The recent victory of Zohran Mamdani in the Democratic primary for New York City Mayor, a figure sympathetic to Islamist rhetoric, poses an ideological threat to democracy, not just in New York, but in the US and the world.

While the US and Israel wage war against Islamists, and the Muslim majority world’s Gulf Arab States including Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, Jordan, Syria, and Egypt are home to Al Azhar (the world’s oldest Islamic University) and outlaw the Muslim Brotherhood – pro-Islamist players and their policies are welcomed into the Democratic fray.

Islamism – also known as radical Islam – underpins all Islamist terror groups (and their armies) birthing and following 9/11, and those include Al-Qaeda, the Taliban, Hezbollah, Hamas, and ISIS. There are others including al-Shabab, Boko Haram, and the Houthis that are further field. Israel has been fighting Islamist terror armies from multiple fronts for decades, most doggedly since October 7, 2023.

Islamist-sympathising politicians exploit non-radical methods in order to expand and advance radical ideas. They engage in and exploit all organs of democracy to gain influence in the very spaces with which they have an ideological and political war.

As a New York City resident and self-identifying Muslim in a post-9/11, post Global War on Terror, Mamdani bears additional responsibility to disavow himself of Islamism. He must be absolutely clear and categorical about rejecting this ideology.

Yet he does not.

He has failed to condemn the ‘Globalise the Intifada’ chant and shown open support of Boycott, Divestment, Sanction policies which correlate with a pro-Islamist position.

This call is now a defining hallmark in post-October 7 pro-Palestinian protests around the world. ‘Globalise the Intifada’ is an explicit call verbatim of Islamist extremist groups seeking expansion of lethal Islamist antisemitism around the globe. It endangers Jews – and those who defend them – including American Jews under the guise of promoting pro-Palestinian rights.

The dangers of this sentiment are evident as last month Karen Diamond, a longtime member of Bonai Shalom congregation in Boulder, Col., and an American Jewish octogenarian, lost her life when an Egyptian migrant reportedly targeted American Jews peacefully demonstrating on behalf of hostages still in Hamas captivity. This is Islamist antisemitism.

Mamdani is a critic of Zionism, claiming to recognise the Jewish state as a ‘State for all people’. He does this without acknowledging that the Jewish State is a rightful member of nations in the international order, that the Jewish population rightfully predominates in the Jewish state, and that Jewish persons and the Jewish State have an inalienable right to self-determination.

In interviews, Mandani balks at the identity of the Jewish state based on religion, claiming he disagrees with the notion of religion as an identity in national character. This is without acknowledging there are over 55 Muslim majority states defined by Islam and many include or centre the Quran as foundational to their constitution. Not mentioning this as a Muslim is a profound and deliberate oversight.

Mamdani also conveniently fails to recognise that Israel is home to almost 2.5 million non-Jews, including Israeli Muslims who are Bedouin and non-Bedouin Israeli Muslim Arabs, Israeli Christians, Israeli Bahais, and others. Many of these minority populations have become increasingly pro-Zionist and supportive of Israel since the war following October 7.

He also rejects acknowledgment that New York City, where he hopes to govern as Mayor, is home to the second largest Jewish population in the world – over 900,000, or 15 per cent of its population.

Instead, Mamdani favours the slick cloak of social justice to normalise a pro-global intifada rhetoric. This is an extremist position.

His efforts to erase complexity, perform for social media, and further his message for a naïve, and perhaps anti-Israel American public is distilled into a dangerous single story. That story is that Mamdani is an advocate for the downtrodden and somehow seeks to advance the rights of Israelis and Palestinians, even as he stands with Jewish erasure, the BDS movement against Israel, and globalising Islamist ideology.

That Mamdani’s pro-Islamist sentiments have not been widely exposed – as evidenced in his victory – does not surprise. But his progression in political leadership needs to stop here.