Mamdani Accidentally Offers Insight into the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict

by Kenneth Levin •  Gatestone Institute  •  July 23, 2026

New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s recently released map of ethnic enclaves in the city provides unintentional but instructive insight into the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians. Pictured: Zohran Mamdani getting sworn in as mayor by Bernie Sanders. Photo by NYC Mayor’s Office, CC BY 4.0, Wikipedia

• [Mamdani’s map of ethnic enclaves in New York City] labels neighborhoods as “Little Palestine,” “Little Egypt,” and “Little Pakistan,” along with other ethnic identities. But absent is any acknowledgment of, for example, the city’s prominent and historic Italian, Irish, Jewish or Puerto Rican neighborhoods. Their history and prominence are simply erased.

• The reality is, of course, the opposite of the Palestinian false history, or “narrative.” Jewish history in the land goes back more than 3,000 years. Islam didn’t even exist for most of that time. Mary was, of course, a Jewish woman. The Jewish presence in the land, even when diminished by forced exile imposed by various conquering empires, was unbroken throughout that entire history. The Muslim presence only began in the late seventh century, when Arab forces seized the area from the Byzantine Christian empire that then controlled it.
• There has never been a Palestinian Arab state. The land was under the control of the British via a mandate ratified by the League of Nations after World War I. When, in 1947, the United Nations voted to divide the mandate into two states, one Jewish and one Arab, the Jews agreed and the Arabs rejected the proposal. Palestinian leaders have continued to reject two-state solutions whenever they have been agreed upon by Israel, as in 2000, 2001 and 2008. They continue to hold out for what Mamdani advocates, an Arab state “from the river to the sea,” with the Jewish state annihilated.
• The only coherent use of “genocide” to characterize events in the area is the genocide advocated by the Arab side, where Hamas… calls in its charter for the annihilation of all the world’s Jews as a religious obligation, and the Palestinian Authority advocates the murder of Jews in its media, mosques and schools, and uses much of its annual budget to provide pensions to people for doing exactly that, murdering Jews.

New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s recently released map of ethnic enclaves in the city provides unintentional but instructive insight into the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians.

The map labels neighborhoods as “Little Palestine,” “Little Egypt,” and “Little Pakistan,” along with other ethnic identities. But absent is any acknowledgment of, for example, the city’s prominent and historic Italian, Irish, Jewish or Puerto Rican neighborhoods. Their history and prominence are simply erased.

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