By Lev Tsitrin

To believe New York Governor Hochul’s Proclamation  marking January, 2026 “Moslem American heritage month” — the first such declaration ever — “our state is uniquely fortunate to benefit from their advocacy, civic engagement, humanitarianism, charity, culture, and business.”

The month of January seems to have been chosen to highlight New York’s Moslem “civic engagement” — as exemplified by the inauguration, on New Year’s day, of Moslem Democratic Socialist Mamdani as the mayor of New York — though the first few days of his mayoralty have been remarkable only for his antisemitism, evidenced  in annulment of outgoing Adams administration’s executive orders disfavoring efforts to boycott Israel, and defining objections to Israel’s existence as a Jewish state as expression antisemitism (does this exemplify for you, Governor Hochul his “advocacy, civic engagement, humanitarianism, charity, culture, and business.”?), as well as his phone call to President Trump in which Comrade-Mayor Mamdani defended his fellow-Comrade Maduro.

(I wonder whether, now that Comrade Maduro is locked up in a Brooklyn prison, Comrade Mamdani will often come for a visit — both to cheer up his Venezuelan Comrade, and to compare notes on how to swifter and surer inflict upon New York the blessings of Socialism, the subject on which Comrade Maduro is a true expert, having so thoroughly done it in his native Venezuela that it is hard to see — despite President Trump’s assurances to the contrary — how the country can ever recover.

And Mamdani’s inauguration made me think about something else — namely, New Yorker’s gullibility. The Comrade swore to faithfully execute his duty of New York mayor on a copy of a Koran — which struck me, an ex-Soviet, as plainly ridiculous and brazenly hypocritical. Imagine any Marxist — be he Lenin, or Stalin, or Trotsky — taking an oath of office on a Bible! For thoroughgoing, militant atheists that are Marxists, this would be sacrilege, pure and simple. Comrade Mamdani’s oath should have been administered on a copy of The Communist Manifesto or of Das Kapital. But Koran? You care about religion, Comrade Mamdani? Don’t make me laugh, Comrade! And you, New Yorkers, don’t make such earnestly sanctimonious miens — but join in laughing uproariously at this absurd show of political hypocrisy, too!)

But let’s not get distracted from enumerating those contributions of Moslems that emphatically do not entail “advocacy, civic engagement, humanitarianism, charity, culture, and business” of New York — or at least, show a very different understanding of those.

How about the fella nicknamed “the Blind Sheikh”  — a guy who, in 1990s “was recording his sermons in Brooklyn on cassette tapes and sending them to Egypt. These tapes were duplicated and given to tens of thousands of followers in Cairo. In these tapes, Abdel-Rahman called for the murder of infidels, for the ousting of Hosni Mubarak, and for Egypt to become a pure Islamic state” — the guy who, moreover, “issued a fatwa in the US that declared it lawful to rob banks and kill Jews in the US. His sermons condemned Americans as the “descendants of apes and pigs who have been feeding from the dining tables of the Zionists, Communists, and colonialists”. He called on Muslims to assail the West, “cut the transportation of their countries, tear it apart, destroy their economy, burn their companies, eliminate their interests, sink their ships, shoot down their planes, kill them on the sea, air, or land”. Preaching at three mosques in the New York City area, Abdel-Rahman was soon surrounded by a core group of devoted followers that included persons who would soon be responsible for the 1993 World Trade Center bombing,”

Which gets us right to the month of February as a worthy one to mark a significant Moslem contribution to New York. Per Wikipedia  “On February 26, 1993, Ramzi Yousef and associates carried out a van bomb terrorist attack below the North Tower of the World Trade Center in New York City. The 1,336 lb (606 kg) urea nitrate–hydrogen gas enhanced device was intended to make the North Tower collapse onto the South Tower, taking down both skyscrapers and killing tens of thousands of people. While it failed to do so, it was successful in killing six people, and caused over a thousand injuries.”

An October contribution was far less ambitions in scope — though no less vicious in its intent: “On October 31, 2017, Sayfullo Habibullaevic Saipov drove a rented pickup truck into cyclists and runners for about one mile (1.6 kilometers) of the Hudson River Park’s bike path alongside West Street from Houston Street south to Chambers Street in Lower Manhattan, New York City. The vehicle-ramming attack killed eight people, six of whom were foreign tourists, and injured thirteen others. … A Black Standard and a document indicating allegiance to the terrorist group Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) were found in the truck.”

And there probably is no need to remind the reader of the September 11 attack which fulfilled Blind Sheik’s dream, killing in the process some three thousand New Yorkers. Why not declare September a “Moslem American heritage month,” Governor Hochul?

(Interestingly, it will fall to Comrade-Mayor Mamdani this year to preside over commemorating the 25th anniversary of that brutal day. What will he say in his speech? Will he blame America on the attack? This is entirely possible: I remember, on the first anniversary of 9/11, heading to work to the World Financial Center, and seeing a small crowd gathered around two young fellows who were surrounded by police to protect their free speech rights. One of whom was delivering an oration precisely to that effect — 9/11 was the fault of American imperialism. People around listened in sullen silence, just one woman trying to talk back, before heading her way — people were in a hurry to get to work. I listened for a minute, and, without saying a word, extended, right into the face of the orator, a middle finger. He shuddered, but kept on talking. The closest cop nodded approvingly as I turned and left. Will New Yorkers of this generation have as little patience with the Comrade-Mayor if he engages in similar rhetoric? Given the support for Hamas on CUNY and Columbia campuses, I am not so sure!)

Needless to say, Governor Hochul has plenty of political reasons to fawn before New York Moslems — every vote counts, and elections are getting closer. In fact, she fully demonstrated her awareness of the direction of political winds when she endorsed Comrade Mamdani for mayor. Still, given that on balance, Moslem contribution to New York is sharply negative (it is not easy to offset some 3,000 New Yorkers killed on 9/11 with Moslem “advocacy, civic engagement, humanitarianism, charity, culture, and business”) one wonders whether in her “Declaration” of January as “Moslem American heritage month” Governor Hochul showed her complete detachment from the reality — and hence, her inability to serve yet another term as the governor of New York. Voters, take notice!

Lev Tsitrin is the author of “The Pitfall Of Truth: Holy War, Its Rationale And Folly”