During his March 6, 2026 news avail NYC Mayor Zohran Mamdani said that his wife Rama Duwaji “is the love of my life and she’s also a private person. . . and I believe that it’s my responsibility. . . to answer any questions about my thoughts and my policies and my decisions.” (NYTimes 3/6/2026, emphasis added)
So, Mr. Mayor, I’m asking some questions about those thoughts, policies and decisions that I haven’t heard asked – not out loud at least.
Ali Khamenei
Mayor, did you consider Ayatollah Ali Khamenei a/your spiritual leader as many of the other 75 million ethnic South Asian Shia Muslims, who considered him the “Shia Pope”, did? (NYTimes 3/6/2026, Khameini’s Killing Sparks Anger and Grief in South Asia’s Shiite Muslims) Mr. Mayor, are you in mourning for Ali Khamenei?
How dare I ask these questions? Part of my answer involves additional questions to the mayor about his policies and decisions. These policy questions need answering and raise the thoughts questions that Mamdani says he should be and is willing to answer.
Mamdani’s invitation to ask about his “thoughts” came during his defense of his wife’s social media activity in support of Hamas, immediately after October 7, 2023 and well before Israel’s counter-offensive began. I agree with the mayor’s defense and support of Ms. Duwaji and that her stuff should be irrelevant to an evaluation of the mayor’s policies and performance. And I’m from the liberal club that deems an elected official’s private thoughts off-limits and especially thoughts about their religion, because that is a row of bricks in the eroding wall between church and state, erected by the first clause of the First Amendment. Erosion of that wall began when Jimmy Carter started talking about the lust in his heart and regularly injecting his “born again” experience into his public policies.
Rama Duwaji
Ms. Duwaji’s pro-Hamas social media activity came under scrutiny Friday because two days before that Representative Dan Goldman was being attacked by primary opponent Brad Lander, because Corinne Levy Goldman, the Congressman’s wife, had engaged in social media at the same moment as Duwaji’s, but in her case supporting Israel and disparaging people and groups supporting Hamas – again before Israel’s counter-offensive began.
New York Times reporter Jeff Mays, one of the paper’s nimblest equivocators, suggested that Goldman’s wife was fair game in his March 4 Times column while suggesting that Duwaji was not in his March 6 offering, because Corinne Goldman was her husband’s campaign treasurer. I believe that both wives should be off-limits unless they act in governmental capacities or insert themselves into these public discussions.
Corinne Levy Goldman
But as for Ms. Duwaji’s husband Zohran, the killing of Ali Khamenei, who as we noted in H.L. 209 is condemned by virtually every critic of the American/Israeli invasion of Iran, as a preface to their criticism, reminds me that Mamdani didn’t campaign on the promise to arrest Iranian war criminals when they came to the U.N. or otherwise visited the Big Apple. Early and often, he promised to arrest Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu – something he can do as easily as expand the city’s rent assistance program, a promise he abandoned 43 days into his mayoralty. (NYTimes 2/12/2026 Mamdani Reverses Campaign Promise to Expand Rental Assistance) Breaking those “pie in the sky” promises, as Mamdani has begun doing, won’t get him arrested, but trying to arrest Bibbi might get him a night in the federal Metropolitan Correctional Center in a cell next to Nicolas Maduro.
Pakistanis protesting Khameini’s death
The basis of the mayor’s promise to arrest Israel’s P.M. is Mamdani’s avowed devotion to the rule of law and in this case to uphold inapplicable international law in violation of applicable domestic law. The International Criminal Court, whose jurisdiction does not extend to the U.S. or Israel, non and never signatories, has an outstanding warrant for Bibbi’s arrest. And that warrant cannot be enforced in the U.S.A., not under President Trump, nor under Biden, Obama et al, who all opposed the U.S.A. subjecting our country to its highly selective jurisdiction. The choice of which international treaties and conventions the U.S. adheres to is committed to the federal government by the Constitution, not to state or local officials like Mayor Mamdani, Sheriff Andy or Officer Obie.
I actually hope that Mamdani was lying when he made that promise, which is a prospect less disturbing than contemplating a mayor of the world’s capital (and home to the U.N.) so utterly ignorant of the Constitution he has sworn to uphold. And when making that lie or ignorantly false promise to arrest Netanyahu, Mamdani cited then San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsome’s 2004 issuance of marriage licenses to same-sex couples before California or federal law permitted it. Many among my friends and family were temporarily elated but soon crushed by that Newsome publicity stunt – a model for Mamdani as he states.
Mamdani has never promised to arrest any of the scores of other alleged terrorists and war criminals when they came to the U.N. or otherwise enter the city. None from Sudan nor Myanmar nor Nigeria and not even the Iranians indicted in 2024 by the Biden DOJ.
Mamdani’s selective commitment to enforce inapplicable international law and not enforce applicable domestic law is mirrored in his selective position on the establishment of a state religion by foreign countries.
Leaving aside inquiry into the relevance of foreign state establishment of religion in the governance of an American city, Mamdani frequently explains that the Jewish State need not disappear but simply disestablish Judaism as its state religion. He’s said nothing about the 27 nations that are Islamic theocracies, nor the 13 Christian, not even the one where Hinduism is established. No, that’s not India, as Ghandi prevented the establishment of a “Hindustan.”
That’s why I ask the mayor these questions when it would otherwise be really bad to ask and a good sign of bias. For example, Italian-Americans and German-Americans were once asked who has their allegiance – Italy, Germany or the U.S. of A.[1] And Italians were asked until much more recently – who is your leader, the Pope or the President? Jews like me, are still asked who has your allegiance, Israel or America? Most often, though not always a sign of anti-Semitism.
But when there is evidence though certainly not conclusive, of ambiguous loyalties, questions can be asked.[2] There is evidence from Zohran Mamdani’s statements and inconsistencies. He has offered to answer. And so I ask.
[1] Forgotten, or more likely never known, by most Americans is that there were internment camps for both Italian-Americans and German-Americans during World War II, similar to the infamous internment camps for Japanese-Americans. The Italian and German internment facilities were small compared to those that imprisoned Japanese-Americans, but still a shameful part of American history many want to forget. The forgetters are led and championed by the Trumpers who are seeking to systematically erase our long record of racial discrimination. And the detention of Italian-American and German-American citizens during World War II is also something progressives like to ignore, because it disturbs their pure racism story of America.
[2] Even the New York Times is getting a tad queasy as it showed in today’s article “Mamdani Chooses his Words Carefully After Alleged Terror Attack ” where it reports on the mayor’s initial “carefully worded statement” denouncing both Islamophobic protestors, engaging in vile but First Amendment protected speech and two ISIS inspired men who ignited an incendiary device near the “Stop The Islamic Takeover” rally, with the stated goal of killing more people than the Boston Marathon Bombers. And then after apparent shock at the suggestion of moral equivalence among these evil- doers Mamdani appeared with NYPD Commissioner Jessica Tisch to speak more forcefully about the would be Gracie Mansion Bombers. Jessica, he’s doing that a lot. Don’t you think he has his own beard and doesn’t need another?
It could be that many of us, gentiles and Jews, wish to hold Bibi Netanyahu and the Israeli right to an even higher standard than other genocidal actors like Vladimir Putin since the Israeli military apparatus is so heavily abetted by the United States. Many of us have stood with Israel over the years and our hearts are broken by the moral betrayal of the Netanyahu government in the killing and displacement of their Palestinian neighbors. I do agree that Zohran Mamdani should not have been making unenforceable yet outrageous statements about arresting the Israeli prime minister should he come to New York City to speak at the U.N.
I did not know about the internment of Germans and Italians during WWII. It seems that most of those detained were German or Italian nationals and not United States citizens. Unlike with the Japanese American internments, there was a semblance of due process.
Will the mayor’s wife be living in Gracie Mansion? If so, perhaps she should be prepared to say something about her social media posts concerning Hamas following October 7th. What about Sam Alito’s wife and her inverted American flag. The implications of that should not be considered??
As for Gavin Newsome and the issuance of marriage licenses …… that was a singular moment in American gay history. While the act may largely have been symbolic, please do not dismiss it as a “publicity stunt.”!!