Afrasianet - Ibrahim Darwish - It is not an exaggeration to say that Mamdani's victory was the result of two years of genocidal war on Gaza and its people, as a result of the change in public opinion and what the Zaid generation saw as an alliance between political and media elites to whitewash the image of genocide.
The Big Apple" has sharpened its knives in anticipation of the next battle with the mayor, who will officially take office in January 2026. While another downplayed the victory, pointing to the challenges facing the young Madani, who has been campaigned viciously by billionaires to bring down his independent rival, former governor Andrew Cuomo.
The Wall Street Journal (5/11/2025) said that New York has become in the hands of Zahran's socialist and we have to wait if he will be open or pragmatic, prevail over wisdom and stay away from the extremism he has been described as, and that his ideas to make homes accessible to all, provide health care for children and free transportation fees are the dreams of the inexperienced boy.
Vote against Trump
But the newspaper said in another editorial (5/11/2025) that Mamdani's victory and victories for Democrats in other US states were a ballot on Trump himself.It said that Trump responded to the victory with frantic messages on social media platforms in which he blamed the defeat for the government shutdown imposed by the Democrats and his non-candidacy himself.
The newspaper added that the mere belief of the Republican Party and the president himself, means that Republicans are headed for bigger problems in 2026. She said Trump's name was on the ballots, not literally, but it was nonetheless the main driver behind the Democrats' high turnout. The Democratic candidates who won the governorship of New Jersey and Virginia linked their opponents to Trump, pushing Democratic voters to the polls and erasing the Republican Party's 2024 gains between Hispanics, blacks and independents. This led to the Democrats' victory and more than the polls had predicted.
However, the Guardian newspaper said in its editorial that Mamdani's victory came against all the challenges and obstacles that were put in his way, and his victory on Tuesday was a joyous and defining moment for progressives. He entered the race with zero to win and emerged victorious with more than 50 percent of the vote, in an election that saw the highest turnout in half a century. Mamadani was a priority in his victory, becoming the first young mayor to serve as mayor in more than 100 years and the first Muslim.
Mamdani has avoided the culture wars his rivals have tried to drag him into, she said, focusing specifically on the living conditions of New Yorkers. Despite attempts by Republicans to strip him of his status as a U.S. citizen and to look for ways to deport him to Uganda, where his academic father, Mahmoud Mamdani, returns, their attempts failed.
In particular, he was accused of supporting the "global intifada," his stance on the Gaza war, and his pledge to prevent Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu from entering New York if elected. Hence the reverberations of his global victory, especially in Israel, whose leaders were so appalled that a minister invited Jews in New York to immigrate to Israel. Although New York Jews mostly supported the Democratic candidate, the New York Times (5/11/2025) monitored the echoes of the victory, which sparked an emotional and often heated debate in Israel, moving beyond the question of whether it would harm American Jews and Israel's standing in the United States, and quickly moved to the question of how much damage a New York mayor would do to someone who is highly critical of Israel.
Avigdor Lieberman, a right-wing opposition party leader and former foreign minister, wrote: "The Big Apple has fallen to New York." He strongly rejected accusations by his opponents that he was anti-Semitic.
The newspaper noted that the strong reaction ignored Israel's actions in Gaza, which had mobilized political support for Maddani. His election revealed the possibility that a candidate critical of Israel could win a municipal election. Mamdani's positions were clear, especially when he was asked questions about Israel's right to exist as a Jewish state, and that he believed that all its citizens, regardless of their religion, should have equal rights. Still, the Israeli right-wing rhetoric stuck to its well-known crisis: linking Mamdani to jihadists and even going back to the 9/11 attacks that occurred when Mamdani was young. Ministers were even quick to link the fall of the "Big Apple" to London, which Trump has long targeted with criticism because its mayor, Sadiq Khan, is a Muslim and has won three consecutive election cycles. This ignores the generational transformations that America and the world have witnessed due to the Gaza war.
In fact, Mamdani's idea of New York clashes with Trump and his MAGA vision, to make America great again, an isolationist nationalism. Ishan Tharoor wrote in the Washington Post (4/11/2025) that Mamdani, like other liberals and progressives around the world, will face a similar battle. He added that some critics of the new mayor want to believe the "clash of civilizations" and that his victory is a continuation of the conflict between the world of Islam and Christianity.
In the run-up to the New York City mayoral election, prominent American right-wingers, including President Trump, described the Social Democrat as an alleged "jihadist," a "Jew-hater," and even a supporter of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. In their eyes, Mamdani's Indo-Ugandan origins were questionable, and his partially Muslim background posed a threat.
Rather than argue with a political rival, a number of Republican lawmakers have sought ways to revoke Mamadani's citizenship and deport him. But in the eyes of many in New York, Mamadani remained New York par excellence. His social media conveyed his authenticity and connection to the city. His focus on making living accessible in the city has led to a significant increase in voter registration among young people hungry for change. "We are in a period of political darkness: Donald Trump and his ICE agents are kidnapping our immigrant neighbors from our city in front of our eyes," he said at a pre-election event, and "his authoritarian administration is waging a violent campaign of revenge against anyone who dares to oppose him."
When he was met with blatant anti-Islamic and scathing attacks, Mamdani gave a moving speech about the experience of living under intolerance in the United States and the need to reject it. It has maintained its long record of pro-Palestinian activism, while distancing itself from some of the excesses of activist rhetoric. As mayor, he vowed to "deploy hundreds of lawyers" to resist Trump's federal excesses and protect the city's most vulnerable.
Faced with an onslaught on the far-right angry at his victory, Mamadani emphasized the diversity of his victory speech, thanking voters including "Yemeni shopkeepers," "Senegalese taxi drivers," "Uzbek nurses," "Trinidadian restaurant chefs," and "Ethiopian aunts." This gives space to the pluralism that liberals like him believe in, against the policy of isolation, extremism and authoritarianism advocated by Trump and his supporters.
The Mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, was clear in an article published in Time magazine (5/11/2025) where he said that Mamdani's victory is a victory for hope. He wrote: "Skeptics predicted the deterioration of London and New York. But every time we faced a crisis of confidence, we came out stronger than before."
Jeremy Corbyn, the former leader of the Labour Party, took part in Mamdani's campaign in New York over the weekend. Leftist Colombian President Gustavo Petro, whose U.S. visa was revoked by the U.S. State Department in September, responded to Mamdani's victory by posting a photo of himself with Mamdani. Maria José Pizarro Rodríguez, another leader of Petro's party, tweeted that Mamdani's victory showed that liberal ideas are not extreme, but necessary. In his victory speech, Mamadani quoted the American socialist Eugene Debs and Jawaharlal Nehru, India's first prime minister, echoing the leader's midnight speech in 1947: "There comes a rare moment in history when we move from the old to the new, when an era comes to an end and when the soul of a nation, long suppressed, finds an outlet her." However, supporters of Indian nationalist Hindu Prime Minister Narendra Modi have found what Mamadani accuses of being anti-Hindu because of his public criticism of Modi and his policies. In May, Mamadani called Modi a "war criminal" – statements that received widespread attention in India.
According to academic Hamed Dabshi, Mamdani's victory remains a moral awakening for America. In an article published by the Middle East Eye website (5/11/2025), he wrote that Mamdani's victory in the face of a wave of Islamophobia and Zionist propaganda from billionaires and media elites emphasizes justice and solidarity with the working class. "They have poured all their poisonous hatred on him: their evil billionaires, their pro-genocide rabbis, their anti-Islam hate mongers, their corrupt yellow newspapers, their sold-out TV stations, their fake news, their AI-powered Instagram accounts, even their president, and yet they have failed miserably," he said. What we have seen in New York since last June's primary elections was not a battle between Jews and Muslims, but between Jewish leaders who supported the Gaza genocide and their declining electoral base on the one hand, and the entire world, which has witnessed a vicious Israeli genocide of Palestinians that is still unfolding.
This municipal election also served as a measure of how much millions of Americans defied the carefully chosen billionaire class and rabbis who misuse American resources to support crimes against humanity.