Eric Adams, the embattled current mayor of New York City, has ended his reelection bid in an effort to make it easier to defeat anti-Semitic socialist Zohran Mamdani.

Not surprisingly, the conservative New York Post had little to offer other than opposition and a limp appeal to that city's apathetic electorate to get off their couches to vote.

This is no surprise, since, even before the conservative movement traded in what little sense it had for a leash held by Donald Trump, it was always a collection of disparate elements united by opposition to the left, rather than any positive agenda, let alone a pro-freedom one.

This problem is, of course, on top of the fact that New York City strikes me as a place where appeals to preserve capitalism or even to be tough on crime risk alienating a leftist electorate that will reflexively smear such appeals with ridiculous leftist caricatures.

And all that is on top of the fact that the strongest opponent, Andrew Cuomo, left office as governor of New York in disgrace due to allegations of sexual harassment.

What to do?

Image by Infrogmation of New Orleans, via Wikipedia, license.

Appeal to the tiny and vanishing bit of common ground still shared by voters just to either side of center: Basic human decency. Mamdani is well-known to be sympathetic to Hamas. For example, he just recently hemmed and hawed his way around condemning the genocidal butchers of October 7, 2023.

Cuomo, while nevertheless a terrible choice in any other election, deserves to win in this context in light of his past support for Israel. He -- or at least Mamdani's opponents -- should lean into this. Hard.

And Mamdani's opponents can simultaneously help him while also acknowledging their champion's flaws -- by borrowing from a similar campaign, the 1991 Louisiana gubernatorial race, which pitted the corrupt and unpopular three-term Edwin Edwards against David Duke, who, among other things, had once been a grand wizard of the Ku Klux Klan.

The extremely negative runoff was notable for David Duke's own party repudiating him and a plethora of unofficial bumper stickers that humorously lamented the choice while offering the only decent solution:

Humorous unofficial bumper stickers were created in support of Edwards over Duke, despite Edwards' negative reputation. One bumper sticker read "Vote for the Lizard, not the Wizard", while another read "Vote For The Crook: It's Important."

Might I suggest one for New York: "Vote for the Creep. It's Important." I'm sure others more clever than I can outdo this.

-- CAV

Winston Peters has done the right thing. The entirely performative act of recognising the “State of Palestine” by three countries with left-wing governments is not a reason to follow. For a start, at least in the UK and Australia, the respective Labour (and Labor) parties fear losing Muslim voter support to minor parties or independents. The UK, Labour lost four predominantly Muslim electorates to independents in 2024. Some Australian federal divisions have similar challenges, with both independents and the Greens presenting challenges. France doesn’t quite have the same challenge, but France’s colonial past drives it to take its own stance to wage power in the region. 

Objectively, nobody honestly believes that the “State of Palestine” actually exists. You’d think that might matter, but in this post-modernist age of relativism, then if you “believe” something is real, then it is true. So, let’s go through the factual basis for rejecting the recognition of something that can’t objectively be recognised as such.

The act of “recognising” a sovereign state is that of one state acknowledges another entity is legitimately its “equal” at least under international law. Almost always, this is a formality because states meet the formal legal criteria for actually “being” states. That being:

• Clearly defined borders

• Effective government over those borders and most of its territory

• A permanent population (comprising its citizens)

• The means to engage in relations with other states

The “State of Palestine” lacks most of this criteria for a whole host of reasons. It doesn’t have clearly defined boundaries. The State of Palestine has never existed, as before 1967 the West Bank was under the control of Jordan, and Gaza under Egypt. Given discussions on peace under the Oslo Accords were about this topic, it is clear this is far from settled.

There is no effective government over the borders of a not clearly defined territory as Israel and Egypt have control over those borders. Even if there were such control, there is no government with control over both the West Bank and Gaza, and even the Palestinian Authority has limited powers over part of the West Bank. With Hamas controlling Gaza, it hardly is a territory with effective control by the government.  It’s hard to imagine a sovereign state without sovereign powers including that of entry or exit of its territory.

It may be possible to identify a permanent population, although many Palestinians identify as “refugees”, inferring they are not permanent residents of the land they live on. However, this isn’t such a barrier.

Of course, there are Palestinian ambassadors, embassies and other trapping of being a state, in terms of foreign relations, so arguably it does meet that criteria.

However, that’s not enough. There are not clearly defined borders, there is no effective government over most of the territory that could conceivably be part of a Palestinian state, and certainly not its borders. It may be easier to claim a permanent population and the means to engage in diplomatic relations, although given it can’t control its borders or airspace, it’s rather empty.

By contrast, Taiwan (Republic of China) absolutely meets all of those conditions, even if de jure it claims sovereignty over all of the territory governed by the People’s Republic of China, it’s clear where the demarcation line between the territory governed by the two Chinese governments is (and we all know the government in Taiwan has long ceded any formal interest in expanding its control beyond its current territory). However, you won’t see any serious campaigns to recognise Taiwan (for many reasons), but I digress.

Luxon and Peters had a choice. Look like they are following the UK, France and Canada (and over a hundred less than liberal democracies along with outright dictatorships), or look like they are following the US. What he did do was neither, although the critics bay it is some sort of Trumpian act (the ultimate pejorative nowadays, much worse than supporting Hamas or Iran), it is aligning NZ with Japan, south Korea and Singapore. 

When the UK and others recognised the “State of Palestine” Hamas claimed that its tactic, of the 7th October pogrom “worked” alongside its sacrifice of thousands of Gazans as human shields for its members.  “Pro-Palestine” activists don’t care about that, because far too many of them minimise Hamas’s pogrom, let alone its theocratic fascist policies (zero tolerance for political or religious dissent, zero tolerance for equal rights for women, let alone LGBT people), because they are driven more by hatred of Israel and Western capitalist liberal democracies than concern for Palestinians.

That doesn’t mean that there shouldn’t be a “State of Palestine” at some point, once there is a peace agreement between Israel and the Palestinian Authority that resolves the borders, the relationship between both entities, Israeli settlements, sidelining eliminationists on both sides, and guaranteeing peace and security for citizens in both entities. It appears difficult to envisage when neither side is willing to compromise or negotiate, but neither Netanyahu nor Abbas will govern forever. However, until there actually is a “State of Palestine” agreed which lets it fulfil all of the legal conditions for statehood, it is pointless “recognising” it.

Recognising Palestine DOES give succour to Hamas AND to Netanyahu, because it gives them both reason to snub any compromise. “You see, murdering Jews en masse DOES work, because it means they will create thousands of our martyrs and the world will hate them”.  For Netanyahu “see the world hates us, to hell with them, we will ensure there is no Palestinian state”.

It's empty showboating, there is no State of Palestine yet, it’s absolutely right to refuse to engage in the nonsense of pretending there is one to recognise, even if you wish it existed.  Peace on that sliver of land is a long way off, but it wont come from engaging in propagandist make-believe.