Zohran Mamdani’s election as mayor of New York is no longer a local political story; it is a wake-up call for Western culture. This is not a victory of youth, not a socialist upheaval, and not a triumph of liberalism and equal opportunity; it is the first and most dramatic victory in the era of influence and fake culture.
Intensive influence and fake [culture] were not born in these elections, but when this happens against the basic DNA of the voter base (a high percentage of Jews and a moderate Democratic electorate voted for Mamdani), it is already a breach of a dam that. If not stopped, it will wash through many cities and states in the United States and throughout the West.
So why does New York interest us here in Israel, and what is the connection between New York and the Hattin near Tiberias…? Well, the dam of New York, in particular, and of the US in general, is more important to the State of Israel than anything. US support for Israel is important existentially and strategically, no less than a nuclear bomb.
Mamdani’s election is not the result of a liberal wave, but the direct product of a continuous, planned, and well-funded penetration by external forces, enemies of the West, into the heart of Western civilization. Like at Hattin, they do it cleverly and by ruse. They understood that, by brute force, it would be hard to defeat the West, so they sneaked in and won through quiet influence.
For years now, influence arms of foreign states have been operating in this arena, from Qatar through Iran to Russia, united in one goal: to shake the foundations of Western democracy through cultural, cognitive, and political penetration. Radical Islam and their anti-Western allies have understood that the way to conquer Western states will not be by force on the battlefield, but in the civic, cultural, and political fields. They learned to penetrate content, to turn democracy into a tool, and to offer an alternative where Western culture has lost its identity.
'Woke' Ideology Eroding West, Leading to Civilization Clash
To realize this vision, these forces allied with internal partners, including the progressive and Woke movement. This extreme left ideology seeks to disconnect the West from the roots from which it grew, to defame its heritage, and to pour into it a consciousness of guilt and self-annihilation to the point of internal disintegration.
Slowly, quietly, the West is losing the ability to defend itself from within. Those who understand the arena can identify the hands behind the scenes, the mechanisms that work day and hour, with funding and coordination, to erode the internal cohesion of the West and to play on liberal Western values in the streets, in academia, in the media, and in politics. This melody will ultimately lead to its internal disintegration and the rise of a dark era marked by extreme values.
Mamdani, like the current he represents, is a master of words; he knows how to speak their language and touch the hearts of all the audiences he seeks to conquer: Jews, LGBTQ people, Woke dupes, and even worshipers in mosques. Each group will be given a tailored message, and everything is kosher on the way to one goal: seizing power and normalizing extreme values and terror.
Let there be no mistake. Mamdani is far less clever than Salah ad-Din and is light-years from him. But the comparison here is primarily about the importance of the Battle of Hattin and its perceived influence on the entire campaign. Unlike the Battle of Hattin, the battle in the US has not yet been decided. It is still possible to stop the drift, but only if one clear understanding takes hold: we are in a clash of civilizations.
While one side is already deep in the trenches, the other still naps, confident that this wave too will pass. Israel, in many ways, has become the clearest symbol of the process. It is one of the easiest influence stories to push; the extreme Islamic bloc rides on it. Here is a story of starvation, and there is an absurd story of genocide, rich with understandable antisemitism; this story becomes a catalyst for the process.
To Save West, Israel Must Lead Global Values Alliance
But the loss here is double and compounded. In this narrative, where Israel is part of the influence story, it loses support among the American public. While we lost the American left long ago, we are slowly but critically losing the American right. And as the process matures, we may find ourselves with many Mamdanis in the American government who, with a wave of the hand, can impose weapons embargoes, freeze funds and investments, and more.
This kind of damage could be critical to the State of Israel, far beyond the Iranian nuclear issue. Therefore, this is not another political struggle; it is the beginning of a real battle between cultures. A real battle for the future of Western civilization and of the State of Israel together. An existential battle over the world as we have known it so far.
If the State of Israel desires life, and if the Western world wants to prevent the fall of the culture on whose foundations the free world was built, it is not enough to fight the symptoms at the bottom of the rope; one must climb to the top of the rope and take the reins. Not just public diplomacy, but comprehensive influence. The State of Israel cannot fight this battle alone.
A broad, global organizing of communities with identical values and yearning for freedom is required. Jewish and Christian communities that will cooperate to push back the dark and that will engage not only in prevention and fortification, but also in consciousness-raising and influence, using all the tools that allowed the enemies of the West to penetrate it.
If this alliance is not formed, we will continue to fight each other on our own, and each will fall in turn. What is happening today in New York is not an American story. It is another station in a transcontinental process with one goal: weakening the free world from within and posing a real existential danger to the State of Israel, and whoever does not understand this now will wake up too late.
Adv. Sagiv Asulin is an expert on Iran, influence operations, and strategic perception at the Jerusalem Center for Security and Foreign Affairs (JCFA). A former senior officer and operations commander in Israel’s security forces, Asulin brings extensive experience in intelligence, national security strategy, and international outreach. His work focuses on the intersection of influence, faith-based diplomacy, and the Iranian threat network, strengthening JCFA’s efforts to engage global partners in countering malign influence and promoting strategic awareness.