Shed a tear for all of New York. Gov. Hochul has fallen and can’t get up.
Having already put her re-election campaign in the hands of Mayor Mamdani and his Socialist comrades, Hochul is now foolishly trying to rescue him from the fallout of his long trail of anti-semitic actions and words.
Her effort to play the role of a helpful “Big Sister” to the young mayor isn’t helping Mamdani, who by all signs remains fully committed to demonizing and hating the Jewish state.
Instead, Hochul’s gambit is succeeding spectacularly in confirming that she has only shape-shifting positions instead of genuine convictions.
Calling her a weathervane is unkind to weathervanes.
After all, they do what they were designed to do.
Hochul, on the other hand, was elected to govern the state in a sensible fashion that would stop the exodus of families, businesses and the wealthy, who have been fleeing the Vampire State in record numbers for years.
On that, she has failed miserably.
Instead of fixing the core problems of too much taxing and spending, she has stayed the destructive course and made the problems far worse.
A fair reading of her record reveals that the key decisions she has made in those areas have plunged New York into an accelerating decline on her watch.
The state’s finances, stretched in part by her decision to funnel billions of taxpayer dollars to Mamdani to curry favor with him and his radical base, are a growing concern among Wall Street rating agencies and investors.
There is, then, nothing moderate about her record.
The far left, as exemplified by Mamdani, has captured her and turned her into their eager and willing financier and water carrier.
An obvious result is that her campaign for re-election is aimed largely at his followers, in the hopes they will repay the favors by turning out for her in November.
The latest revealing incident of the pattern involves a mere sideline event at the raucous opening session of the United Nations General Assembly last week.
But to those paying attention, the main takeaway is that the governor undercut her claim of being a strong supporter of Israel by showing that her stance is expendable when it could interfere with her Mamdani alliance.
The moment of truth unfolded when she awkwardly waded into a fight between Mamdani and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
By defending the mayor and calling Netanyahu a liar, she revealed what she values most.
That she did it, despite Mamdani’s long history of demonizing Israel as a genocide state and saying he opposes its existence as the Jewish homeland, underscores her willful blindness to the poison the mayor is spreading.
Joins Bibi bashing
If that weren’t disqualifying enough, how could she possibly rush to defend him against Netanyahu after his spiteful bid to have the NYPD arrest the Israeli leader?
The fracas began before Netanyahu’s fiery Thursday address to the General Assembly.
He had released a video in which he accused Mamdani of “supporting the Hamas terrorist monsters who butchered our people” on Oct. 7, 2023, and of “inciting riots against New York Jews.”
Eventually, the mayor was forced to back down on the arrest issue by admitting what was obvious all along: the US doesn’t recognize the International Criminal Court, which had indicted Netanyahu for waging Israel’s war of self-defense in Gaza, and so there was no basis for the NYPD to execute the warrant.
Instead of apologizing, the mayor all but urged his fellow-travelers to turn out and protest Netanyahu’s visit and speech at the UN.
That is a clear example of what Mamdani cares about most and how his role as mayor of the whole city and its 8.5 million people takes a back seat when it comes to his obsessive hatred of Israel.
Asked about Netanyahu’s sweeping accusations against Mamdani in a radio interview, Hochul declared that “I have enormous disagreements with Prime Minister Netanyahu — and this is added to the list,” she said, adding that Netanyahu is “not telling the truth.”
She insisted that “The mayor has not called for riots against Jewish people in this city, either.”
That was low-hanging fruit, but Hochul conveniently skipped the main focus of Netanyahu’s criticism, which was Mamdani’s virulent obsession with Israel.
The prime minister used part of his blistering address Thursday to unload directly on Mamdani.
His charges included the claim that “Jews no longer feel safe in New York” and that the mayor “falsely and repeatedly” accuses Israel of genocide in Gaza.
He also said the mayor’s attempt to have him arrested was a bid to silence him.
All true.
Ignored own advice
Netanyahu went on to say that, “Now it’s no wonder you praise criminals convicted of supporting Hamas — you count as friends people like Hasan Piker, who said . . . America deserved 9/11. Some friends you have.”
He added, “you tried to stop me from coming here. You tried to silence me. Well, you can’t silence me. You can’t silence the truth. And here is the simple truth. Israel didn’t commit genocide, Israel prevented genocide.”
As if to highlight his contempt for the prime minister and Israel, the mayor posted a video on X taken during the speech.
It showed him at Gracie Mansion with guests, his caption saying: “I planted an olive tree at Gracie Mansion with Palestinian families from Gaza. May peace be our future.”
Let’s see him take that act on the road and try to sell it to Hamas and Iran.
As for Hochul, her defense of Mamdani actually violates her own previous guidance to him.
Not long ago, she told the New York Times that she advised him to focus more on his job of running the city and to stop calling Netanyahu a “war criminal” and urging his arrest.
“I encouraged him to — ‘let’s focus on the blocking and tackling of city government,” the governor told the outlet, saying she told Mamdani to stick to his day job.
The odd part is that if Hochul had followed her own advice to him, she wouldn’t have embarrassed herself and her office last week.
By jumping headfirst into the mud to slam Netanyahu, she fell into the same trap she warned the mayor about.
That she did it in defense of Mamdani makes the episode fodder for a psychiatrist — or at least a campaign adviser.
Meanwhile, “Big Sis” ought to stop playing career coach for an antisemite and do her own damn job.
This story originally appeared on NYPost
