Smoke still rose from the ruins of the World Trade Center, and the smell of nearly 2,000 deaths lingered miles uptown. A reporter asked New York Mayor Rudolph Giuliani whether he worried that the city's Muslim neighborhoods would be attacked in revenge for that Islamist-inspired atrocity. Giuliani responded that he would make sure that didn't happen, that he was sending more police to those areas to protect their residents.

Those were Giuliani's better years, when he moved to calm his hurting city. They are a study in contrast with how Mayor Zohran Mamdani has allowed, even encouraged, foreign grievances to roil the five boroughs. During the mayoral campaign, Mamdani refused to condemn a call to globalize the intifada, that is, spread the Mideast "struggle" everywhere.

Mamdani has done a great deal to bring that ugly import into America's largest city. He issued threats to arrest Benjamin Netanyahu when he comes into town to address the United Nations. Told a mayor has no such power, he urged New Yorkers to demonstrate in large numbers when the Israeli prime minister arrives. Can you imagine such a demonstration being peaceful?

I was in Manhattan on 9/11, trapped in a train held under Penn Station as the tunnels were inspected for bombs. The train doors were shut closed, and the conductor kept telling us on the speakers, "This is the safest place you can be at this moment," adding, "Pray for the people in the World Trade Center."

We were about 2 miles north of the horror, yet fear gripped us. We then had no idea who was behind it or whether it was over. Eventually, the conductor came on and told us, "Calmly take your bags and leave the train." I emerged into that gorgeous September day to an utterly changed world.

This is not a commentary on current conflicts in the Mideast. They are their own tragedy, and everyone is entitled to their own opinion. But 25 years ago, despite fears that New Yorkers might retaliate against their Muslim neighbors, almost none of that happened. No masked demonstrators clashed with police outside mosques as they have recently at synagogues. There weren't calls for Saudi Arabia, the source of nearly all the 9/11 hijackers, to let its sworn enemies stream into the country as has been done with Israel.

During the mayoral campaign, a photo was released of Mamdani smiling arm-in-arm with Imam Siraj Wahhaj, who was indicted as a co-conspirator at the earlier 1993 attack on the World Trade Center. Wahhaj had also testified as a character witness for the "Blind Sheik," then also plotting terror attacks against New York's Lincoln Tunnel, the U.N. and other city landmarks.

"Only" six people died in the 1993 attack, but only because it failed in its mission, which was to take the Twin Towers down.

When that photo surfaced, I thought, New Yorkers couldn't possibly elect this guy. But Mamdani squeaked through with less than half the vote. And he had been a U.S. citizen for only seven years.

The mass of Mamdani's support was from younger voters who did not experience 9/11 in real time. Many came from elsewhere. Many were educated, or not educated, to believe that history started in 2005.

Before Mamdani was elected, New York Jews and New York Muslims got along mostly peaceably. And in day-to-day transactions, they mostly still do.

Mamdani has played a double game of flooding social media with charming videos of himself at play while attempting to infuse New York politics with imported ethnic animosity. Look at the sickening pictures of a terrorist attack that foreign ideologies visited on this country 25 years ago. This cannot be forgotten.

Follow Froma Harrop on X @FromaHarrop. She can be reached at [email protected]. To find out more about Froma Harrop and read features by other Creators writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators webpage at www.creators.com.

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