Last week, the Wall Street Journal ran an editorial titled “Mamdani and the Antisemites.” The next day, an article published in the conservative National Review called the mayor’s behavior “shameful.” The day after that, Republican city council member Vickie Paladino accused Mayor Mamdani of creating a “very dangerous environment.”You might wonder what dangerous, shameful, and antisemitic thing New York’s mayor stood accused of doing. Perhaps he personally committed a hate crime or stood on a street corner screaming antisemitic slurs at one of his constituents?As it turns out, this chorus of condemnation was inspired by the mayor saying through a spokesman that he was “deeply opposed” to a real estate event at New York’s Park East Synagogue that promoted the sale of real estate in illegal Israeli settlements in the West Bank. That’s it.The Great Israeli Real Estate EventThe “Great Israeli Real Estate Event” that set up shop at Park East is a traveling real estate showcase that encourages migration to Israel by promoting properties available there. The event’s website features a form you can fill out if you’re interested. The form asks which area of Israel you’re interested in relocating to, and one of the options is Gush Etzion, in the occupied West Bank.Some defenders of the event have argued that Gush Etzion shouldn’t be thought of the same way as other West Bank settlements because, when Israel and the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) were close to a two-state deal in the 1990s and 2000s, various proposals that floated around would have annexed this settlement bloc into Israel as part of a land swap with the new State of Palestine. But it’s unclear what possible moral or legal relevance that could have for the promotion of real estate there in 2026, when no such swap has been made and indeed when the Israeli government routinely insists that there will never be a future two-state deal.Noah Hurowitz, a reporter for…
