There’s an old adage that is true: You get what you tolerate.
What took place in New York over the weekend should be intolerable but has been tolerated, and so it is what the city is not afflicted with.
Two suspects have been arrested and charged with throwing bombs — the prevailing term is “improvised explosive devices” — on a crowded New York street. The act of terrorism is an ominous watershed for the city and the nation. It is vital that such violence be stamped out by being punished as fully as possible so that our society does not become accustomed to violence mixed into legitimate political debate. We must not tolerate terrorism on our streets.
The mayor of America’s largest city must show that he understands what is at stake. But Mayor Zohran Mamdani has failed that test conspicuously.
On Saturday, an anti-immigrant influencer, Jake Lang, held a rally titled “Stop the Islamic Takeover of New York City,” outside the mayor’s house, Gracie Mansion. His rally, if you can call it that, given its pitiful turnout, attracted about 20 people. But more than 125 counterprotesters showed up, too, and two of them, Emir Balat and Ibrahim Kayumi, allegedly threw two bombs toward Lang and his group while shouting “Allahu akbar,” which means “God is great” and is the usual cry of Islamist terrorists. Both bombs failed to detonate.
The suspects fled but were soon arrested. New York City Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch confirmed that the two bombs were neither “hoax devices” nor smoke bombs, but “improvised explosive devices that could have caused serious injury or death.” Authorities said the bombs were made of nuts and bolts in a glass jar wrapped with tape and containing a firework and a fuse.
Crude construction does not mitigate the offense or the danger. Similarly crude IEDs have maimed and murdered American service members and others in the Middle East for decades. But their deployment in our homeland is a new and heinous step. It crosses a line, and America’s political leaders must understand how important that breach is.
Mamdani, in his wholly inadequate and deceptive response, remarked, “Yesterday, white supremacist Jake Lang organized a protest outside Gracie Mansion rooted in bigotry and racism. Such hate has no place in New York City. It is an affront to our city’s values and the unity that defines who we are.” Then, almost as an afterthought, he added: “What followed was even more disturbing. Violence at a protest is never acceptable. The attempt to use an explosive device and hurt others is not only criminal, it is reprehensible and the antithesis of who we are.”
Note how the “white supremacist” who is opposed to Mamdani is named, but the greater bigots who sought to kill people for disagreeing with them have the mayor helpfully concealing their motivation.
The mayor’s statement was written and posted on social media. It was not ad-libbed or off-the-cuff. His decision to attack the protesters, those who were the intended victims of the terrorists’ bombs, was deliberate. Mamdani chose to attack Lang and his supporters first and foremost, saving his toughest verbiage for them.
Lang’s views, repugnant or not, are legitimate to express in a society whose first principle, and first constitutional amendment, protects free speech. Saying what one thinks, no matter how odious the opinion expressed, is not a justification for homicide. The point of free speech is that it is speech and does not involve expression of opinion with violence, such as with a bomb. Bombs are a logical, if extreme, extension of the idea that some views and some people must be silenced. They must, however, never be allowed to displace or supplement political discourse and disagreement on U.S. streets.
Mamdani did not meet the moment, which is unsurprising.
Since he was sworn in on Jan. 1, city leadership has veered sharply to the left. Perhaps sensing the more permissive atmosphere, groups of men brazenly assaulted dozens of NYPD officers in front of cameras in late February. More recently, it was revealed that Mamdani’s wife, artist Rama Duwaji, liked social media posts celebrating Hamas’s Oct. 7, 2023, terrorist attack on Israel. It is significant and disturbing that the wife of the mayor of a city with a high Jewish population liked posts cheering on the worst slaughter of Jews since the Holocaust. Unfortunately, this too isn’t surprising.
In late 2025, Mamdani announced that Ramzi Kassem, a City University of New York law professor, would serve as his legal affairs adviser and counsel. Kassem has a long history of defending terrorists and their apologists, from al Qaeda operatives to Columbia University foreign college students who also celebrated the Oct. 7 massacre. It used to be that accused terrorists might have turned to Kassem for counsel, but these days he’s busy advising the mayor.
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Small wonder that Mamdani couldn’t bring himself to condemn terrorism forthrightly after it arrived on the streets of his city. Doing so would have required cherishing the United States and the values of freedom that have made it both good and successful. Mamdani transparently doesn’t think this is true. Nor do many of his advisers or his wife.
Decline, the late Charles Krauthammer observed, is a choice. New Yorkers who voted for Mamdani made a choice. Unfortunately, plenty of others will be left dealing with the fallout.
