One thing that can be said that’s favorable about Zohran Mamdani, the avowed socialist who is almost certain to be the next mayor of New York City: he loves his parents. That fact is, however, not as heartwarming as it might be under different circumstances.
The New York Post revealed Sunday that “Hamas-backing Qatar has bankrolled film and stage projects by socialist Zohran Mamdani’s Israel-bashing movie-director mom — and one of its royals is now pushing her son’s mayoral bid.”
Now, Zohran Mamdani is his own man, and what his mother has done has nothing whatsoever to do with his mayoral bid, right? Nor does it shed any light on his own views, right? Sure. After all, the candidate’s father, Mahmood Mamdani, a Marxist professor at Columbia University, said back in June that “we hadn’t bargained for being parents of a prospective mayor,” and appeared anxious to downplay any idea that he or Zohran’s mother, Mira Nair, had influenced young Zohran unduly: “He’s his own person. Now, of course what we do as his parents is part of the environment in which he grew up, and he couldn’t help but engage with it. That doesn’t mean anything is reflected back on us.”
Zohran’s mom, however, took a sharply different view, saying: “I don’t agree! Of course the world we live in, and what we write and film and think about, is the world that Zohran has very much absorbed.”
Of course he did. And that world seems to have been to a large extent funded by Qatar, the Muslim Brotherhood-supporting emirate from which Hamas top dogs watched the Oct. 7 jihad massacres, and got on their knees to thank Allah for allowing them to murder a large number of Jews. The Post noted that “Sheikha Al-Mayassa bint Hamad Al-Thani, sister to the ruling emir, and the state-funded cultural institutions she controls, have supported Mira Nair and her creative projects since at least 2009, even extending a personal invitation to participate in the cultural program the country organized as part of the festivities around hosting the 2022 World Cup.”
Since young Mamdani became the Democrats’ mayoral nominee, that support has only increased: “Since mid-June, Sheikha Al-Thani has taken to promoting Mamdani’s mayoral candidacy on social media, boosting news of favorable polling on Instagram and posting fire emojis under a TikTok video of him embracing Nair.”
The links between Mira Nair and rich Qataris go back at least to 2009, when Nair’s movie Amelia “opened the first-ever Doha Tribeca Film Festival in the Gulf regime’s capital.” This funding seems to have focused particularly on whitewashing Islamic jihad violence and shifting the blame for it to America, as in Nair’s 2012 movie The Reluctant Fundamentalist, which portrays a Pakistani Muslim turning to jihad after American officials are unkind to him. The Doha Film Institute forked over a cool $15 million for that one, which covered its entire budget.
As its support for Hamas and sheltering of Hamas leaders indicates, Qatar also hates Israel, and that’s fine by Mira Nair. In July 2013, the summer before young Zohran co-founded his college’s chapter of Students for Justice in Palestine, a far-left, virulently anti-Israel organization, his mother was invited to be the guest of honor at the Haifa International Film Festival to highlight The Reluctant Fundamentalist.
Related: Mamdani’s Advisors Are As Sane, Sober, and Responsible As He Is
Haifa International Film Festival officials were almost certainly leftists who shared the left’s unwavering penchant for embracing any criticism, any denigration, any dismissal of the dominant and mainstream culture. Mira Nair, however, was not interested in participating in any celebration of her film in Israel. In a series of tweets, she announced: “I will not be going to Israel at this time. I will go to Israel when the walls come down. I will go to Israel when occupation is gone. I will go to Israel when the state does not privilege one religion over another. I will go to Israel when Apartheid is over. I stand w/ Palestine for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel (PACBI) & the larger Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) Mov’t.”
This is not to say that Nair boycotted the Haifa International Film Festival at Qatar’s behest, but just that in Mira Nair, rich Qataris found a person who was entirely in sync with their world view. And now Zohran Mamdani, who has said repeatedly that he was motivated to enter politics because of his support for the forces arrayed against Israel, is about to carry his mother’s perspective into Gracie Mansion. New York City will never be the same.
Zohran Mamdani is poised to do an immense amount of damage to New York City, and to the country in general, all while the establishment media hails him as a fresh, young, energetic new face with exciting new ideas. Don't fall for it. Instead, get the truth. Join PJ Media VIP with promo code FIGHT for 60% off.