There is an old, haunting metaphor frequently deployed in politics and psychology to illustrate the human tendency to ignore gradual, catastrophic decay: the boiling frog.
If you drop a frog into a pot of boiling water, it will instinctively sense the danger and leap to safety. But if you place that same frog in warm water and turn up the heat incrementally, it will fail to perceive the creeping existential threat. It will simply adapt, grow comfortable, and sit quietly until it is boiled alive.
I frequently receive feedback from readers who appreciate my analysis but explicitly ask for actionable advice. They tell me, “We want solutions; we want a strategy.”
For most of my professional life, I have operated as a global strategist for public and private institutions, a problem solver navigating high-stakes crises.
Looking at the geopolitical landscape today, my strategic assessment is as stark as it is urgent: The global water surrounding us is rapidly nearing its boiling point, and Israel and the Jewish community are, for the most part, still trying to remain comfortable in the pot.
Therefore, my strategic counsel for Israel, the global Jewish Community, and America is to understand that the water will soon reach a boiling point, and we are all in the same pot.
The global campaign of antisemitism, anti-Zionism, and systemic hostility toward Israel has reached alarming proportions. This is not a series of disconnected, organic outbursts.
It is a long-term, strategically orchestrated, and heavily financed campaign that has achieved a chilling political feat: uniting the fringes of the extreme Left and Right into a shared, obsessive hatred.
Further quieted, encouraged, and geopolitically coordinated by the likes of Iran, Qatar, Russia, and China, this ideological offensive poses an existential threat to Israel and the global Jewish community.
Whether we will choose to actually do something about the fact that the water around us is rapidly approaching a boil remains to be seen.
Historically, we have proven dangerously slow to react. We mourn the six million Jews murdered in the Holocaust; we mourn the families of the Nova festival-goers who lost their children, as well as the babies slaughtered and the women raped and violated on October 7.
We watch with varying degrees of anxiety as antisemitic incidents stretch from the streets of Washington, DC, to London, to Bondi Beach in Australia.
Yes, today we have a sovereign state and a formidable Israel Defense Forces. But military hardware did not protect the Bibas children, neither before nor during their moments of captivity, nor did it shield Jewish communities celebrating on a peaceful Australian coastline.
If you do not recognize the temperature of the water you are swimming in, what difference does it make how strong you are? If Mike Tyson is completely blindsided by a sucker punch, even he can be knocked unconscious. Strength without situational awareness is an illusion.
Which brings me to my thesis: We must be thankful for Zohran Mamdani, as he is offering us a clearer understanding of our situation.
Embracing the honesty of our adversaries
Mamdani, the newly elected Mayor of New York City, has chosen to lead the charge as an overt anti-Zionist, deploying rhetoric that positions himself squarely against the Jewish state and the mainstream Jewish community. From his policy decisions to his endorsement of congressional candidates aimed at reshaping the American legislature, his positions are stark.
Mamdani is performing a vital service: he is alerting us before it is too late. By abandoning the polite euphemisms that long characterized progressive anti-Israel rhetoric, he is letting us know exactly where we stand. When he openly mocks the traditional Israel Day Parade in NYC while happily attending other cultural parades, he is showing us that the water is bubbling.
Consider his recent public declaration regarding the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC). Mamdani openly branded the mainstream pro-Israel lobby as “monsters” who move millions in “dark money.” Speaking from City Hall, he argued that they weaponize capital to “preserve their power so that they can turn us against one another.” He declared: “In the wealthiest city, in the wealthiest country in the history of the world, we need not live in fear of monsters any longer.”
The mayor governing the city with the largest Jewish population in the world outside of Israel is not just looking to have a local impact, but a national and global one. Utilizing the laundering of classic, ancient conspiratorial accusations from the highest municipal podium in America. When an elected official swaps out traditional diplomatic expressions for terms like “monsters” and a hidden hand, “turning us against one another,” he normalizes a dangerous propaganda pattern characterized by three distinct realities:
• The Creation of Moral Binaries: reducing a multi-layered, existential regional conflict into a simplistic fairy tale of pure oppressors and pure oppressed.
• Emotionally Charged Outrage: mobilizing a political base by framing ideological opponents not as mistaken, but as morally illegitimate and subhuman, literal “monsters.”
• The Deployment of Scapegoating: suggesting that a powerful, Jewish-associated organization is the clandestine architect of broader domestic societal suffering.
Mamdani operates within a democratic framework subject to courts and elections; the danger lies in his techniques. History teaches us that when you systematically dehumanize a group and simplify complex realities, you create a social atmosphere where raw prejudice becomes acceptable, normalized, and eventually weaponized.
The illusions of our sleepy Western democracies
Imagine what an awakening we would experience if other hostile actors followed Mamdani’s transparent approach. Imagine if Qatar simply opened its books, decided that honesty was the best policy, and announced to the American public: “We are injecting billions into your elite universities so we can mind-control your youth, and we have funded Al Jazeera to pull you away from your traditional media landscapes and feed you ideological warfare dressed up as news.”
If they spoke with that level of candor, Western democracies would hopefully snap out of their stupor. We would view their financial entanglements, including high-priced assets bought or gifted to create influence across the political spectrum, from progressive institutions to conservative leaders, through a clear national security lens.
Mamdani’s rhetoric provides that exact same clarity for New York Jewry and Israel. He removes the guesswork.
These rhetorical shifts, normalizing the term “monsters” for mainstream Jewish political participation, are modern iterations of the historical signs painted on shop windows or the yellow armbands worn in Europe. When Jewish parents tell their children that it is best not to wear a Magen David on campus, it should be clear that the temperature has been turned up slowly over a decade of campus radicalization, NGO weaponization, and media bias. Mamdani just turned the dial to an even higher flame.
A strategic blueprint for fighting back
When an official uses their platform to demonize Jewish civic participation, the community cannot afford defensive crouches or polite, behind-the-scenes lobbying. We must respond with a systematic, active strategy.
• Build Broad Counter-Coalitions: We must actively forge alliances with like-minded cultural, religious, and political communities, particularly within the Christian faith and moderate secular factions, who recognize that the decay of Western democratic norms always begins with the targeting of Jews.
• Apply Unrelenting, Lawful Public Pressure: Ensure that hostile officials are met with organized, vocal, and legally compliant demonstrations at every public appearance, morning press conference, and policy rollout to consistently expose their rhetorical bigotry.
• Reclaim and Dominate the Public Square: Counter-narrative warfare with equally visible, energetic, and unyielding physical and digital messaging. Adversarial factions should never be permitted to dominate the public square uncontested.
Mamdani’s victory and his subsequent rhetoric are a gift of clarity. He has shown us the pot, he has shown us the flame, and he has explicitly told us what he intends to do. More importantly, he is not alone. The water is hot. The only remaining question is whether we have the courage to leap out of the pot and fight back before it boils.