From 9/11 to Zohran Mamdani - How Far NYC Has Fallen

From 9/11 to Zohran Mamdani - How Far NYC Has Fallen
Commentary by Sanford D. Horn
October 28, 2025

The latest salvo from Zohran Mamdani hit the public’s eyes and ears just days ago. An oldie, but a goodie, from the archives of September 5, 2023, when headlining as the keynote speaker at the Democratic Socialists of America national convention, Mamdani said “when the boot of the NYPD is on your neck, it’s been laced by the IDF.” (Israel Defense Forces) Wow - two slurs for the price of one from the Socialist-Marxist-Islamist candidate for mayor of New York City.

One of Mamdani’s State Assembly (36-Queens) colleagues, Democrat Kalman Yeger (41-Brooklyn) said, upon hearing Mamdani’s antisemitic and anti-police diatribe, “sometimes it’s hard to tell if Zorhan hates Jews more than he hates cops, or if he hates cops more than he hates Jews.” Sadly for the voters of New York City, there has been more than enough putrid rhetoric to go around from the Democrat-Socialist candidate for mayor of the Big Apple. Should Mamdani get elected on Tuesday, November 4, he will be the worm that infests the Big Apple.

This is just one of myriad thoughts, slogans, professions from the catalog of Mamdani’s Greatest Hits. While flying under the radar as a backbencher in the New York State Assembly, Mamdani’s espousal of virulent antisemitic, anti-Zionist, anti-Israel, anti-police, anti-capitalist, anti-democracy screeds continue to rise to the forefront. Videos of his own words, and not just rhetoric, but a hard core belief system that is dangerous not just for New York City, not just for the United States of America, but for all of Western Civilization. Just about anytime Mamdani opens his mouth, it’s a fair bet something cringeworthy will emerge from his gaping maw.

Sadly, far too many New Yorkers have fallen for the facade of Mamdani’s smarmy grin reminding folks of the supervillain Joker from the Batman franchise. How is it possible for a Marxist to be the frontrunner in this election in the economic epicenter of the United States, if not the world? How is it that a socialist/communist can be on the verge of victory in the first capital of these United States - where General George Washington took the oath of office as the first president of the United States on April 30, 1789 - at Federal Hill overlooking Wall Street?

How can the citizens of New York City elect a sharia-supporting, Muslim extremist to be mayor of the city that will forever be the face of September 11, 2001? Imagine next September 11 - the 25th memorial of 9/11 - with “Mayor Mamdani” present with the thousands of victims’ families and friends that are sure to attend for the reading of the 2,977 names of those murdered by Mamdani’s fellow travelers. And don’t forget the additional 8,200 men and women who have subsequently died from 9/11 related diseases and illnesses, according to legalunitedstates.com. The hypocrisy of Mamdani showing his face will stain the somber ceremony and trample the memories of those murdered that fateful Tuesday morning in New York City, at the Pentagon in Arlington, VA, and in a field in Shanksville, PA. 

Mamdani recently had the unmitigated audacity to compare the slaughter of 2,977 innocents on 9/11 to an alleged experience he said his aunt had. Mamdani said his aunt no longer felt comfortable riding the subways wearing her hijab. Turns out that story has been debunked, that he didn’t even have an aunt living in New York City at the time of 9/11.  Mamdani even campaigned with a jihadi, Hasan Piker, an extreme leftist who, in 2019 said “America deserved 9/11.” 

How, in good conscience, can a single Jewish New Yorker cast a ballot for Mamdani, an antisemite who does not even support Israel’s right to exist as a Jewish sovereign nation? Mamdani has attempted to equate the hostages taken by Hamas on October 7, 2023 with Palestinian criminals legitimately locked away in Israeli prisons. In September Mamdani appeared on Qatari television declaring the United States is underwriting the genocide in the Middle East, that he supports jihad, and that terrorism is a western invention not one from the Middle East. Mamdani has links to the Qatari royal family - the family who harbored Khalil Sheik Mohammad, the mastermind of the 9/11 terrorist attacks. Mamdani consistently refuses to condemn “globalize the indifada,” both the concept and the language. In fact, he has never actually condemned the Holocaust. Additionally, Mamdani is a keen supporter of the BDS movement (boycott, divest, and sanction) against Israel, calling it “a righteous movement for liberation.” He supports a one state solution, and that state is not Israel, as Mamdani endorses “from the river to the sea, Palestine will be free,” and said he would never set foot in Israel. Mamdani also said he would have Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu arrested should he set foot in New York City.

“The most frightening thing about him is his antisemitism,” said Emily Compagno, co-host of Outnumbered on the Fox News Channel.

Mamdani, 34, and born in Uganda, has lived a life of privilege and hypocrisy. Hypocritical because he supports the abolition of private property, just so long as it is not his family’s properties being commandeered by the government. One of his advisors, Cea Weaver, posted in 2019 that “private property,” and “especially home ownership, is a weapon of white supremacy masquerading as wealth building public policy.” On March 25, 2020 Mamdani said “the oligarchs who want to return to work to goose the stock market, are the same ones with thousands of luxury condos as investment properties, sitting empty while New Yorkers die on the streets and in shelters. Seize those properties. House the homeless. Enact a houses guarantee.” Part of his platform calls for a rent freeze, which he cannot institute unilaterally, and for the construction of 200,000 affordable housing units. Mamdani lives in a $3 million condo in Chelsea.

Hypocritical for calling to defund the NYPD, yet has a personal security team. Not only to defund the police, but replace them with social workers, and has called for a ban on all guns. Naturally, throughout his campaign Mamdani has refuted those defund statements. Of course he can’t deny them as social media is forever. He also calls for the abolition of prisons. On October 18, 2021 Mamdani said “we must decarcerate and we must do it now.” Do the 33,000 men and women in blue really believe Mamdani will have their backs while desecrating Gracie Mansion? Perhaps Mamdani’s security team should be social workers.

Mamdani comes by his belief system honestly, as the antisemitic, anti-capitalist, anti-democracy, anti-Western Civilization candidate did not fall far from the tree of the same hatreds. His father Mahmood, a one time professor at Columbia University, called the suicide bombers “worthy of sympathy, not scorn.” One of his mentors, Linda Sarsour, the co-chair of the Women’s March, a Palestinian-American, is also a virulent antisemite who objected to, and attempted to, bar Jewish and LGBTQ women from participating in the march in 2019. 

There is a video of Mamdani flipping the middle finger at a statue of Christopher Columbus in New York City, and shouting, “take it down!”

Some of Mamdani’s other platform planks include decriminalizing drug possession, providing safe injection sites, legalizing prostitution and sex work, raising the minimum wage to $30 an hour, seizing the means of production, and a $10 billion tax hike on businesses. When businesses begin to flee New York City, as many already have, how will Mamdani pay for his socialist/communist agenda? On the backs of the remaining people, too poor to afford to move away from The City? 

More of the Mamdani agenda includes providing free child care, free city buses, and the creation and operation of city-owned grocery stores, all of which are unsustainable. Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) said government-owned grocery stores have worked, yet failed to name one locality where it has. These pie in the sky promises to gullible voters goes beyond socialism. Mamdani said capitalism is “theft. When we tax the rich, we’re reclaiming the wealth bosses and corporations steal,” he said. While on the topic of the rich, “I don’t think we should have billionaires because quite frankly it is so much money in a moment of such inequality,” said Mamdani on Meet the Press on June 29, 2025, just five days after winning the Democrat primary.

So in addition to overtaxing the wealthy, opening the prisons, legalizing drugs and prostitution, Mamdani also wants to protect illegal aliens and the homosexual community calling for making New York City an LGBTQ sanctuary city, akin to the sanctuary city for the illegals regardless of their sexual orientation. (Not that there’s anything wrong with protecting appropriate gay rights.) Mamdani wants a $65 billion commitment for transgender surgery for children, but did not say from whom the commitment should come. He also called for free abortion and contraception on demand.

Mamdani not only wants to end cooperation with I.C.E., but he wants to abolish the entire department of Immigration and Custom Enforcement. “He’ll ensure our immigrant New Yorkers are protected by strengthening our sanctuary city apparatus, getting I.C.E. out of all city facilities, and ending any cooperation, increasing legal support, and protecting all personal data,” it said on Mamdani’s “Zohran for NYC” site.

This is who the citizens of New York City are going to entrust as their leader?

Even the liberal Washington Post condemned Mamdani as wrong for New York City and wrong for the Democrats. “...New Yorkers should be worried that he would lead Gotham back to the bad old days of civic dysfunction, and Democrats should fear that he will discredit their next generation of party leaders, almost all of whom are better than this democratic socialist,” wrote the Post in a June 26, 2025 editorial, two days after Mamdani took the primary.

When the shouting's all over, voters in New York City may have to paraphrase Hyman Roth from The G-dfather Part II and say, “this is the government we’ve chosen.” Do the voting citizens of New York City deserve better? Or do they deserve the government they’ve chosen? May G-d continue to Bless the good people of New York City - there’s still a few out there; and may G-d continue to Bless these United States of America.

Sanford D. Horn is a writer and educator living in Westfield, IN. He grew up in northern New Jersey, a short distance from New York City.

Celebrating Middle East Peace is Premature

Celebrating Middle East Peace is Premature
Commentary by Sanford D. Horn
October 13, 2025

Mazal Tov! The 20 remaining living Israeli hostages held in Gaza by the terrorist organization Hamas have finally been returned to Israeli soil after 738 days in captivity. And they have been released on the eve of Simchas Torah, celebrating the completion of the reading of the Torah - scripture, and the beginning of the reading from Genesis all over again, along with singing and dancing - including dancing with the Torah scrolls. 

Seeing these 20, now former, hostages reunite with families, friends, and other loved ones expressing sheer exhilaration, raw emotions of tears of joy and grief, genuine love, and relief, as well as physical and mental exhaustion should implore anyone with a pulse to thank G-d for their return.

After 738 horrendous, painful days, Matan Angrest, Gali Berman, Ziv Berman, Elkana Bohbot, Rom Braslavski, Nimrod Cohen, Ariel Cunio, David Cunio, Evyatar David, Guy Gilboa-Dalal, Maxim Herkin, Eitan Horn, Segev Kalfon, Bar Kupershtein, Omri Miran, Eitan Mor, Yosef-Haim Ohana, Alon Ohel, Avinatan Or, and Matan Zangauker are back home in Israel where they belong. Say their names and pray for their mental and physical recovery.

“Those prayers of millions have finally been answered. Together we have achieved the impossible. At long last, we have peace in the Middle East,” said President Donald J. Trump.

This potential Gaza Peace Accords deal could only have been accomplished under Trump’s leadership through what President Ronald Reagan often referred to as “peace through strength.” So much strength that Trump took control of these negotiations in spite of countries like Australia, Canada, France, and the United Kingdom recognizing a Palestinian state. Terrorists must never be rewarded with statehood or legitimacy. https://sanfordspeaksout.blogspot.com/2025/10/un-rewards-terrorists-near-107.html 

Under the feckless, weak-kneed Joe Biden administration, the United States commanded virtually no respect around the world. Biden displayed personal and political animus toward Israel and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu - a continuation of the less than friendly relationship between Biden’s former boss Barack Obama and Netanyahu. Additionally, Biden simply did not have the energy or mental capacity to conduct all the negotiations and deal making required to bring the necessary parties together to even consider such a lasting commitment. Perhaps Trump’s next bestseller ought to be entitled The Art of the Peace Deal.

Yes, potential, so don’t start celebrating Middle East peace just yet. There are still numerous pieces that have yet to navigate their way through this geo-political labyrinth.

The agreement has already been broken by Hamas in their failure to return all 28 bodies of deceased hostages - just four have thus far been sent back to Israel. Does anyone actually think Hamas can or should be trusted? Of course not. Can Hamas simply be marginalized? Will they disarm, as required? Will they actually leave Gaza willingly? Anyone holding their breath? And if so, where will they go? No other country wants them - this is how this kerfuffle began in the first place - so-called refugees for more than 75 years, claiming Israel to be their land. More than 40 Arab/Muslim nations refuse admission to the so-called Palestinians, because those nations know who those so-called refugees are. Yet, it is Israel that continues to be lambasted for not wanting, and with good reason, to absorb these people.

These so-called refugees chose to leave Israel upon its independence in 1948. They chose not to live side by side with the Jewish people in peace. What makes anyone think a so-called two-state solution could ever possibly succeed? Especially when the charters of Hamas and Hezbollah call for the evisceration of the Jewish people and the destruction of Israel. These self-defined refugees were not exiled, unlike the Jewish people living in the Arab/Muslim nations. Longtime thriving Jewish communities in the diaspora of the Middle East and North Africa suffered expulsion, a loss of property, and murder as their populations unwillfully shrank to nearly zero, and in some cases, absolute zero. In Israel, Arab/Muslim populations continue to blossom - completely belying the notion of Israel as an apartheid state. That Israel consistently traded, unadvisedly, land for peace, also evinces the lie of Israel as a colonizer. And, being historically accurate, make no mistake, Gaza is still Israel, as is the so-called West Bank, which, in reality is Judea and Samaria. Judea - as in Jewish - as in the Biblical, historical, indigenous, ancestral home of the Jewish people, and should never be under the auspices of any other peoples or nations. Ever.

Aside from the issue of where members of Hamas should relocate after leaving Gaza, what of the myriad other terrorist organizations such as Hezbollah, the Houthis, al-Qaeda, Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigade, and Islamic Jihad? What about the Islamic Republic of Iran, the largest state sponsor of terror? Even if Hamas abides by these agreements, none of these other terrorist organizations agreed to anything. They all have the destruction of Israel and the death of the Jewish people as their top priorities. Will the Islamic Republic of Iran offer safe haven to Hamas? Why is Hamas even being given a reprieve for their crimes against humanity in the first place? Quite frankly, the IDF (Israel Defense Forces) should stay in Gaza until the last Hamas terrorist is eliminated. Allowing any to live gives them an opportunity to regenerate. There can be no peace with surviving Hamas members or any of the other terror organizations’ members.

If this is intended to be a peace deal, why would there be a demand for the release of upwards of 2,000 Palestinian prisoners from Israeli jails and prisons? These are criminals convicted of commiting heinous crimes including, but not limited to rape, kidnapping, murder, bombings, and terrorist activities. There is no equivalence, moral or otherwise, between 250 Israelis forcibly taken hostage by Hamas versus criminal Palestinians imprisoned for committing the aforementioned crimes. If there is to be peace in the Middle East all geo-political entities must not only recognize Israel and its right to exist, but to do so in peace. Remember, on October 6, 2023 a ceasefire existed until shattered by Hamas the next morning - on Shabbos and celebration of Simchas Torah.

And just what will peace in Gaza look like? If Hamas is no longer to be the governing authority, who will fill that void? There are 2.1 million so-called Palestinians in Gaza. Gaza is still and should remain part of Israel. Should Gaza become a de facto Palestine? Quite frankly, Gaza is barely inhabitable. If Israel is to rebuild Gaza, it should be reinhabited by Israelis, not unlike those who were forced to evacuate in 2005. Israelis not only fled Gaza, their dead were taken with the living and reburied outside of Gaza. What became of Gaza after the Israelis departed is absolutely disgraceful - the so-called Palestinians destroyed the infrastructure, greenhouses, and even the agriculture, replacing much of it with substandard housing, schools teaching children to kill Jews and hate Israel, mosques preaching the same, and hundreds of miles of underground terror tunnels. Those so-called Palestinians who are truly displaced persons from their destroyed homes should be absorbed by the other Arab/Muslim nations on a per capita basis so as not to create an undue burden on those nations’ economies.

If Israel rebuilds Gaza, it should be Israelis who benefit with and from the businesses, technology centers, hotels and other hospitality at the beach, sports and music venues, as well as new, state of the art hospitals, schools and houses of worship that neither teach nor preach the killing of Jews and the hatred of Israel.

To paraphrase an old adage, a rising peace lifts all economies. The successful Abraham Accords during Trump’s first term between Israel, Bahrain, Morocco, Sudan, and the United Arab Emirates moved to normalize relations between those nations. With this future phase of Abraham Accords off in the not so distant horizon, a new era of recognition, cooperation, and hopefully economic partnerships will be ushered in where investments will be made in life saving medical techniques, technology, and agricultural advancements instead of bombs, munitions, and terror tunnels. 

Prabowo Subianto, president of Indonesia, a country with no diplomatic ties with Israel for decades, spoke before the United Nations on Tuesday September 23. “We must also recognize, we must also respect, and we must also guarantee the safety and security of Israel. Only then we can have real peace,” said Subianto, head of state of the largest Muslim-majority nation, with a population of 283 million people. Subianto concluded his speech with “Shalom.”

Sanford D. Horn is a writer and educator living in Westfield, IN. He and his wife last visited Israel in 2019 and they look forward to a return trip.

UN Rewards Terrorists Near 10/7 Anniversary

UN Rewards Terrorists Near 10/7 Anniversary 
Commentary by Sanford D. Horn
October 3, 2025

The upcoming celebration of Sukkot will be marred by the still fresh memories and open wounds of the invasion of Israel by the terrorist organization Hamas, the slaughter of more than 1,200 innocent Israelis by Hamas, and the capture of an additional 250 innocents - 48 of whom are still being held hostage by Hamas. Adding insult to injury, the feckless United Nations voted to reward those terrorists with a state, and did so just days before the Jewish New Year of Rosh Hashanah.

The first day of Sukkot, an eight day festival celebrating the harvest, where Jewish People eat their meals in huts, just thatched enough to be able to see the stars in the sky, falls on October 7 - the second dour “anniversary” of the 2023 invasion and massacre. Those huts, Sukkahs, are decorated by children with produce and artwork. Sadly, thanks to Hamas, hundreds of young people will not be able to decorate their family or synagogue sukkahs this year.

And yes, it is Hamas being rewarded with a state. It was the terrorist organization Hamas that garnered a so-called election in Gaza in 2006 - to date the only such plebiscite under the authoritarian and terrorist regime. A regime responsible for the deaths of tens of thousands of its own people via shootings, stoning, strangulations, and starvation. Gaza, (Israel) which had been inhabited by Jewish People, withdrew not just the living, but the dead - reintering their deceased out of Gaza in order to allow so-called Palestinians the inhabitation of that land in 2005. Since then, Hamas destroyed the infrastructure left in place by the Jews before vacating Gaza, and in its place Hamas built hundreds of miles of terror tunnels. Gaza has beachfront land that could have been built into the Riviera of the Middle East. But instead, terrorism, murder, rape, kidnapping and destruction became the order of the day.

For those with short memories or who have chosen to ignore facts, reality, and truth, the ceasefire demanded by the useless UN, and a cavalcade of their ignorant minions (so-called sovereign nations living on their knees), actually existed until October 6, 2023 when Hamas shattered it by slaughtering more than 1,200 innocent Israeli children, women, and men, many attending a music festival, others preparing to observe Simchat Torah. Simchat Torah celebrates the completion of the reading of the Torah - scripture, and the beginning of the reading from Genesis all over again, along with singing and dancing - including dancing with the Torah scrolls. Hamas produced its own video footage of their heinous crimes against humanity - including raping little girls and women, murdering pregnant women, murdering babies and children, as well as the kidnapping of more than 250 other innocents. Of those 250 hostages, 48 are still in captivity, with 20 believed to be alive - maybe. Put in perspective, consider if more than 40,000 Americans were murdered on September 11, 2001.

In the two years since the October 7, 2023 Hamas invasion of Israel, in unprecedented actions, Israel warned civilians in Gaza, via various forms of media, to flee for their safety as the IDF (Israel Defense Forces) sought to eliminate Hamas and other terrorists. Additionally, it is Hamas killing its own people - preventing them from seeking safe havens because of the optics to make Israel look guilty in the eyes of the anti-Israel press, the UN, and other detractors. It is Hamas starving its own people - again with video proof - by hijacking thousands of tons of food and medical supplies sent into Gaza provided by Israel. Hamas then extorts its own people in an effort to fund their continued terrorist war against Israel. While Israel gives Gazan civilians warnings before strikes against Hamas, it is Hamas hiding in hospitals, elementary schools, even mosques - desecrating their own houses of worship.

And for all the damage, death, and destruction perpetrated by Hamas and its rabid supporters, the UN decided now is the right time to reward that evil, heinous, murderous behavior. So the message, the takeaway, is clearly rape, kidnap, and kill as many Jews and Israelis as possible and you will become a sovereign nation within the family of nations. Where will this nation exist? With what borders? Under what leadership? With what form of government? Will this be the same nation people supporting a two-state solution have naively called for? Naively because it is written in the charter of Hamas (and Hezbollah) that the Jewish People are to be eliminated (killed), and the sovereign, independent nation of Israel is to be razed. One cannot negotiate with, or peacefully coexist with those seeking your total annihilation. And those rabid supporters include the tens of thousands of painfully ignorant college students residing full time in their echo chambers driving the rates of antisemitism through the roof. And the overseas antisemitism that includes the attack on, and murder in a Manchester, UK synagogue on Yom Kippur (Oct. 2), the holiest day on the Jewish calendar.

This is also why land for peace is a perpetual failure. Once land is gone, it is gone; peace is fleeting at best. A nation for the Palestinian people must never include land that is Israel. And that includes the so-called “West Bank,” which is, and always has been Jewish land - Judea and Samaria - Judea, as in Jewish, and should never belong to anyone else. Hamas, Hezbollah, the Houthis, Islamic Jihad, and myriad terrorist organizations won’t even acknowledge Israel as a nation or recognize its basic right to exist as a people, as a sovereign nation. They certainly wouldn’t dare to praise Israel for being the most democratic nation in the Middle East affording equal rights to its citizenry - Jewish, Christian, Druze, Muslim, Israeli, and Arab. They serve in the military, the Knesset (parliament), work as judges, doctors, lawyers, architects, engineers, businessmen, and teachers. All these terrorist organizations want is the death and destruction of the Jewish people and its Biblical, eternal, indigenous, native land of Israel. That is never a viable solution.

The UN voted overwhelmingly, on September 12, to reward terrorism and terrorists with a nation called Palestine, as 142 nations voted in favor, 10 voted against, and 12 abstained. The 10 nations opposing the measure included the United States, Israel, Hungary, Argentina, Paraguay, Micronesia, Nauru, Palau, Papua New Guinea, and Tonga. These are the brightest nations in an increasingly dim UN who know terrorism and terrorists should never be rewarded with a nation, or anything else. (https://www.newsweek.com/un-general-assembly-israel-palestine-two-state-solution-2129372) 

Israel and the Jewish People, a scant 0.2 percent of the global population - not two percent, two-tenths of one percent, are fighting for mere survival on a daily basis. From the executions, expulsions, pogroms, and Holocaust prior to the present-day re-founding of Israel in 1948, to the five-pronged invasion upon the announcement of independence, to the Six Day War, the Yom Kippur War, the intifadas, the War with Iran, and the myriad continuous invasions and terrorist attacks on an almost daily basis, as well as the calumny of disinformation, misinformation, and outright lies perpetuated by Israel’s enemies, the UN, and the global press, Israel is in a constant state of defense and survival mode. While they are made to be a constant victim, they are not behaving like a victim - laying on the floor crying, whimpering in the corner. 

No, instead, Israel and the Jewish People are doing what is right and necessary to not just survive, but prosper and thrive. Public opinion be damned. Israel and the Jewish people must stand strong, be bold, be proud - speak out against antisemitism wherever it may be - on campus, in the cities, in the media, and in the body politic. Dara Horn (no relation) wrote an excellent book - People Love Dead Jews, a title that speaks volumes. That there is sympathy, for, and a desire to read about dead Jews in history, and not the living. It is the living Jewish People who are the future of a strong, vibrant nation, growing stronger in their faith, their patriotism, and their continuing contribution to all avenues of society - medicine, law, education, science, literature, and service to community. The Jewish People and Israel - hardly monolithic - survived the pogroms, the Holocaust, October 7, 2023, and will continue to do so in spite of the terrorists, the antisemitic press and academia, and the antisemitic UN and its tentacled agencies, such as UNRA, UNESCO, WHO, and ICC. 

Am Israel Chai. עם ישראל חי.

Sanford D. Horn is a writer and educator living in Westfield, IN. He and his wife last visited Israel in 2019 and they look forward to a return trip.