(JNS) Extreme socialism is now on the march in America, with the demonization of Israel as the principal weapon in its arsenal.<\/p>\n
Claire Valdez, Brad Lander and Darializa Avila Chevalier<\/a>, three extremists backed by New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani, emerged victorious this week from their Democratic primaries in New York City\u2019s 7th, 10th and 17th congressional districts.<\/p>\n Valdez and Chevalier<\/a> are affiliated with the ultra-left, anti-American Democratic Socialists of America.<\/p>\n On social media, Valdez<\/a> has boasted of having \u201cwiped my hand on the American flag.”<\/p>\n Chevalier, a convert to Islam, has called for the abolition of police, prisons and the country\u2019s borders. She also co-founded Columbia University Apartheid Divest, a Muslim Brotherhood front group whose goals are the \u201cfull eradication of Western civilization” and the cultivation of \u201cunrest and violence in America.”<\/p>\n If elections to New York\u2019s legislature are included, seven out of eight DSA-affiliated candidates won victory this week.<\/p>\n The support of Mamdani, who actively campaigned for these candidates, was critical to this alarming advance for extremism.<\/p>\n Yet the commentator and \u201cMorning Joe” host Joe Scarborough declared that the person most responsible for this march of extremism in New York City wasn\u2019t Mamdani, but the Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.<\/p>\n What was shaping views now, he said, were images that Israel had brutalized children and women in Gaza \u201cwith bombing that looks indiscriminate on TV day in and day out for years” and would be \u201cable to level half of Lebanon.”<\/p>\n Scarborough did not draw the reasonable conclusion that these images had persuaded millions of people to believe libelous falsehoods that had been propagated to delegitimize the State of Israel as a prelude to its destruction.<\/p>\n Instead, he suggested that these lies were true, and so he was holding Netanyahu responsible for the anti-Zionism which had powered those election campaigns.<\/p>\n A moment\u2019s thought shows how ludicrous this is. Hatred of the Jewish homeland not only long predated Netanyahu\u2019s first period as prime minister but predated the establishment of the State of Israel itself.<\/p>\n It\u2019s true, however, that anti-Zionism was a driving force in these elections. All three House candidates ran campaigns that focused on ending U.S. support for Israel.<\/p>\n All three of them used the \u201cgenocide” libel against the Jewish state. Chevalier doubled down on the support she had voiced for Hamas the day after the terrorist group led the attack against Israel on Oct. 7, 2023.<\/p>\n A hijab-wearing Palestinian Arab, Aber Kawas, who won the primary for the New York State Senate, has written extensively on her blog about her support for \u201cimprisoned heroes,” including the \u201cHoly Land Five” (convicted of terrorism financing) and Ahmed Ferhani<\/a>, an Algerian man who pleaded guilty in 2012 to planning a mass shooting at a Manhattan synagogue.<\/p>\n For his part, Mamdani referred last week to the pro-Israel lobby group AIPAC and its supporters as \u201cmonsters,” channeling the key antisemitic conspiracy theory that accuses the Jews of controlling America in the pursuit of diabolical goals.<\/p>\n The true monsters are surely the Iranian regime, Hamas, Hezbollah-and Mamdani himself, who works for Israel\u2019s destruction and hugely increases the physical danger to Jews living in and visiting New York.<\/p>\n These New York election results have demonstrated that anti-Zionism has become the principal driver of Democratic Party politics, just as it has of progressive culture in general.<\/p>\n The elections demonstrated the menacing alliance between Islamism and ultra-leftism-embodied by Mamdani-that has the whole of America in its sights.<\/p>\n Islamists and leftists are united in the two things that drive them: their desire to end America and the West, and their deranged loathing of Israel and the Jewish people.<\/p>\n This loathing isn\u2019t just the glue binding these two otherwise opposing groups together. It\u2019s the Islamists\u2019 key weapon against America itself.<\/p>\n The \u201cJewish question” is now turning into the driver of Democratic Party politics. Hatred of Israel is a Trojan horse for the agenda of Islamisation, the process of conquering America and the West for Islam.<\/p>\n Tragically, however, many American Jews whose support for the Democrats is tribal and unshakeable continue to back Mamdani even now.<\/p>\n Brad Lander, a former New York City comptroller who is Jewish and who defeated Rep. Dan Goldman (D-N.Y.) in the primary for New York\u2019s 10th Congressional District, is a close ally of the mayor. He declared that he would be \u201cone of the Jewish members of Congress most willing to stand up for Palestinian human rights,” and that he would \u201cstand firmly against bigotry aimed at Jews.”<\/p>\n This was humbug.<\/p>\n Last month, Lander went to the Al-Khoei Foundation, an Islamic center in Queens, N.Y., identified by American security agencies as allied to the Iranian regime.<\/p>\n There, he accused<\/a> Israel of a \u201cdesecration” of Judaism by committing genocide in Gaza and potentially also in Lebanon. He said he hoped to partner with Reps. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) and Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.)-two members of the Israel-hating \u201cSquad” in the U.S. House of Representatives-just as he had with Mamdani.<\/p>\n He even recited in Arabic a verse from the Quran that said: \u201cHe is Allah who is one, Allah the eternal refuge \u2026 nor is there to him any equivalent.” Following his remarks, the Imam at the mosque prayed to the Mahdi-the Shia Muslim messiah-to kill infidels with his sword.<\/p>\n The anti-Israel group IfNotNow celebrated Lander\u2019s win as \u201ca blueprint for the future for both the Jewish community and the Democratic Party.”<\/p>\n \u201cHe ran a bold, unapologetically Jewish campaign that rejected pro-war lobbies like AIPAC<\/a> and the endless flow of U.S. weapons to Israel,” stated the group\u2019s executive director, Morriah Kaplan.<\/p>\n But Lander is actively running interference for Islamists determined to kill Jews, exterminate Israel and conquer the West.<\/p>\n Defaming and delegitimizing Israel and Zionism is not only deeply unjust. It\u2019s a direct onslaught on Judaism and leads inexorably to attacks on Jews.<\/p>\n After Lander\u2019s opponent, Goldman, visited a coffee shop in Brooklyn, N.Y., with his 7-year-old daughter, the cafe subsequently posted the message: \u201cWe don\u2019t serve racists fascists homophobes genocide enablers or anyone in between. Too bad we didn\u2019t recognize you right away, or we would have turned you away.”<\/p>\n