In a highly charged op-ed, prominent constitutional lawyer and civil liberties advocate Alan Dershowitz has issued a stark warning regarding the recent election of New York City mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani.
Dershowitz asserts that Mamdani’s victory—secured with slightly over 50 percent of the electorate, including more than 30 percent of Jewish voters—suggests that antisemitism and anti-Israel bigotry are no longer disqualifying factors in New York politics.
Dershowitz argues that New Yorkers were prepared to vote for an alleged antisemite not necessarily because of his anti-Jewish bigotry, but “despite it.”
In his op-ed, he expressed concern that this shift reflects a broader, dangerous normalization of double standards applicable to “everything Jewish, including Israel,” a trend he fears is becoming true across the country and the world.
The Controversial Historical Analogy
The most controversial element of the column is a comparison to the 1932 German election.
Dershowitz states that “without making any comparisons or analogies,” readers must recall that Adolf Hitler and the Nazi party received a plurality of votes, which he claims was also secured despite his antisemitism, as ordinary Germans were focused on promises to reduce unemployment and end the Depression.
The op-ed posits that Mamdani’s potential success as mayor—if he makes New York “more livable and affordable”—could similarly lead more people to follow him into his “dark hatred of all things Israeli, Zionist, and Jewish,” just as Hitler’s early successes turned ordinary Germans into antisemites.
The ‘Pincer Movement’ on American Jewry
Dershowitz, identifying himself as a “liberal Jew,” criticizes the estimated 30-plus percent of Jews who voted for Mamdani, suggesting many of them are prioritizing radical, anti-Trump, or anti-American views over concerns about his stance on Israel.
He further claims that Jews are now caught in a “pincer movement” between the hard right and the hard left, arguing that both extremes share an animus rooted in the idea that Jews and Israel are “privileged” due to wealth, accomplishments, or American support.
Dershowitz explicitly names figures like Tucker Carlson and Nick Fuentes on the right, and Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Senator Bernie Sanders, and Mamdani on the left, as representatives of this growing problem.
Concluding his piece, Dershowitz calls Mamdani’s election a “symptom of a potentially contagious disease” of extremism. He urges Americans to prevent its spread by maintaining the centrist political tradition that he credits with the country’s success.
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