Zohran Mamdani Just Toppled Empire in the Heart of NYC

Zohran Mamdani’s landslide win proves that real freedom, including for Palestinians, doesn’t need permission from power—it just needs people.

A son of immigrants. A supporter of Palestine. A democratic socialist. Zohran Mamdani just defeated a political machine once thought invincible, and in doing so, he offered the world something rare: a glimpse of political courage unfazed by fear.

His victory in New York City—the most Jewish city in America—ruptures the myth that standing for justice is political suicide. It reshapes what is possible in U.S. politics.

Because this is not just about New York. It is about the mythologies that have governed American political life for decades. This moment proves that you can oppose apartheid, reject fear politics, and still win, even in the belly of the empire.

It proves that real freedom, including for Palestinians, doesn’t need permission from power. It needs people.

When Zohran Mamdani’s name flashed across the screens as the triumphant underdog who had upended New York’s political establishment, I felt a much needed wave of hope wash over me.

In Mamdani’s victory, I see the city that shaped me reaching back to claim the promise it once offered me: that no machine is larger than the will of its people.

This isn’t just the rise of a 33-year-old democratic socialist. Nor is it solely about the historic prospect of New York’s first Muslim, first Indian-American mayor. It is a repudiation of a system that long told us who was “electable,” who was “trustworthy,” who was allowed to lead. Zohran defied that script. No endorsement from Schumer. No backroom deals with Hakeem Jeffries. No pandering to AIPAC’s millions.

Instead, he showed up—on Bronx stoops, in Queens bodegas, outside Brooklyn diners. He listened. He built. He reminded us where real power lives: in the streets, not the boardrooms.

Even CNN’s Chief Data Analyst couldn’t ignore the tremor: “The people who hate this result the most are the Democratic establishment.” Because this wasn’t just a repudiation of Cuomo, or of AIPAC, or of the spineless centrists who cosigned war crimes at The Hague. It was a declaration from the people of New York, and from all of us watching, that the age of fear is losing ground. That truth still resonates.

And in Gaza, where families face siege, starvation, and slaughter—where even grief has become a luxury—this victory matters. It echoes. It opens a crack in the wall of U.S. complicity. A faint but resolute reminder that there are people, even in the heart of empire, who are willing to name what is happening for what it is: genocide.

In 2021, Zohran stood in Greenpoint and said it plainly: “The struggle for Palestine is the struggle for dignity.” And unlike most politicians, he meant it long before it became politically useful—before it was safe, if it ever is. His campaign did not just refuse to look away from Gaza; it wove Gaza into the moral fabric of its message. Not out of provocation, but out of principle.

For Palestinians whose cities have been erased and for New Yorkers whose hopes have sometimes been buried under rent hikes and hollow slogans, Mamdani’s victory screams out loud that change is possible.

Just weeks ago, Stephen Colbert resurrected one of America’s oldest bigotries—accusing Zohran of dual loyalties, echoing the same tropes once used to exile, marginalize, and silence generations.

But that moment of racism only underscored the stakes. In a city that often celebrates its diversity while isolating difference, voters chose solidarity over smear, empathy over fear. That choice reverberates, across oceans, and across frontlines.

Because this isn’t just about New York. It’s about the teachers in Rafah whose classrooms have turned to ash, the poets in Jabalia whose verses go unread, the children who sleep under the open sky and still dream of freedom. In Zohran’s victory, I see them too.

I also see myself.

I remember my first winter in New York, walking those restless streets with textbooks under my arm and dream-filled nights overhead. I came to earn my master’s degree, wide-eyed and uncertain. I stayed for a decade—first as a student, then as a professor, then as a journalist—shaped by this city's fire and contradictions. I had no certainties then, only the belief that empathy and education might outlast cynicism.

Today, that belief glows again. Mamdani’s rise is not the end of a struggle, nor a passing trend. It is a challenge to every so-called leader. It is a message: you can stand against apartheid. You can name power’s lies. You can demand freedom—not just for Americans, but for Palestinians too—and still win.

This is how empires fall. Not in sudden collapse, but in slow unravellings. One principled defeat at a time. One whisper of resistance that grows into a roar. One election, one refusal, one stand.

We must resist the urge to romanticize this moment as a conclusion. It is not. It is a note in a larger symphony. Because this genocide, unfolding in Gaza with U.S. weapons and Western silence, has revealed what many tried to ignore: that we are living a multi-front liberation struggle. From Rafah to the Bronx. From Sheikh Jarrah to Jackson Heights. And we have the capacity to fight on all these fronts—together. Because liberation is not a solo act. It is a symphony.

So no, it should not be brave for Mamdani to say on live television that if Netanyahu—an indicted war criminal—steps foot in New York, he would be arrested. That should be common sense. That should be law.

But today, it is still radical. And that’s why this victory matters. If AIPAC’s millions can be defeated in New York City, then maybe, just maybe, the gates of Gaza’s prison can be unlocked by the steady force of global solidarity.

We are not free yet. But today, we are closer.