NYC’s Mamdani should sit out 9/11 Memorial
by Editorial Board · The Washington TimesOPINION:
More than 1,100 family members of 9/11 victims have asked organizers of a ceremony commemorating the 25th anniversary of the World Trade Center attack to exclude New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani.
Their online petition at Change.org has collected more than 12,000 signatures in less than 48 hours. It asks event organizers to carefully consider the impact of the notoriously divisive mayor’s presence.
The Marxist mayor’s associates and allies, including candidates he has endorsed, have expressed sympathy for the 9/11 terrorists and said America deserved the attacks.
The mayor has refused to condemn the slogan “Globalize the intifada,” overseen an upsurge of antisemitic hate crimes during his brief tenure and threatened to arrest Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu when he comes to New York.
Mr. Mamdani’s father, Mahmood Mamdani, a professor of African history and colonialism at Columbia University, argued in a book published shortly after the attacks that suicide bombers should be understood as a feature of modern political violence.
An associate of Mr. Mamdani, influencer Hasan Piker, said during a livestream that the United States “deserved 9/11.” Among the mayor’s anti-American associates is fellow Democratic Socialists of America congressional nominee Darializa Avila Chevalier, who has called the United States a “f—-ing disgrace.”
Mr. Mamdani endorsed Aber Kawas, the Democratic nominee for New York State Senate, who said the 9/11 attack must be seen in the context of “U.S. capitalism, racism, White supremacy and Islamophobia.”
After the atrocity, Mr. Mamdani claimed that he and his fellow Muslims were also victims of the attack because it incited a wave of Islamophobia. For the mayor to compare the deaths of 2,977 innocents to religious prejudice is nothing short of obscene.
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The petition declares: “This anniversary is one of remembrance grounded in shared American values: respect for the victims, recognition of the gravity of the attacks, and a clear rejection of the ideologies that contributed to such violence. For many families and community members, participation in these ceremonies carries an implicit expectation that those present uphold and affirm these principles without ambiguity.”
Mr. Mamdani loses on every count.
The 25th anniversary ceremony is a solemn occasion for Americans to honor the memory of those who died in the most devastating terrorist attack on United States soil and rededicate themselves to this nation’s security.
As should be readily apparent, Mr. Mamdani has no place there.
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