I have spent more than three decades in the field of hate-crime investigations, working cases across jurisdictions, advising police leadership, and collaborating with Jewish communities and civil society across multiple continents. The work teaches something that rarely shows up in academic writing or political commentary: The earliest warning signs of targeted violence are almost never obvious. They are embedded in language that feels, at first, like ordinary political anger.
That language typically follows a pattern. It doesn’t start with explicit calls for harm. It begins with descriptions of hidden control, corrupt influence and coordinated manipulation, often directed at groups that have long served as scapegoats in moments of social tension.
That is why I paid close attention to New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s June 18 remarks at Kings Theater in Brooklyn, N.Y.
In a forceful speech, he referred to political opponents as “monsters” and singled out AIPAC, describing it as an organization moving “millions in dark money” with the purpose of shaping democratic outcomes and turning Americans against each other. He framed it as part of a broader system of manipulation and distortion.
Individually, those claims might be treated as political critique. Taken together, they echo something older and more dangerous.
Political criticism of lobbying organizations is legitimate. In the United States, influence and advocacy are part of the democratic system. AIPAC itself is an American organization, funded by American citizens, operating within U.S. law. Public records place its direct lobbying expenditures at a relatively modest level compared to many other major interests in Washington, including pharmaceuticals, real estate, technology and finance.
Still, AIPAC is often singled out as though it represents an unusually powerful or covert force, rather than one actor among many in a crowded lobbying landscape.
Such disproportion matters because when one organization is persistently framed as secretly controlling democratic outcomes, the argument stops being only about policy and begins to resemble something far older.
Across centuries, antisemitic ideology has recycled a core narrative that Jewish communities wield hidden financial influence to manipulate governments and societies from behind the scenes. That narrative was systematized in The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, a fabricated text that nonetheless shaped violence, expulsions and massacres across Europe and beyond.
What matters is not whether speakers explicitly reference that history, but what the structure of the argument mirrors it: secret money, coordinated influence, democratic subversion and societal division orchestrated by an unseen force. That structure is what demands attention.
When public officials describe a political organization in those terms, particularly when combined with dehumanizing language like “monsters,” it is not simply rhetorical excess. Perpetrators rarely begin by describing themselves as targeting individuals. They describe systems, threats and something inhuman that must be confronted. That framing lowers the barrier between political opposition and moral justification for harm.
The timing of Mamdani’s remarks adds context that cannot be ignored.
Federal authorities have recently charged individuals in connection with an alleged plot targeting a high-profile event at the White House involving the UFC. According to prosecutors, the suspects compiled lists of political figures identified through public records of donations linked to pro-Israel advocacy networks. The group’s ideology reflected accelerationist thinking—the belief that mass violence can trigger societal collapse and political rebirth.
Whether any public rhetoric directly influenced those individuals is not the point. What matters is that extremist actors frequently absorb mainstream political language and repurpose it into a justification for violence. This is a pattern repeatedly observed in prevention work.
It is also why the broader political ecosystem surrounding these remarks matters.
Certain political figures aligned with Mamdani have framed Israel’s actions in the Gaza Strip in maximalist terms and taken uncompromising positions toward organizations like AIPAC. Among them is Darializa Avila Chevalier, who won the Democratic primary this week for New York City’s 13th Congressional District.
Over the past few years, her public appearances and statements have drawn controversy, including her participation in rallies immediately after the Hamas-led terrorist attacks in southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023. She has also declined, when directly asked in public forums, to issue a clear condemnation of Hamas.
These are not isolated details. They form part of the environment in which narratives are normalized, reinforced and amplified.
It also matters who is saying such things. The mayor of New York City speaks to a population that includes one of the largest Jewish communities in the world outside Israel. That office does not simply reflect public sentiment but shapes it.
Such signals quickly travel. They don’t remain confined to political debate. They are picked up and amplified by individuals already searching for permission to view others as enemies rather than fellow citizens.
None of this requires bad intent to be dangerous.
Harm often emerges from language that frames groups through the lens of concealment, corruption and collective threat. Once that framework takes hold, it spreads through media, political discourse and online ecosystems, where grievance and identity reinforce each other.
This is why law enforcement and prevention specialists pay close attention to public language. Not to restrict speech, but because speech forms the environment in which violence is either constrained or enabled.
There is a clear distinction between criticizing policy and constructing narratives of hidden control. One is legitimate democratic debate. The other has a documented history of being used to justify harm against Jews and other targeted communities. That distinction was blurred here.
And while some have argued this is simply about inflammatory language, it understates the concern. The issue is not only the word “monsters,” but the broader framing of a political organization as a covert force manipulating democracy and dividing society. That structure closely tracks historical antisemitic narratives, even when the speaker does not intend it.
There is also a question that cannot be avoided. Where is the outrage from elected officials who publicly claim to stand against antisemitism? Where are the voices who routinely speak about rising hate, democratic norms and the dangers of political extremism? Silence in moments like this is not neutral. It is noticed, and it is interpreted.
The question now is not whether a statement should be withdrawn or retracted. Once language of this kind enters the public sphere, it cannot be recalled. It circulates, it is reframed, and it takes on a life of its own.
The responsibility that remains is recognition that public proclamations do not end when a speech ends. They continue to affect perception and behavior long after the moment passes.
And once that kind of framing takes hold in the public imagination, it rarely stays rhetorical. It becomes a permission structure. It becomes justification. It becomes the background noise that someone, somewhere, eventually turns into action.
By then, the language has already done its work.
