On Tuesday, voters in New York City’s Democratic primary selected a Muslim state legislator and a Jewish comptroller as their first and third respective choices for mayor. Both men have been critical of Israel and supportive of Palestinians to varying degrees.
That Zohran Kwame Mamdani and Brad Lander staved off the odds-on favorite while being critical of hardline Zionism seems, at first glance, as surprising as their decision to cross-endorse each other in New York’s ranked-choice system, in which voters can select up to five candidates in their order of preference.
But looking deeper, it may be that the duo vanquished Andrew Cuomo not in spite of their cooperation and their critiques of Israel, but because of them.
And they certainly ended a national belief that getting arrested for a cause you believe in—especially if that cause is defending immigrants or Palestinian lives—will get you booted from any job in the formal economy in general and as an elected government official in particular.
Mamdani and Lander’s bromance included what appeared to be a genuine affection for one another, riding CitiBikes together, and appearing on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert side-by-side. Their partnership contained many of the same traits of a politics of vulnerability, which I noted earlier this week, seen in the walks toward freedom Mamdani and activist Mahmoud Khalil recently traveled. Throughout the campaign, the pair has not tried to dominate one another, but has instead employed a politics of collaboration in order to fend off the bombastic former governor and serial harasser, Andrew Cuomo.
Perhaps the most significant quality of their cross-endorsement is that they engaged in a politics of maturity. While they did go hard at Cuomo, their one true enemy, they pumped a lot of positive energy into the race by being nice or neutral to their other competitors and by gassing each other up. This was especially magnanimous of Lander, who seems like a real mensch. He must have known in the final weeks that he, personally, would not win, yet, he never punched left. Instead, he repeatedly used his various privileges to defend his ally: as a white man running interference for an Arab man, as a Jew for a Muslim, as a 55-year-old for a 33-year-old, as a liberal for a leftist.
Lander’s and Mamdani’s politics of maturity was paramount in vanquishing three specific challenges in contemporary New York City elections: one, overcoming the belief that anyone angling to head the nation’s largest police department must have a spotless criminal record; two thinking that anyone wanting to appeal to New York’s nearly one million Jews must not only be an ardent Zionist but a hearty support of Benjamin Netanyahu; and three, navigating 24 years of pernicious, vile Islamophobia and racism which has plagued Arabs and Muslims since September 11, 2001.
Then along come two politicians who’ve both been arrested for refusing to stand aside as state power harms people. Who admit what’s actually happening.
Mamdani would have only been about ten years old when the Twin Towers fell. But, that doesn’t mean that throughout his teens, twenties and thirties he wouldn’t be subjected to the scrutiny Muslim men have received in New York over the last quarter century. (Look no further to how the Cuomo campaign made his beard longer and darker, or to the sinister way the omnipresently smiling Mamdani was portrayed by the Atlantic art director in a Jonathan Chait essay, to see this.)
Both men have arrest records for noble causes. On October 13, 2024, Mamdani joined Jewish Voices for Peace outside of Chuck Schumer’s apartment in Brooklyn, where they demanded a ceasefire. Linking arms on the ground with Jewish friends and constituents, the state legislator was among 60 people who were arrested outside the Senate Majority Leader’s home. (The day after Andrew Cuomo conceded, Schumer signaled he will soon be meeting with Mamdani.)
And, just last week, while escorting constituents out of immigration court, Lander was violently arrested while linking arms with a person who was about to be detained. At a time when employers, universities and politicians want us to believe our careers will be over if we ever link arms defending vulnerable people against police—especially with non-citizens or Palestinians—Mamdani and Lander have shown us that one can do this and still likely go on to oversee the NYPD.
They both showed that you can criticize Israel in your policies and have a successful political career. Mamdani founded the chapter of Students for Justice in Palestine at Bowdoin College, authored the “Not on our dime!: Ending New York funding of Israeli settler violence act” in the New York State Assembly, and vowed that if he were mayor and Benjamin Netanyahu came to town, he’d arrest him and turn him over to the International Criminal Court. Lander’s criticism of Israel is much more muted and that of a liberal Zionist. But, when the duo appeared on Late Night, Colbert bizarrely and offensively dedicated the bulk of the televised interview about a municipal election to grilling the candidates on their commitment to Israel. And there, Lander ran interference for Mamdani—as he has repeatedly in the last few weeks—making sure that people know that his friend is not antisemitic and keeping Zionism from swallowing the campaign whole.
With Lander’s help—and, equally if not more importantly, with the help of 50,000 volunteers of many faiths and none at all—Mamdani beat down more than two decades of post-9/11 Islamophobia. And he did it while still embracing the main issue which, unfairly, gets weaponized as proof of antisemitism: support for Palestine. Mamdani’s spoken out about the unacceptable violence in Gaza and the Wsst Bank from Albany to the White House to carrying a sign in Queens for “Soccer Lovers for Palestine Liberation” to explaining, without shame or guilt, what the phrase “Globalize the intifada” means.
I am not a disinterested party in this race. New York City was my home for most of my life. And I know quite personally what the professional costs can be for standing up for Palestine. As I wrote about last year, in April 2024, I stood between student protesters and university police at Northwestern, where I am on the faculty (but now banned from teaching).
I am but one of many professors and staff across the academy who have been punished for standing up for Gaza, and academia is but one arena of American employment in which people’s careers can collapse if they criticize Israel . And for more than a year, I have wondered if I will ever be able to find a job again.
For nearly two years, a majority of Democratic voters have wanted the genocide in Gaza to end. Kamala Harris’s refusal to break from Joe Biden’s execution of one of the worst human rights horrors of the twenty-first century largely cost her the election. Voters grow disillusioned not just because politicians fail to lead on the most important matters of the day; they also get understandably angry when politicians condescend to them by pretending that what they can see beamed right into their phones is not actually happening.
And then along come two politicians who’ve both been arrested for refusing to stand aside as state power harms people. Who admit what’s actually happening. Who share vulnerability with their constituents. And who band together with a cooperative politics of maturity for the public good.
And they weren’t alone. When she won Brad Lander’s old seat in 2021, Shahana Hanif became the first Muslim member of New York’s City Council. She has since been a vociferous critic of the genocide in Gaza. Yet despite large sums of money spent to try to oust her, she won her primary bid decisively, effectively winning re-election (as she has no Republican opponent in the general.)
Mamdani, Lander, and Hanif give people a reason to vote for something. And they give people like me hope that maybe I won’t be locked out of the formal American economy forever. If Zohran Mamdani can be arrested protesting for Gaza, face a barrage of racist Islamaphobic attacks, and still win the mayoral primary in the nation’s biggest city—with the help of his Jewish brother who got arrested defending migrants from ICE—then maybe there is room to fight in this country, still.
