David Patterson's attack on Zohran Mamdani is more than a bad look. It's ahistorical slander

No sane Black man could compare the progressive mayor of New York City to a segregationist

David Patterson has apparently lost his mind.

The former and first Black governor of New York had time, apparently, last week, to compare New York City’s first Muslim, and first African-born mayor, Zohran Kwamé Mamdani to one of the most notorious segregationists in U.S. History.

In response to Mamdani’s truthful statement that Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu is a war criminal who is responsible for the mass slaughter of more than 70,000 Palestinian men, women and children in what numerous human rights groups and experts in the field, including Israeli Human rights organizations and the UN Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem, and Israel have concluded is a genocide, Patterson denounced the mayor to the right wing, Murdoch-owned New York Post as “the 2020s answer to George Wallace.”

He also vowed to pen a letter to the corrupt, Todd Blanche run Department of Injustice to demand a federal inquiry into whether Mamdani, by referencing the leader of a foreign government, is triggering violence against American Jews in New York City. These statements are so bizarre and historically ignorant, they barely deserve a response.

Allow me to respond, anyway.

First of all, let us remind ourselves of what the late George Wallace infamously said at the state capitol in Montgomery, Alabama on January 14, 1963 during his first inauguration as governor:

“Today I have stood, where once Jefferson Davis stood, and took an oath to my people. It is very appropriate that from this Cradle of the Confederacy, this very Heart of the Great Anglo-Saxon Southland, that today we sound the drum for freedom as have our generations of forebears before us done, time and again through history. Let us rise to the call of freedom-loving blood that is in us and send our answer to the tyranny that clanks its chains upon the South. In the name of the greatest people that have ever trod this earth, I draw the line in the dust and toss the gauntlet before the feet of tyranny...and I say...segregation now...segregation tomorrow...segregation forever.”

Wallace was making a declaration that despite two centuries of tilling the land without compensation and enduring rape, torture and cruel exploitation to build the wealth of Alabama and America, Black men, women and children would never be allowed to live as equals with white Southerners. He anchored his statements in the treasonous confederacy and declared that Black folk would be quarantined in southern squalor, shunted into menial jobs and locked out of educational and economic opportunity so long as he held power. His was a declaration of white supremacy—of an Alabama and an America that belongs to only one people.

And here is what Mayor Mamdani said about a notorious and criminally indicted foreign leader, which so deeply offended Mr. Patterson:

“Benjamin Netanyahu is not welcome in New York City, nor is any other war criminal at large. … Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has been found guilty of war crimes and genocide in Gaza.”

Where is the lie?

The International Criminal Court has accused Netanyahu of crimes against humanity in connection with the bloodletting in Gaza following the October 7, 2023 Hamas attack on Southern Israel. The ICC specifically alleges that Netanyahu and his former defense minister Yoav Gallant are “responsible for the war crimes of starvation as a method of warfare and of intentionally directing an attack against the civilian population; and the crimes against humanity of murder, persecution, and other inhumane acts from at least 8 October 2023 until at least 20 May 2024.” Because of those crimes, the ICC has issued an arrest warrant against Netanyahu that 124 countries — the U.S. shamefully excluded, are treaty bound to honor.

But because the U.S. is not a signatory to the ICC (and neither is Israel — one needn’t wonder why) — Netanyahu is slated to come to New York City for the United Nations General Assembly in September and he has told CNBC and Fox’s Sean Hannity that he plans to do so. Mandani said his administration reviewed whether New York City could execute the ICC’s arrest warrant and concluded they do not have the legal authority to enforce it. But he said that the federal government does. He added: “We can decide whether our silence will become another weapon and we can examine every tool we have to defend the humanity and dignity of all people.”

It’s worth remembering what evidence was brought to bear when the government of South Africa brought its genocide and apartheid case before the U.N.

On October 7, 2023 in the wake of the attack, Netanyahu vowed to exact a "huge price" by turning Hamas hideouts "into rubble," while Gallant declared: "We are fighting human animals and we are acting accordingly." Israeli president Izhak Herzog said Palestinians as a whole bear collective responsibility for the Hamas raid. And human rights groups have cataloged nearly 1,000 public statements from Israeli politicians, Knesset members, and military officers demanding the forced displacement of Palestinians in Gaza, mass expulsion, total sieges, and collective punishment.

Netanyahu himself has repeatedly referenced the Biblical story of the Amelekites, whom God commanded Israel to utterly destroy. This is how Bibi “inspires” his troops:

“Now go and smite Amalek, and utterly destroy all that they have, and spare them not; but slay both man and woman, infant and suckling, ox and sheep, camel and ass. — 1 Samuel 15:3

When it comes to the genocidal statements and actions of the Israeli state, the findings of the ICC were definitive:

The Commission has been investigating the events on and since 7 October 2023 for the last two years, and concluded that Israeli authorities and Israeli security forces committed four of the five genocidal acts defined by the 1948 Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, namely killing, causing serious bodily or mental harm, deliberately inflicting conditions of life calculated to bring about the destruction of the Palestinians in whole or in part, and imposing measures intended to prevent births.

Explicit statements by Israeli civilian and military authorities and the pattern of conduct of the Israeli security forces indicate that the genocidal acts were committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, Palestinians in the Gaza Strip as a group.

… In establishing the genocidal acts, the Commission examined the Israeli military operations in Gaza, including killing and seriously harming unprecedented numbers of Palestinians; imposing a total siege, including blocking humanitarian aid leading to starvation; systematically destroying the healthcare and education systems in Gaza; committing systematic acts of sexual and gender based violence; directly targeting children; carrying out systematic and widespread attacks on religious and cultural sites; and disregarding the orders of the International Court of Justice.

In establishing genocidal intent, the Commission applied the “only reasonable inference” standard set forth by the International Court of Justice in the case of Bosnia v. Serbia. The Commission analysed statements made by Israeli authorities and concluded that those statements are direct evidence of genocidal intent. The Commission also analysed the pattern of conduct of Israeli authorities and the Israeli security forces in Gaza, including imposing starvation and inhumane conditions of life for Palestinians in Gaza, and found that genocidal intent was the only reasonable inference that could be concluded from the nature of their operations.

And even before the October 7 attacks, Netanyahu has been known to show up at the U.N. displaying a map showing Israel with Palestine erased altogether. And he has declared his support for his far right wing, religious fanatic coalition’s quest for an “Eretz” or “Greater" Israel that pushes far beyond its present borders by devouring parts of at least five neighboring sovereign states: Jordan, Lebanon, Turkey, Egypt and Iraq, plus all of historic Palestine. If swallowing all of Palestine and handing out their land to settlers while plotting a Putin-like expansionist conquest of your neighbors (backed by nuclear weapons) isn’t a genocidal plan, I’m not sure what is.

Benjamin Netanyahu, the butcher of Gaza, has built a wall around his forever prime ministership by declaring over the course of his decades in power, that no matter how many generations of their ancestors lived in the Levant and tilled the soil and built homes and lives and histories there, no part of historical Palestine will ever belong to any Palestinian Arab — Muslim, Christian or Jewish— so long as he has power. Mr Patterson: Bibi the Butcher is the George Wallace you’re looking for.

If anyone is analogous to George Wallace, it’s Benjamin Netanyahu.

His ideology seems like it’s ripped right out of the Irgun and the Stern Gang — U.S. and British-declared terrorist groups which operated in 1930s and 40s Palestine and which claimed two of Israel’s early prime ministers as members (6rh prime minister Menachem Begin (1977-1983) led the Irgun in the 1940s including the 1946 bombing of the King David Hotel, and the seventh prime minister Yithak Shamir (1983-84 and 1986 to 1992) led the even more violent Stern Gang when he was young). The ideology of these groups rested on a foundation of European Jewish supremacy.

Irgun was a Zionist paramilitary organization that operated in Mandate Palestine and then Israel between 1931 and 1948. It was an offshoot of the older and larger Jewish paramilitary organization Haganah. The Irgun has been viewed as a terrorist organization or organization which carried out terrorist acts.
The Irgun policy was based on what was then called Revisionist Zionism founded by Ze’ev Jabotinsky. According to Howard Sachar, “The policy of the new organization was based squarely on Jabotinsky’s teachings: every Jew had the right to enter Palestine; only active retaliation would deter the Arabs; only Jewish armed force would ensure the Jewish state”.

Two of the operations for which the Irgun is best known are the bombing of the King David Hotel in Jerusalem on 22 July 1946 and the Deir Yassin massacre that killed at least 107 Palestinian Arab villagers, including women and children, carried out together with Lehi on 9 April 1948.

The organization committed acts of terrorism against the British, whom it regarded as illegal occupiers, and against Arabs. In particular the Irgun was described as a terrorist organization by the United Nations, British, and United States governments; in media such as The New York Times newspaper; as well as by the Anglo-American Committee of Inquiry, the 1946 Zionist Congress and the Jewish Agency.

Albert Einstein, in a letter to The New York Times in 1948, compared Irgun and its successor Herut party to “Nazi and Fascist parties” and described it as a “terrorist, right wing, chauvinist organization”. Irgun’s tactics appealed to many Jews who believed that any action taken in the cause of the creation of a Jewish state was justified, including terrorism.

Irgun members were absorbed into the Israel Defense Forces at the start of the 1948 Arab–Israeli war. The Irgun was a political predecessor to Israel’s right-wing Herut (or “Freedom”) party, which led to today’s Likud party. Likud has led or been part of most Israeli governments since 1977.

Benjamin “Bibi” Netanyahu born 21 October 1949) the prime minister of Israel since December 2022, having previously held the office from 1996 to 1999 and again from 2009 to 2021. He is the chairman of the Likud party. Netanyahu is the longest-tenured prime minister in the country’s history, having served for a total of over 16 years.

Stern Gang was a Zionist paramilitary militant organization founded by Avraham (“Yair”) Stern in Mandatory Palestine, a geopolitical entity that existed between 1920 and 1948 in the region of Palestine under the terms of the League of Nations Mandate for Palestine. Its avowed aim was to evict the British authorities from Palestine by use of violence, allowing unrestricted immigration of Jews and the formation of a Jewish state.

Stern Gang was initially called the National Military Organization in Israel, upon being founded in August 1940, but was renamed Lehi one month later. The group referred to its members as terrorists and admitted to having carried out terrorist attacks.

This is the ideology that made second class citizens even of olive skinned Sephardic and Mideastern Mizrahi Jews and administered contraceptive shots to Ethiopian Falasha Jews without their consent so they wouldn’t darken the mostly white Israeli population. It’s the ideology that covets Palestinian land but recognizes no humanity in Palestinian people — not even the children. The Stern Gang’s racist literature described Palestinian Arabs in language that George Wallace would have recognized:

According to Yaacov Shavit, professor at the Department of Jewish History, Tel Aviv University, articles in Lehi publications contained references to a Jewish “master race”, contrasting the Jews with Arabs who were seen as a “nation of slaves”. Sasha Polakow-Suransky writes that “Lehi was also unabashedly racist towards Arabs. Their publications described Jews as a master race and Arabs as a slave race.” Lehi advocated mass expulsion of all Arabs from Palestine and Transjordan, or even their physical annihilation.

So kin were these terrorist groups to the German Nazis, Stern sought to cooperate with Hitler to affect the mass expulsion of all European Jews to Palestine. And Bibi not only knows this, he has carried their ideas into the 21st century:

Mr. Patterson: is this your king? Is is the man you are hijacking the historical pain of Black Americans to defend?

And who are you, Mr. Patterson, to graft Israel’s unchecked violence onto every Jewish New Yorker? Isn’t that kind of … antisemitic? Just as every Muslim need not answer for the policies of Saudi Arabia or Iran, every Jewish American isn’t on the line for Israel’s actions. Meanwhile, Mamdani polls as more popular among Jewish New Yorkers than Netanyahu. Calling for his arrest, per international law, isn’t incitement: it’s something half of Americans support, by a 22-point margin over those who oppose the application of international law to the Israeli prime minister.

And what of the Jewish Americans who are part of the free Palestine movement? Don’t outrageous claims like yours, Mr. Patterson, make them — and the mayor — less safe?

Mamdani gets to comment on Netanyahu’s presence in the U.S. because the UN is located in his city. And he is hardly alone in not desiring to see war criminals traipsing around town. The mayor of London announced that the butcher is no more welcome there than in New York city. We should be embarrassed as a country to welcome war criminals like Netanyahu and Putin. Perhaps we are embarrassed, based on the lack of a red carpet greeting during his arrival for yet more meetings with Trump and Lindsey Graham’s funeral last week.

And David Patterson should be embarrassed by his comments.

Patterson was New York’s first Black governor, America’s first legally blind governor, and only the third Black man since Reconstruction to lead a state. He served during the first term of our first Black president. He should know better.

He once asked, during the 2008 NAACP convention, in the summer before Obama’s election as president:

“Can America reject the crucible of race that has dictated and pervaded all of our history to embrace an African-American man who has the right policies?” he said. “We will find out.”

I would ask: can a former historic governor reject the crucible of Islamophobia that has dictated and pervaded our history and embrace a popular, Ugandan born, Indian-American Muslim mayor who has the policies that are making New Yorkers’ lives better, for business owners, renters, grocery shoppers and more?

And I would further ask: what would our civil rights heroes. who knew what it was to fight George Wallace and George Wallace style policies throughout the deep South during the heat of the Civil Rights Movement make of a Black former governor siding with the “settlements now, settlements forever” George Wallace of the Middle East? What would Fannie Lou Hamer or Dr King have thought of the Gaza death toll and the bulldozing of homes in the occupied West Bank, East Jerusalem and Lebanon that are in most cases older than Israel itself? What would they think of the rampant settler violence that mirrors what King himself faced in Marquette Park Chicago in July of 1966…

… or the wholesale destruction of hospitals and schools, mosques and churches, and the killing of more than 20,000 already displaced children in Gaza? Whose side does David Patterson think that Hamer or King — who opposed the Vietnam war — would be on?

I think David Patterson knows the answer.

His attack on Mamdani is not grounded on history or in sanity, yet he gets away with it because the politics of the Democratic Party has become so warped.

I don’t remember much about David Patterson’s governorship. I couldn’t tell you what he accomplished other than falling into scandal that was slightly less creepy than his predecessor or his successor.

But I will now remember him as a thief, who attempted to steal the legacy of the righteous fight against Southern segregation and hand it over to the criminal ruler of a foreign country.

Mayor Mamdani’s latest TJRS interview, in which he responds to former governor Patterson’s outrageous attack:

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