New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani wants New Yorkers to believe that he’s a man of principle. Asked whether he supports Israel as a Jewish state, the mayor struck a lofty pose: He “can’t support” any nation “that privileges one religion over another, whether it be Israel or Saudi Arabia or anywhere else.” Equality, he intoned, should be “enshrined in every country in the world.”
Nice line for a fundraiser. It falls apart the second you open a calculator.

Start with Mamdani’s basic lie: Despite his claims, Israel has no official state religion. None.

The 23 Muslim-majority countries that constitutionally enshrine Islam—Saudi Arabia, Iran, Egypt, Jordan, Pakistan, the United Arab Emirates and more—most certainly do. So, when Mamdani sneers at Israel and Saudi Arabia in the same breath, he isn’t holding Israel to a higher standard. He’s slandering the one country in the room that actually meets his supposed test.