 2026 when Saudi Arabia is being ruled by pretty erratic, but nonetheless theoretically pro Western chief executive in Mohammed bin Salman, who wants to be Western, but, you know, he could get overthrown, they could be enriching uranium and then some version of the Iranian revolution takes place and a Wahhabist imam takes over Saudi Arabia and then has a nuclear bomb. And the Trump administration, according to the New York Times, its first line of defense against this isn't, we're letting Saudi Arabia do this because they're really, they're being incredibly helpful to us in this war against Iran. And they are, you know, they have been solid senders and doing work with Israel and all of that. They're like, this is going to be worth billions for the domestic nuclear industry in the United States. Westinghouse could make tens of billions of dollars. I don't care if Westinghouse makes tens of billions of dollars or not. I'm sorry, that's, you know, national security here is in question. What do you guys make of this?

[Seth Mandel]

I mean, I'm really not sure. Yeah, you know, I think generally speaking, I, I would, it would be nice not to see any, any movement toward any nuclear proliferation in the, in that region. You know, like, when it comes to that, you know, I can't help, like, you know, I have this, this, this gut fear, you know, regarding that. I don't, I don't know. I mean, you know, I think a lot of this has to do with the Saudis trying to sort of shore up some, some sort of stability here because they had said the US has been very back and forth with them for years now. When Biden first came office, he really sort of imperiled our relationship with Saudi Arabia by making this huge defining

[Jon Pothorts]

issue

[Seth Mandel]

over the, the killing of Khashoggi, the, the the journalist, you know, whatever he was, that, that was killed by, by Riyadh. And I, I think Trump is trying to, as he always does, trying to sort of get U.S. relations on track through what he views purely in business terms. And John, as you say, there's always these other aspects to this that Trump in particular doesn't seem to appreciate,

[James Patterson]

or

[Seth Mandel]

he thinks that sort of the business aspect of it, the trade aspect of it will take care of the rest, that when people are partnering for commercial reasons, that the rest falls into place. I don't share that feeling at all. I worry that this may make it harder for the Saudis to normalize, to have reason to normalize relations with Israel, because if they're now moving toward a nuclear program of their own, there may be less incentive. I don't know. It's too soon to see, and I'm trying to figure my way through it. So I'm sorry for that. Wasn't very clear because, because I'm not clear on it.

[Abe Greenwald]

I think you touched on something important, which is that why shouldn't normalization be a requirement for this deal?

[Jon Pothorts]

Right, right.

[Abe Greenwald]

I mean, there really is at this point. There really is no argument against. Now, people will say, well, you shouldn't tie everything that, you know, you do with the Saudis or other countries to Israel. But in this case, I mean, there's a long history of the US Dealing with the Saudis in ways that sometimes unnerve American Jews and supporters of Israel. The AWACS case was now 40 years, 45 years ago. 45 years ago. But, but we're, you know, so there's just, there are things that crop up every so often with the Saudis that remind you that, yes, actually, you can't really compartmentalize in that way. That what, how you deal with the Saudis directly impacts the deals that you've made with Israel, the agreements to keep up, you know, their, their, you know, their, their military advantages over their neighbors and all that other stuff. That all of these things actually are tied together in certain ways and you could very easily fold this in. But also, it's like, I mean, the other thing you say is, you know, about the incentive. Like, that's, that's what I think about is stop giving the Saudis things without asking for normalization, just stop giving them stuff. Because part of what I've liked about the Abraham Accords era of Trump is that it has normalized normalization. Right. Which is to say it's not even like yesterday's meeting between President Joseph Aoun of Lebanon and Donald Trump at the White House just a few years ago would have resulted in much bigger, bolder headlines. Whereas the President of Lebanon now saying, well, I hope we can end this permanent state of conflict or whatever hostility between Lebanon and Israel forever is like, is is not seen as a, as the big deal that it would have been because all these other states came in first. And so now you have the situation where it's like, you know what, it's kind of silly that we're still playing the normalization game. Actually that's the, that's the great achievement of the Trump era. And the, the Abraham Accords to me is that it has made non normalization seem petty and vindictive and weird and immature and not part of this new world that we're all already living in in which the Israel, you know, delivers anti missile technology and to the UAE to, to, to, you know, to defend them from Iranian strikes.

[Eliana Johnson]

I do think this makes normalization more challenging though. Obviously it's early, but it is in keeping with Trump's the fact that Trump conducts foreign policy without really much of a moral lens. Whereas those, you know, most folks who sit in our camp have supported trading Saudi domestic nuclear program for normalization. Trump of course thinks if we can help American nuclear power companies or American business in exchange for this, that's a good deal on its own merits and we can split that off from the normalization portfolio. And I also think on the Saudi part, their push for this is, as Abe mentioned, a result of the US's unreliability, lack of reliability and retrenchment from world affairs over the past 20 years, since the Obama era and their desire to have a shield, both a sword and a shield, against the Iranians. So we are where we are.

[Jon Pothorts]

I, I Bringing these two topics together raises the ultimate conundrum of the last 150 years of Jewish history. In fact, the mayor of New York can say what he says and be a sort of a. And if history tragically requires us to mark that moment as a moment at which he crystallized prior opposition to Israel and sort of gathered it together into one braid and then led us down a road in which open expressions of Jew hatred and antisemitism and violence and stuff like that become more and more common, this, and this is the ultimate case for Zionism and the Jewish state because really, if it can happen here, the country on earth and the history of the earth that has been the friendliest, the kindest, the most generous, the most comfortable place for the Jewish people That that has ever, you know, has existed since the, you know, the kingdoms of the ancient, the ancient Israelites. If things break down here the way they have broken down in Europe, then the refuge state for Jews becomes everything. It is the survival of the Jewish people in whole. There will be no survival of the Jewish people outside of Israel. And Israel's existence, its strength, its financial success and its possession of a nuclear weapon very crucially provides a dome, an iron dome of protection that will keep this most ancient people alive and around as we go through history. The other aspect is that it also raises yet again an idea that animated people who could be called Jewish anti Zionists from time immemorial, which is if you start raising your head and saying we need a state and we need equal rights and you're not allowed to talk to us this way, and we're going to organize to get politicians who are friendly to us and we're going to attack politicians who aren't friendly to us and all of that. This is a mistake. We're too small, in fact, we're too powerless. And we are going to summon the barbarians against us. And they will come at us and their numbers are just. They will sheerly overrun us with their numbers. And we are making a mistake even to put our heads up. We should hide, we should be quiet, we should stay inside, just say, leave us alone, have our own private ceremonies, have our own private events, do what we do to keep ourselves going and like that. And it is. I haven't heard much of that version that I am now talking about, which also gets to the other point, which is, what are you crazy? You in gathered the majority of Jews on the planet in one relatively small space so they can be wiped out at once. But when an American politician follows the line is Jeremy Corbyn. Jeremy Corbyn never got to be Prime Minister of Britain, but Mamdani is Jeremy Corbyn. What if Jeremy Corbyn had become Prime Minister of Britain? Mamdani is the mayor of New York and he is a harbinger of one form of a democratic future. And the Jewish people are at risk. We have all sorts of means to defend ourselves, but existential questions are now being raised that are inescapable, I think. Okay, on that cheery note, we'll be back tomorrow. For Abe, Seth and Eliana, I'm John Pothorot's Keep the Candle Burning.

[James Patterson]

Sa.