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What Hamas Taught Mamdani: Lessons in Populist Propaganda and Totalitarian Takeover

(Jerusalem Center for Security and Foreign Affairs) Dr. Dan Diker - Zohran Mamdani's 2025 campaign for New York City mayor, framed as a progressive crusade for economic justice, bears conspicuous similarities to Hamas's 2006 electoral campaign. Both campaigns leveraged populist economic grievances to mask radical ideological agendas, blending reformist rhetoric with revolutionary objectives. Hamas's victory in the 2006 Palestinian legislative elections, built on promises of economic reform and anti-corruption, offers a playbook that Mamdani appears to follow, consciously or not, in his bid to remake New York, reflecting the Red-Green Alliance - a coalition of socialism and radical Islamism that threatens pluralistic societies. Hamas's 2006 campaign under the "Change and Reform" banner promised economic independence, poverty reduction, and infrastructure development. These pledges resonated with Palestinians disillusioned by Fatah's corruption, securing Hamas's electoral success. Hamas's 2006 platform combined economic populism with uncompromising rejection of Israel. Mamdani's campaign similarly blends economic reform with ideological extremism. Mamdani's long-standing support for the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) movement, evident since his 2014 advocacy at Bowdoin College and his 2021 push for local candidates to back BDS, situates New York's local battles within a global anti-American, anti-imperialist, and anti-Zionist framework. The writer is president of the Jerusalem Center.
2025-07-17 00:00:00
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