Zohran Mamdani, a candidate for the mayoral position in New York City, could face new scrutiny due to controversial statements made by his father, Mahmood Mamdani, in the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks.
The elder Mamdani, a professor at Columbia University, drew a parallel between the al Qaeda attack and the subsequent U.S. bombing of Afghanistan, suggesting a "moral equivalence" between the two.
In his 2004 book, Good Muslim, Bad Muslim, Mahmood Mamdani wrote, "There is an eerie similarity between the American bombing of Iraq and Afghanistan and the al-Qaeda bombing of embassies in Nairobi and Dar-es-Salaam and of the Twin Towers on 9/11."
He further stated, "[B]oth testify that, when it comes to the contest for power, the rest of the world exists only as collateral."
According to The Washington Free Beacon, Mahmood Mamdani's writings also included a claim of a "growing common ground between the perpetrators of 9/11 and the official response to it called 'the war on terror.'"
He argued that there was no moral distinction between the U.S. government and the terrorist organization responsible for the deaths of nearly 3,000 civilians at the World Trade Center, the Pentagon, and a field in Shanksville, Pennsylvania.
"Both [the U.S. and al-Qaeda] are informed by highly ideological worldviews, which each articulates in a highly religious political language, one that is self-righteous," he wrote. "The righteousness of self goes alongside the demonization of the other as evil."
These statements could potentially impact the mayoral campaign of his son, Zohran Mamdani, particularly in New York City, where al Qaeda's attack on the World Trade Center resulted in the loss of 2,606 civilian lives. Zohran Mamdani has previously stated that he remains "engaged" with his father's work and has even assisted in editing his father's writings and speeches to make them "more accessible."
Zohran Mamdani's own views have also raised eyebrows. Despite not frequently discussing the 9/11 attacks during his campaign, he recently expressed support for the "globalize the intifada" slogan, drawing criticism from the U.S. Holocaust Memorial and Museum. He has also previously attributed al Qaeda leader Anwar al-Awlaqi's decision to join the terrorist group to the FBI's actions.
"Why no proper interrogation of what it means for @FBI to have conducted extensive [surveillance] into #al-Awlakis private life?" he wrote in a 2015 Twitter post. "Why no further discussion of how #al-Awlakis knowledge of [surveillance] eventually led to him to #alqaeda?"
This line of argument mirrors his father's writings, where Mahmood Mamdani suggested that the CIA was instrumental in Osama bin Laden's rise to power. "The best-known CIA-trained terrorist was, of course, Osama bin Laden," he wrote. "Bin Laden was not the only distinguished CIA creationthe others, as discussed, included Abdullah Azzam, a founder of Hamas, and Sheikh Omar Abdel Rahman, the blind Egyptian prayer leader. All CIA inventions, all were on the FBI list of those most wanted."
Mahmood Mamdani also drew a comparison between George W. Bush and Osama bin Laden, arguing that both "employ a religious language, the language of good and evil, the language of no compromise: you are either with us or against us. Both deny the possibility of a third response. For both, political loyalty comes before political independence."
Furthermore, Mahmood Mamdani attributed the Global War on Terror, in part, to the "extraordinary power of the Israel lobby in Washington" and the Jewish "ethnic donor machine." "Rather than 'a traditional ethnic voter machine' that would organize the Jewish vote behind particular candidates, the Israeli lobby functions more as 'an ethnic donor machine,'" he wrote. "Its power is exercised through campaign contributions and government appointments."
These controversial views, both of the father and the son, could potentially influence the mayoral race in New York City, a city still healing from the wounds of the 9/11 attacks.
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