'Habibi City,' New York Magazine's salute to anti-Semitism

Zaina Arafat

New York Magazine, an evil rag, has just published a special package in its issue of 10 August 2026, under the title “Habibi City,” also presented as a celebration of SWANA New York. The piece of crap sets out to applaud the rising cultural presence of Southwest Asian and North African [SWANA] communities across the city: the parties, the restaurants, the artists, the comedians, the bookstores, all led by a younger generation that has decided the moment is theirs.

The cover photograph shows a gathering at Laylit, held at Elsewhere. The principal essay is the work of the execrable Zaina Arafat. 

Critics, most prominently John Podhoretz writing in the New York Post, have described the cover and its accompanying package as the “evil ‘Habibi City’ cover.” Similar language has appeared elsewhere. They contend that the issue advances an anti-Israel and anti-Zionist outlook, treats Jewish New Yorkers with marked coolness or as an unwelcome presence, resorts to formulations such as “the land mass currently called Israel,” and rearranges the events after 7 October so that the sense of threat is inverted. 

All of this, they note, unfolds against the political backdrop of Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s New York. 

The magazine itself presents the exercise as a cheerful affirmation of SWANA cultural influence and community spirit. The word “evil” is the critics’ own. The dispute is only a few days old, yet it has already provoked considerable objection both online and in the opinion pages. 

Arafat [no relation to Yassar] is a Palestinian-American writer who makes no secret of her strong anti-Zionist/anti-Semitic convictions, although she never has covertly mentioned the latter hatred in public. She describes the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in terms that a range of Jewish organizations, the New York Post, The Free Press and others regard as antisemitic or as adding fuel to an antisemitic atmosphere.

In the lead essay she informs readers that SWANA New Yorkers continue to confront “xenophobia, Islamophobia, and Zionism.” Zionism is thereby placed on the same plane as racial prejudice or anti-Muslim hostility. 

She further presents the SWANA cultural flowering as “born out of the pain of the genocide in Gaza” and speaks of people “living under the threat of annihilation” in the period after 7 October.

The wider package, of which her essay is the centerpiece, employs the phrase “the land mass currently called Israel,” an expression critics have called an erasure of Jewish history and of any legitimate claim to the region. Coverage of Jewish and Israeli chefs and restaurants has been criticized as something closer to a hit piece.

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Gray Lady goofed again--corrects editorial about Palin, sort of

The paper of record (LMAO) New York Times, had to correct their Fake News editorial in which they stated as fact a debunked load of garbage that Jared Loughner, the schizophrenic who shot Gabby Giffords in 2011, was inspired to do so by a map circulated by Sarah Palin showing a bullseye.

The editorial titled "America's Lethal Politics," was posted on Wednesday and social media went bonkers. 

The editorial read, in part:

"Was this attack evidence of how vicious American politics has become? Probably. In 2011, when Jared Lee Loughner opened fire in a supermarket parking lot, grievously wounding Representative Gabby Giffords and killing six people, including a 9-year-old girl, the link to political incitement was clear. Before the shooting, Sarah Palin's political action committee circulated a map targeting electoral districts that put Ms. Giffords and 19 other Democrats under stylized cross hairs."

The Times ran the editorial after Wednesday's shooting at a GOP congressional baseball practice, leaving 4 wounded, including House Majority Whip Steve Scalise and Matt Mika.

The rag posted a correction at the foot of the editorial online, rather than prominently posting it at the top:

Correction: June 15, 2017

An earlier version of this editorial incorrectly stated that a link existed between political incitement and the 2011 shooting of Representative Gabby Giffords. In fact, no such link was established.

Loughner's home was searched by authorities after the shooting and documents were found showing he had planned the shooting in advance.

"I planned ahead," a signed note left in a safe by Loughner read. "My assassination."

A letter was also found in the safe that Giffords wrote to Loughner on August 30, 2007, thanking him for attending a "Congress on Your Corner" event, according to an FBI affidavit.

The FBI said at the time of the shooting that Loughner had targeted Giffords, while The Times keeps targeting the truth. Now both sides are calling them out for being Fake News.

A tweet by New York Post editor John Podhoretz said, "The NYT editorial falsely claims Loughner shot Giffords dueto a target on a photo. It's not yet 11. They can change it. Let's see."

Even far left-wing Mother Jones senior editor Ben Dreyfull tweeted, "This NYT editorial is, in fact, stupid. Palin didn't make that loon shoot Gabby Giffords. "Rhetoric" didn't make today's whacko shoot either."

So maybe the left is slowly coming around and seeing that the real blame for these horrific acts need to be placed squarely on those who actually perpetrate them.

But I doubt it. Give it a few weeks and we'll see.


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