New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani has chalked up more notable victories.

His candidates won three crucial Democratic primaries — candidates who are supporters of the Democratic Socialists of America, as is Mamdani — defeating three Democratic Party establishment candidates, two of whom are sitting members of Congress.

Discussing with ABC’s Jonathan Karl, Mandani’s eyes twinkle; he is calm, controlled and articulate. I think of Sade’s song “Smooth Operator.” AI tells us that smooth operator is “the charmer, the masterful strategist, the manipulator (deceiver).”

He speaks half-truths and distortions with heartfelt sincerity that seduces his ill-informed prey.

Mamdani wants to transform our free nation under God into a socialist country and still call it America. He wants to eliminate Israel as a Jewish state and still call it Israel.

“What makes me proudest to be an American,” he says,“ is the belief that equal rights are at the bedrock of our notion of what it means to be an American.”

Of course, for Mr. Smooth Operator, he decides what those rights are. If I build a successful business and accumulate wealth by producing what consumers want, Mr. Smooth Operator doesn’t recognize my right to my wealth and property but rather, in his view, it’s his constituents, those that give him power, that have the right to my property under Mr. Smooth Operator’s narrative of what is just.

Not only is this immoral, but it doesn’t work. Mountains of data show that societies that are economically free — where rights mean that ownership and property are sacred, as in the biblical commandment “thou shalt not steal” — are the most successful and prosperous. And societies where real rights are not recognized, where Smooth Operators decide who gets what, fail.

What about Israel?

Karl notes that Democratic Socialists of America no longer support the “two-state solution” — that is one Jewish State and one Palestinian state side by side. He asks Mamdani if this is now his position.

“I support the State of Israel as a state with equal rights…. A state that privileges one religion over the other is one I can’t tell you I support,” says Mamdani.

Once again, he defines what the rights are and who gets them.

Let’s recall it was democracy that gave birth to the state of Israel. The United Nations voted in 1947 to partition what was then called Palestine into a Jewish state and an Arab state. That vote, which occurred in the wake of the Holocaust where 40% of the Jews in the world were murdered, recognized the right of the Jewish people to their one state. The Jews accepted the UN partition, and the Arabs rejected it. The Arabs preferred to not have a Palestinian state if the price was also establishment of a Jewish state.

War, initiated by the Arabs, followed, and Israel has been fighting for its existence ever since.

Freedom House, a nonpartisan institute in Washington, measures and rates 208 nations worldwide according to civil rights and political liberties. Each country is ranked free, partly free or not free. Israel, with a population of about 10 million, about 2 million of whom are Arabs, is the only country in the Middle East ranked “free” by Freedom House.

There are some 50 Muslim countries in the world, constituting upwards of 2 billion Muslims. An AI search shows zero to two are ranked free. The 48-50 unfree Muslim countries do not trouble Mr. Mandani, a Muslim. The one free Jewish country keeps him up at night.

Attributed to author George Orwell is the quote, “in a time of deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act.”

Let’s celebrate our nation’s 250th birthday with the revolutionary act of telling the truth: that this is a free nation under God, where life, liberty and property are sacred.

Telling the truth, boldly, clearly, courageously and without compromise is our main weapon against the many charlatans among us who threaten our future.

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