This from the early campaign when he was in the “hidding power level” stage of cope. Its essentially trying to both sides appeal to anti-imperialists and soft zionists.

This is a bit misrepresentative of what he said. He said he believes israel has a right to exist but not as a jewish state which would mean he’s not a zionist because zionism is specifically the bleief that israel should exist as a jewish state. That being said idk why he said it like this seems like a weird thing to say. Idk why he said it like that, israel and a jewish state are partically inseperable.

The west has long history of westerners who are lauded as progressive because they are supposedly against said bad thing outside their borders but denigrate the people actually fighting said bad thing. These westerners gain support because they promise to distribute the loot of imperialism more equitably but will effectively do zilch against said imperialism.

One can rationalise away what Mamdani said above but given the context of everything else he said it is clear what this is: liberal zionism. If you’re against zionism but you admonish the people on the ground fighting said zionism, especially during a genocide, then you’re not against zionism.

Liberalism has a special skill to isolate anything outside of its wider context and resort to non-scientific essentialism; dialectical materialism does not tolerate such nonsense, it is best to learn this superpower in this cruel world.

I’m sure he is actually an anti-Zionist, but the American political climate will not allow him to say such things, which frankly is demonstrative of the futility of making systemic changes through electoralism.