Matthew Continetti writing for WSJ Opinion's Free Expression, Oct. 9:
Paradoxically, . . . Mr. Trump's and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's pummeling of Iran and its proxies strengthened anti-Israel opinion inside the Democratic Party. Within weeks of the hostage deal, New York City elected a mayor who sounded more like a U.N. secretary-general than a machine pol. Zohran Mamdani repeated all the slanders against Israel, pledged to arrest Mr. Netanyahu and recently released a strategy to combat antisemitism that neither defines the ideology it purports to fight nor recognizes the connection between anti-Zionism and anti-Jewish hate. Mr. Mamdani's social media post marking the Oct. 7 anniversary devoted one paragraph to Israel's losses -- and three paragraphs to accusing Israel of every crime in the book.
Mr. Mamdani spawned a crop of anti-Israel Democratic House candidates who will almost certainly win in their deep-blue districts next month. His ideological cousin is Abdul El-Sayed, the Democratic Senate nominee in Michigan, who refuses to affirm Israel's right to exist as a Jewish state, gave a mealy-mouthed response after a Muslim man attempted to drive a car into a synagogue preschool and wouldn't condemn the IRGC while speaking to a Persian-American student. The Cook Political Report with Amy Walter says Mr. El-Sayed's race is a tossup.
A tossup -- what an apt yet bleak description of today's moral stakes, of the present situation wherein so many Americans can't distinguish between what is real and what is fake, what is good and what is bad, what is justified and what is lawless. Three years after Oct. 7, Israelis can spot the difference between friends and enemies and act appropriately. Many in the West can't.
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