Mamdani's father sits on council of anti-Israel group tied to terror, legitimizes role of suicide bombers

Fox News

a day ago

FIRST ON FOX: Mahmood Mamdani, the father of socialist New York City mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani, sits on the advisory council of an anti-Israel organization that supports boycotts and sanctions of Israel, routinely accuses the Israeli government of committing "genocide", and expressed sympathy for suicide bombers.
The Gaza Tribunal, founded in London in 2024, says its primary goal is "to awaken civil society to its responsibility and opportunity to stop Israel's genocide in Gaza," according to its website.
Also on its website, Mahmood Mamdani is listed as a member of the group's "advisory policy council" and is mentioned as being present at the group's official launch in London last year.
Richard Falk, the president of the tribunal, outlined the group's support of BDS in an online post saying, "the aim of the Tribunal is or [sic] legitimize and encourage civil society solidarity initiatives around the world such as BDS."
BDS is described as "an international campaign to delegitimize the State of Israel as the expression of the Jewish people's right to national self-determination by isolating the country economically through consumer boycotts, business and government withdrawal of investment, and legal sanctions," according to Influence Watch.
Zohran Mamdani has also promoted BDS as recently as May, when he declined to say whether Israel has a right to exist and said his support of BDS "is consistent with my core of my politics, which is non-violence."
Mahmood Mamdani, the Herbert Lehman Professor of Government at Columbia University, has also faced criticism on social media in recent days over a resurfaced book excerpt where he expressed sympathy for the way suicide bombers are viewed.
"Suicide bombing needs to be understood as a feature of modern political violence rather than stigmatized as a mark of barbarism," the elder Mamdani wrote in his 2004 book Good Muslim, Bad Muslim: America, the Cold War, and the Roots of Terror.
"We need to recognize the suicide bomber, first and foremost, as a category of soldier."
The Gaza Tribunal's founder and members have deep ties to anti-Israel movements, with at least one being deported from the United States due to terror ties.
Falk has a long history of espousing anti-Israel views and was repeatedly accused of using his "Special Rapporteur" United Nations position to "spread unsubstantiated allegations against Israel," according to Canary Mission, a watchdog organization that works to expose antisemitism. In 2011 and 2014, Falk accused Israel of being a "colonialist" nation and claimed they were pushing "ethnic-cleansing goals." He would go on to echo these views as recently as February of this year during an interview.
Falk faced backlash in 2007 for comparing Israel's government to the Nazis by accusing them of ushering in a "Palestinian Holocaust" and rhetorically asking, "Is it an irresponsible overstatement to associate the treatment of Palestinians with this criminalized Nazi record of collective atrocity? I think not." The comparison led to backlash and former Israeli U.N. Ambassador Itzhak Levanon opposing his 2008 UN nomination.
The Princeton University professor emeritus also demanded a boycott of corporations in 2012 that do business with Israel, saying they "should be boycotted until they bring their operations into line with international human rights and humanitarian law and standards." However, a spokesperson for the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) fired back, warning the UN that Falk "has repeatedly abused his position as special rapporteur to unleash unrestrained hatred and disdain for Israel" and that the "United Nations should not be complicit in this wholly unjustified effort to single out Israel."
In a statement to Fox News Digital, Falk said that he advocates for "nonviolent solidarity initiatives with the Palestinian struggle for their basic rights, including BDS."
"I believe that Israel's occupation policies in Gaza and the West Bank have persecuted Palestinians on their own homeland," Falk added. "Also, I believe that this pattern of displacing the native population is illustrative of settler colonial political projects that depend for their success on an apartheid-like domination and exploitation of the native population. If such a regime encounters prolonged resistance it almost inevitably relies on genocidal tactics to subdue the civilian population, either by marginalization, ethnic cleansing, or massive killing, all of which have been occurring in Gaza during the 20 months since October 7."
Falk added that Jewish voters in New York City "should not worry" about Mamood Mamdani's ties to the tribunal or about Zohran Mamdani's candidacy for mayor.
"Both father and son are respectful of international law, the UN, human rights of all peoples, and the pacific settlement of political disputes," Falk said.
Falk is not the only member of the tribunal with anti-Israel ties. A press release of the group's launch mentioned that Dr. Hatem Bazian, the chairman of Americans Muslims for Palestine and the co-founder of Students for Justice in Palestine, was also present at the launch. Bazian has been a controversial anti-Israel figure for decades due to his inflammatory rhetoric about Israel and Jews, including during a 2014 convention speech, where he called on attendees to "get to work" on calling for BDS on college campuses and doing sit-ins in Congressional offices.
In 2015, Bazian raised alarm bells when he called for an "intifada in this country that changes fundamentally the political dynamics in here," which is widely interpreted as calling for violence against Jews. He would go on to say, "They're gonna say some Palestinian being too radical – well, you haven't seen radicalism yet."
He has also faced backlash for antisemitic posts on social media, which drew backlash from several student groups, including one that mocked Hassidic Jews, with one saying "Mom, look! I is chosen! I can now kill, rape, smuggle organs and steal the land of Palestinians 'Yay' #Ashke-Nazi." Another social media post insinuated Jews control UC Berkeley, which is a classic antisemitic trope about their "power."
Sami Al-Arian, a former University of South Florida professor who admitted to conspiring to aid the Palestinian Islamic Jihad terror group in 2006, was also present at the Gaza Tribunal launch meeting.
He recently posted on X that he was "very honored and proud" to have contributed to the Gaza Tribunal's "The Sarajevo Declaration," which accuses Israel of "genocide, and its decades-long policies and practices of settler colonialism, ethno-supremacism, apartheid, racial segregation, persecution, unlawful settlements, the denial of the right to return, collective punishment, mass detention, torture and cruel and inhuman treatment."
The declaration went on to "call for an end of the smearing of UNRWA and other humanitarian workers, for the free and unhindered access of UNRWA," a group that has been slammed for alleged ties to terrorism, including allegedly working with Hamas.
Al-Arian, who a federal judge once called a "master manipulator" and leader in the terror group, spent 30 years in the U.S. before being arrested in 2003, according to the Justice Department. After a 57-month prison sentence, he agreed to be deported to Turkey as part of his plea deal for a single charge on what began as a 17-count federal indictment.
Then-U.S. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales said in 2006 that the disgraced professor had denied involvement with the terror group for a decade before prosecutors had enough evidence to bring charges.
"In his guilty plea, Al-Arian admitted that, during the period of the late 1980s and early to mid-1990s, he and several of his co-conspirators were associated with the Palestinian Islamic Jihad," the DOJ said in a statement after his sentencing. "He further admitted that he performed various services for the PIJ in 1995 and thereafter, knowing that the PIJ had been designated as a Specially Designated Terrorist and that the PIJ engaged in horrific and deadly acts of violence."
Socialist former UK Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn, who has long been labeled as antisemitic due to various anti-Israel statements, is also a member of the Gaza Tribunal Advisory Council.
In 2020, an investigation into antisemitism by the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) found Corbyn's Labour Party broke the law in the way it handled complaints of antisemitism when Corbyn was in charge.
Corbyn was eventually suspended from the Labour Party from the party over charges of antisemitism. He also once referred to "friends" from Hamas coming to address Parliament.
A 2019 poll showed that a whopping 87 percent of Jewish people in Great Britain believed Corbyn was antisemitic, pointing to many incidents and remarks, many of them involving his staunch support for Palestinians and perceived hostility toward Israel.
Zohran Mamdani's stance on Israel has been a widely discussed topic so far during the mayoral campaign and he sparked controversy by refusing to condemn the phrase "globalize the intifada" which has become a rallying cry for anti-Israel protesters in the United States ever since Hamas' Oct. 7, 2023 massacre in Israel.
Mamdani, who was the co-founder of Bowdoin College's Students for Justice in Palestine chapter during his four years, expressed support for an academic boycott of Israel in the school's paper.
Mamdani has been widely criticized by Jewish groups in New York City over his past positions and comments as he tries to position himself to win the general election in November against current Mayor Eric Adams and former Gov. Andrew Cuomo who are both running as independents.