The Islamization of New York’s Government

As anti-Jewish extremism surged after October 7th, New York’s leadership has increasingly aligned itself with Islamist political networks.

New York Attorney General Letitia James (left) and New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani (photo created using AI for illustration purposes only)

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This is a guest essay written by Daniel Greenfield, a Shillman Journalism Fellow at the David Horowitz Freedom Center.

You can also listen to the podcast version of this essay on Apple Podcasts, YouTube Music, YouTube, and Spotify.

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After a wave of Islamic mob attacks and riots aimed at Jewish synagogues and communities in New York City that began after October 7th — many of which were titled “Flood,” echoing the name used by Hamas for those attacks — the state’s top prosecutor finally took action.

Against the Jews.

Even as she failed to take action against the Islamist mobs waving genocidal terrorist flags and chanting, among other things, “We support Hamas!”, New York Attorney General Letitia James proudly announced that she had shut down Betar, a pro-Israel group whose members had rallied to protect Jewish institutions, accusing it of the “widespread persecution of Muslim, Arab, Palestinian” because its “members repeatedly referred to keffiyehs — traditional Palestinian scarves — as ‘rape rags’ and claimed that Muslims ‘hate America.’”

This shutdown of legal First Amendment¹ speech was all the more shocking because it came even as James had conspicuously failed to act to prevent Muslim attacks on synagogues and harassment of Jewish neighborhoods. After the Betar shutdown, a number of Jewish groups asked James to tackle pro-terrorist Muslim groups like Within Our Lifetime. However, no action has been taken by her office.

What was behind James’ systemic antisemitism?

Some pointed to her alliance with New York City’s new mayor, Zohran Mamdani, and his coalition — which merges Islamists and the Far-Left, both groups that were responsible for the attacks on Jewish communities.

But signs point to something far darker: the growing Islamization of the Attorney General of New York’s office under James as a likelier explanation for her systemic two-tier actions.

James had developed close ties to Islamist groups, and even before targeting Betar, she had threatened Steven Emerson, one of the earliest counterterrorism figures to monitor and expose Islamic terrorism in New York, as well as the nonprofit The Investigative Project on Terrorism for monitoring activities by Islamist terror-linked groups. The press release by James’ office objected that The Investigative Project on Terrorism had been monitoring Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), an unindicted terror funding co-conspirator whose leader praised the October 7th attacks, and which has links to the Muslim Brotherhood.

“As we enter the holy month of Ramadan, it’s more important than ever that we show our support for our Muslim communities and stand up to Islamophobia,” James warned in her press release, promoting her illegal assault on a counterterrorism organization on behalf of an unindicted terrorist funding co-conspirator.

The surveillance of CAIR had not even been taking place in New York State, but in Ohio. However, James was caught picking up materials and agendas from CAIR despite its ties to terrorism and support for the murder of Jews.

Why was James so desperate to pander to Islamists?

Her political aspirations have become entangled with Islamic political elements, and her office has become Islamized on her watch.

Last month, Halimah Elmariah, James’ Egyptian Muslim press secretary, announced she was stepping down to become the press secretary for the New York and New Jersey Port Authority.

Elmariah had previously referred to Israel’s response in 2013 to the Hamas kidnapping and murder of three Israeli teenagers (one of them also American) as an “assault on Gaza,” and compared Israel’s campaign against Hamas terrorists to the Holocaust.

Beyond Israel, Emariah appeared to adopt conventional Muslim brotherhood positions, defending former Egyptian President Mohammed Morsi (who was also a senior leader and the official presidential candidate of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt) and complaining about his successor “who crushed all political opposition, including most notably the Muslim Brotherhood, which he dubbed a terrorist organization.”

For good measure, Hamas is a direct offshoot of the Muslim Brotherhood.

Elmariah claimed that counterterrorism programs in New York City were “spying on Muslim communities,” and she defended Qatar, a state-sponsor of the Muslim Brotherhood, as well as the Syrian “rebels” — a mostly Islamist movement spanning the Muslim Brotherhood and Al-Qaeda.

In her departure post, Elmariah bragged about how “alongside Umair Khan and Mamadou Bah, we led the Attorney General’s efforts to convene roundtables with community leaders, share resources, speak out against anti-Muslim and anti-Arab hate, host Iftars, and most importantly, hire the office’s first-ever Muslim Affairs Director.”

Unfortunately, I was not able to find any evidence of a “Jewish Affairs Director” in Letitia James’ office.

The position of Muslim Affairs Director went to Mohammad Awais, who was featured at an event of the Muslim Americans in Public Service (MAPS) that included Mamadou Sire Bah, previously mentioned by Elmariah, who had advanced from James’ scheduler to a “senior advance associate” on her team. Partners of MAPS include CAIR and other Islamist groups with a history of supporting terrorism. Journalists have noted ties between MAPS and Islamic groups linked to terrorism.

Umair Khan occupies an even more prominent position: a senior advisor and special counsel to James, whose problematic alliance with Islamists goes back to when Dabah “Debbie” Almontaser was serving as an early “advisor on cultural and religious diversity issues” for James back when she occupied the position of “public advocate.” Almontaser had become a controversial figure over her “Intifada NYC” branding. The board member of the Muslim Democratic Club of New York is alleged to have played a significant role in the political career of Zohran Mamdani, who also came through the Muslim Democratic Club of New York.

James’ desperate courting of Islamists led her into an alliance with Mamdani and CAIR, while undermining the security of New Yorkers and their First Amendment rights. Earlier this year, in January, James rushed to brag:

“For the first time in our state’s history, January is officially recognized as Muslim American Heritage Month! This month, and every month, we celebrate the invaluable contributions, recognize the rich culture, and honor the traditions of our Muslim communities in New York.”²

The “invaluable contributions” from Muslims that James may be most interested in are not to New York, but to her personal political career.

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1. The First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution guarantees five fundamental freedoms: freedom of religion, speech, the press, assembly, and the right to petition the government.

2. New York AG Letitia James on Instagram