POLITICS: New York needs to restore its masking ban to combat antisemitism and other acts of hate

It’s a top priority for New York civil-rights groups and also the Jewish community: restoring the state’s common-sense ban on public masking.

Groups like the Urban League, NAACOP and Anti-Defamation League see the hooded and masked mobs of protesters attacking Jews and Israel supporters on college campuses and city streets — and remember how masked Klansmen terrorizing African Americans prompted the Empire State to ban concealing your identity while you protest.

It’s not just sympathy for Jews: They also recall the 2017 Charlottesville, Va., hate march as well as the Jan. 6, 2021 Capitol riot, and realize all manner of minorities can suffer if we don’t stop accepting masked “protests.”

First announced in June, the #UnMaskHateNY ad campaign has been building public support behind state action to reverse the Legislature’s relaxation of these restrictions at the start of the pandemic — rightly warning that “masked intimidation with intent” to harass is a form of terrorism.

Nassau County banned such face-covering in August, and that law’s so far held up in court.

Any ban of course makes exceptions for genuine medical needs and the like, but it’s been obvious since at least Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023 atrocities that “pro-Palestinian protests” are packed with folks who implicitly (and often explicitly) threaten violence while concealing their faces, whether with medical masks or keffiyehs.

And Luigi Mangione masked up as he lurked outside a Manhattan hotel before allegedly gunning down UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson.

It’s absurd for the civil liberties crowd to oppose this ban: No one has a First Amendment right to hide his identity while terrorizing others in in-person public “speech.”

And those who insist that mass masking still has some public-health purpose are in denial: Next to no one does it anymore, but the plague hasn’t remotely returned.

The nation ended racist hood-wearing mob violence against black Americans; it must do them same to masked antisemitic mob violence.

It was a mistake for lawmakers to repeal, rather than suspend, the masking ban back in 2020.

Now they have a duty to embrace Bronx Assemblyman Jeffrey Dinowitz’s push to restore the law: Anything less gives haters a license to terrorize the innocent.