Mamdani in July 2026. Credit: NYC Mayors office, WikiCommons

"Benjamin Netanyahu is a war criminal. The architect of a horrific genocide against the Palestinian people. He is responsible for the killing of over 73,000 people. For the maiming of tens of thousands of children, as those who survive undergo amputation without anaesthesia.  For the targeting of neo-natal hospitals and maternity care centres, denying newborns even the chance to live. For the countless people he starved as he blockaded food and humanitarian aid from reaching them. For the gunning down of hundreds of aid workers and journalists. And just last month, the UN confirmed that Palestinian children continue to be deliberately targeted and killed by Israeli armed forces...the list goes on and on."

Before getting into the detail of this, its important to recognise that Christadelphians are Bible-believers not students of international law. We are not affiliated to any kind of political activism and the type of law that we place authority and trust in is God’s law in the Bible. However, when a hugely influential public figure says this kind of thing against one of the leaders of the Jewish people in our times, this is certainly cause for some interest. The question is, should we believe the narrative that nearly all of the mainstream media and public figures such as Mamdani are telling us about the Jewish people? The Bible is clear the Jews are God’s chosen people, but that doesn’t mean that everything they do is correct. Far from it. 

The Accusations

Zoran Mamdani would have us believe that Netanyahu, the democratically elected leader of the Jewish people in the land of Israel is a war criminal who is mercilessly committing genocide against a defenceless population. That would put him in the same league as Adolf Eichman, for example, who orchestrated the final solution. Or perhaps Pol Pot who was mass murderer responsible for executions and starvation throughout Cambodia. Mamdani, along with the International Criminal Court has decided that Netanyahu is a world leader who should be considered alongside men such as Chairman Mao, the leader of the Chinese Communist party and responsible for millions of deaths. Mamdani explicitly accuses Netanyahu of:

• Genocide
• Responsibility for killing 73,000 people
• Targeting neo-natal hospitals
• Denies newborns even the chance to live. 
• He starved countless people
• He deliberately ordered the gunning down of aid workers
• Allowing the IDF to deliberately target to kill Gazan children. 

According to Mamdani, Netanyahu has committed crimes so grave, that they offend all of humanity. And as stated above, Mamdani is echoing the views of many in the media. This is not a fringe view. 

Israel's War in Gaza

The purpose of this Bible in the News is not to go into detail about all of the details of what has happened in Gaza. So much has been written in defence of Israel’s actions - the care they have taken in Gaza, whilst trying to root out a terror organisation hell bent on their destruction. You can find the figures of the aid they have sent to help support the country they are at war with. You can compare the civilian casualties in Gaza with other urban combat situations in history. And that without taking into account the huge inflation of the death toll by the Hamas-run health ministry. Let’s assume for a moment for arguments’ sake, that Israel has made mistakes in Gaza. Lets assume they didn’t set up as many aid stations as they should. We could assume they pursued a less than effective military strategy that meant more civilians died than was necessary. Maybe a case could be made that Netanyahu didn’t keep enough tabs on the rhetoric of some of his cabinet ministers. I personally don’t believe that any of those things are true. But the point is, if this were any other free-market, liberal democracy then the world would critique certain positions or actions taken by that country. But with Israel, its different.

Diagnosing Mamdani with 'Israelophobia'

There’s a book called “Israelophobia”, written by the editor of the Jewish Chronicle. In this book, he asks the question: Where does criticism of Israel end, and antisemitism begin? The statements made by Mamdani and so many others are not a fair minded critique of another democratic nation. They openly demonise the Jewish people in a way that is perpetuated by lie after lie after lie. And when we think about this in the historical context of antisemitism, its not hard to make the connection to the modern day. Mamdani accuses Netanyahu of mercilessly, deliberately, cruelly targeting children. What does he mean by this. It’s suggesting that there’s an implicit agreement between Netanyahu, all the generals, all of the leadership in the IDF and the rest of the soldiers. This would mean most people in the army are completely fine with the idea of wandering around Gaza picking off random children with their guns, and enjoying their suffering along the way. That’s not so different from the blood libels of history, where the Jews were accused of killing Christian children for their passover rituals. We may all have different personal opinions about what Israel has done in Gaza. But this is about recognising where criticism ends and demonisation and Jew-hatred begins.With the mayor of New York, Mamdani, its not so hard to see. For example, Melanie Philips, a journalist pointed out this week that “he appointed an 18-member advisory committee on the judiciary without a single Jewish attorney, former judge, or legal professional—this in a city where Jews make up approximately half of all its lawyers. The message was unmistakable. The mayor is simply trying to erase civic involvement by the city’s Jews”. 

A Christadelphian Perspective

This bible in the news was written as a reminder that we live in an antisemitic world.

Brother HP Mansfield

For the bible believers who lived in the 1800s, it would be pretty sad if they believed the lies that Jews killed Christian children at passover. It would be sad if they believed the lies that Alfred Dreyfus was spy. In the 1900s, we would hope that people who recognised what Bible prophecy said about antisemitism would see that the antisemitic book called the “Protocols of the Elders of Zion” was a lie. Hopefully they could tell that what was written in Hitler’s “Mein-Kampf” was just antisemitism.

And hopefully we can still recognise the lies today. HP Mansfield was a Christadelphian who edited the Logos Magazine. Just after the second World War, he wrote the following: “The blight of antisemitism has cursed the record of a dozen nations, and the history of mankind throughout the centuries testifies to the fact that it does not pay to curse the Jew. Nor is antisemitism confined to active persecution, for in its most virulent form it is found in the vague insinuation and denunciation of this ancient people of God. The ‘half-lie’ has cursed the Jew so that today, he is a “byword and a hissing among all people”…But in its worst form antisemitism is found among Christadelphians  who repeat as fact any piece of scandal they can find against this ancient people”. Before we believe everything that we might hear in the mainstream media for from the leaders of the world, lets remember that in the latter days, In our times, God will gather all nations against the Jewish people. 

This has been Daniel Blackburn joining you for this weeks’ edition of Bible in the news.