On January 6, 2021, President Trump stated, “I know that everyone here will soon be marching over to the Capitol building to peacefully and patriotically make your voices heard.”
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The Democrats later tried to imprison Trump and ban him from the presidency forever over language they contended was tantamount to a call for insurrection against the federal government. Interestingly, they don’t have the same standard for a mayor who’s issuing a similar call for people to protest a visiting head of state. Apparently, only some (i.e., Democrat) politicians are allowed to call for citizens to speak out.
Mamdani’s call, of course, came in the context of his conceding that he lacked the power to arrest Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who’s wanted in the International Criminal Court (“ICC”) for alleged war crimes. A few points about that:
First, neither the United States nor Israel is a party to the Rome Statute, the treaty that established the ICC. This means that the ICC has no authority over them, and they have no obligation to abide by its demands.
Second, Karim Khan, the ICC prosecutor who sought the arrest warrants against Netanyahu and former Israeli defense minister Yoav Gallant, seems to be a dirty actor.
Yesterday (July 24), based upon sexual misconduct allegations against him, the ICC’s Assembly of States Parties, by an 82-to-13 vote (with 15 abstentions), voted to remove him from office after he had committed “serious misconduct” and a “serious breach of duty.” I’m shocked that a British Muslim man of Pakistani descent would be accused of this type of wrongdoing. Shocked! Shocked, I tell you!
Third, of course, the entire charge is laughable. As many have pointed out repeatedly, it’s not genocide if you wage a traditional war against an enemy that has deliberately embedded itself among a civilian population; if you send food to enemy civilians only to have their military steal that food; and if you offer escape corridors to enemy civilians only to have their own military shoot at them. It’s also not a genocide if the enemy civilian population has dramatically grown both while under your aegis and after you pulled out from their territory.
I don’t know whether Mamdani knew these last two points, but he certainly knew the first. He’s sleazy, ill-informed, and (I think) quite evil, but he’s savvy enough to know that he could not possibly arrest Bibi.
So, why the charade? Because he’s a theater kid. (Remember, he was going to be a rapper.) The point was to put on a memorable show so that he could drive home his message: Bibi is a genocidal maniac who needs to…be arrested? Die? Something…
The performance got Mamdani airtime. It’s a tried-and-true demagogue practice.
Once that effort failed (as Mamdani knew it would), he moved on to the next play in the demagogue’s handbook: stir up the crowd. And so we got the carefully phrased statement urging the now baying antisemitic mob to hit the streets:
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“One of the bedrocks of our city is protesting. It is something that’s been a part of what makes our city so special that New Yorkers can express themselves whether they are in support or in opposition no matter what,” Mamdani told reporters, responding to a question about what people frustrated by Netanyahu and his war in Gaza can do. “When we respect our constitution, we also respect our First Amendment.” Mamdani didn’t answer when asked whether he would join protests himself.
He didn’t add “peacefully.” Mamdani knows what leftist mobs do, whether at President Trump’s inauguration, the 2020 “Summer Of (Violent And Sadistic) Love,” or the recent anti-ICE protests. He’s counting on violence. Certainly, the NYPD knows it’s coming:
Mayor Zohran Mamdani is telling New Yorkers to take to the streets to protest Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu when he visits the Big Apple — and it has NYPD cops fuming.
[snip]
“The mayor’s activist posturing puts police officers on the street in a terrible position,” NYPD Police Benevolent Association President Patrick Hendry said. “Protests during the UN General Assembly are nothing new, but when the mayor of the city is actively calling for demonstrations, violent agitators will assume they have permission to cause as much havoc as possible.
“Those same agitators know that the NYPD’s protest response is already hamstrung by the dangerous lawsuit settlement the city signed over the PBA’s opposition,” Hendry said. “The mayor’s heated rhetoric could be enough to push demonstrations over the edge into chaos.”
Given that Bibi will be in the U.S. as an invited, and therefore protected, guest of the United States government, it’s almost as if Mamdani is trying to stir up…dare I say it?…an insurrection. And yet, the media are silent. Once again, sauce for the Republican goose has absolutely nothing to do with the Democrat gander.
And one last point. Zohran Mamdani was naturalized in 2018, at which time he swore to the truth of this statement: “I will support and defend the Constitution and laws of the United States of America against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same…”
If Mamdani is stirring up an insurrection by calling on citizens to engage in violent action against the U.S. government, he’s violated that oath, a form of willful misrepresentation. That leaves him open to denaturalization and deportation.
I don’t seriously think any of that will happen, of course, but it certainly could based upon his actions as mayor when viewed through the prism of the Democrats’ fiercely argued position regarding Donald Trump.
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