Two days before Zohran Mamdani was elected as the next mayor of New York City, Palestinian-American activist Linda Sarsour declared on Instagram that she intends to “hold Zohran accountable” for the extreme-left promises he made along the campaign trail.
Sarsour, like Mamdani, is a member of the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) and just as anti-police and anti-Israel as the future mayor. Back in 2016, she co-founded the Trump-bashing “Women’s March” before resigning from the organization three years later over accusations of antisemitism. Since then, Sarsour has emerged as a high-profile Mamdani mentor, if not consigliere and DSA score-keeper. And she has made it clear that she’ll be keeping close score on Mamdani.
“When he does something when he’s in City Hall and he’s wrong, I’m going to tell him he’s wrong,” Sarsour said last month of her political protege. “Our job as a movement is we have to hold whoever goes to City Hall accountable.”
Accountability: A political call to action or arms
Few words possess more outsized meaning right now than “accountable” and “accountability.” At once frustratingly vague (who’s doing the counting?) yet pointed and menacing, the phrases have evolved from standard acts of contrition and reflection into political calls to action – if not outright arms. And whether the “genocide” in Gaza or Sarsour’s oversight of Mamdani, those actions – that accountability – is now demanded from adversaries as much as allies.
Just look at Kamala Harris. Back in October, the former vice president was confronted with “accountability” claims while promoting her 2024 campaign memoir, 107 Days. Although Harris was one of the first (and loudest) Biden Administration members to call for a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas, her conflicted support of Israel made her an easy target of the accountability crowd.
“Kamala oversaw the largest weapons sale to Israel in history & refused to call for an arms embargo,” wrote the US Palestinian Community Network on X/Twitter after protestors disrupted a Harris event in Chicago. “She claims to be a feminist, yet refuses to take accountability for her role in mass murdering Palestinians in Gaza.”
THEN THERE’S the Congressional Resolution introduced by Rep. Rashida Tlaib last month to “Recognize the Genocide of the Palestinian People in Gaza.” Anchored in the quest for “justice and accountability,” the resolution, among other demands, calls for an arms embargo and economic sanctions against Israel. Backed by nearly two dozen House Democrats and some 100 progressive activist groups, it says that the US must “hold individual perpetrators and complicit corporations to account” for Gaza’s ongoing devastation.
Although Tlaib’s H. Res 876 has little chance of passing House Republicans here in the US, similar sentiments are also brewing over in Israel. There, calls are growing for a formal government inquiry into the Hamas invasion and subsequent war against Hamas, threatening Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s fragile hold on power.
As in the US, the accountability cries are mostly performative and coming from the Left. We must “face accountability for our genocide,” wrote Yuli Novak, executive director of the progressive-leaning Israeli human rights organization B’Tselem in a recent op-ed for The Guardian. “Accountability is essential – not for revenge, but because there’s no reckoning without responsibility.”
Much like “dismantle” or “equity,” “accountability” today inhabits a linguistic grey zone midway between political jargon and reasonable request. We teach our children to be accountable for offenses both accidental and with intent. We demand it of politicians and celebrities – influencers and CEOs. Accountability, as Sarsour makes clear, is now an expectation rather than obligation – even as that expectation (that “reckoning” as Novak wrote) appears to extend in one direction only.
INDEED, ALMOST entirely absent from those accountability calls is any demand for accountability from Hamas – or its enablers such as UNRWA and The Red Cross. Days after the Hamas massacre in late October 2023, former Dept. of Defense undersecretary Mary Beth Long wrote in a piece for The Hill: “Hold Hamas and All of its Enablers Accountable.”
But Long – who singled out Hamas-patron Iran for a much-need mea culpa – was an early and rare voice of accountability-equality. More than two years on, the now Mayoe Mamdani must be held accountable if he fails to implement DSA’s agressive-progressive agenda. And Israel must be accountable for its actions in Gaza before both the global community and its own citizens.
Yet there are no demands from Hamas to account for its October 7 invasion of Israel, nor its policy of sheltering militants and Israeli hostages among Gaza civilians – or even the billions in international aid siphoned off to construct its hundreds of miles of terror tunnels. And let’s not forget the tons of baby formula Hamas hid from Gazans to edify manufactured “famine” claims. Who intends to account for that?
As Novak so critically wrote of her own government last month, “demanding accountability from Israeli leaders isn’t just about the past, it’s the only way to challenge a system designed to repeat such violence.” But as Hamas ruthlessly consolidates power in the chunk of Gaza it now controls, where are the demands for ending the terror group’s decades-long cycles of violence?
“All those who commit atrocities should be held to account, regardless of what side they are on,” wrote Long so presciently two Octobers ago. Sadly, as Tehran rebuilds its nuclear capabilities – and Zohran Mamdani faces scrutiny from both Sarsour and nervous New York City Jews – those sides include everyone except for the terrorist cartels that are the most accountable of all.
The writer is a former New York Post columnist and editor and author of the Substack COUNTERINTUITIVE.