For a mayor who has become so closely associated with a foreign-policy conflict thousands of miles away, Zohran Mamdani does relatively little to directly address it. Follow his public pronouncements, press conferences, and social-media posts, and you’ll find a relentless focus on the local: an executive order cutting fees for small businesses, a mayoral appointment to combat racial discrimination, a ride in a taxi to announce a new TLC commissioner. Mamdani, these days, does not voluntarily say very much about Israel, Gaza, or the Middle East.

But because he is by far the most prominent pro-Palestine politician in the United States, he is invariably drawn into the discourse. His first three weeks as mayor have been, by most reasonable measures, a success with a funding promise from the governor for a universal child-care expansion and a raft of orders and decrees that have pleased his base, from promised bike-lane expansions to a vow to crack down on predatory landlords. If it were up to Mamdani, this would be his mayoralty. He said during the primary last year that he didn’t want to travel out of New York City and he means it; he has no plans to fly to Israel or anywhere else.

Current events, though, inevitably intervene. A recent protest outside a synagogue in Queens illustrated the pitfalls ahead for Mamdani — how........

© Daily Intelligencer