On October 8, New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani defended his previous day’s statement on the anniversary of Hamas’ massacre in Israel accusing the Jewish state of genocide, apartheid, and war crimes. He refused to back down despite widespread condemnation from Jewish leaders, Israeli officials, and fellow Democrats.
In the Oct. 7th statement released by Mamdani on the third anniversary of the deadliest attack on Jews since the Holocaust, he gave a perfunctory acknowledgment of Hamas’s ‘horrific war crimes’ and a token expression of sympathy for the victims before immediately pivoting to his familiar denunciations of Israel, shifting the focus from the perpetrators of the massacre to the Jewish state. Declaring that “the suffering did not begin nor end that day,” Mamdani suggested that context was needed for Hamas’ actions on that day, before accusing Israel of conducting an “ongoing genocide in Gaza,” bombing ambulances, targeting residential buildings and journalists, and committing war crimes funded by American taxpayers. He also used the opportunity to condemn what he called Israeli “occupation and apartheid,” presenting his own biased allegations as established fact. Notably, the mayor’s statement made no mention of Jews or antisemitism. Instead, he turned an anniversary that was supposed to commemorate Hamas’s victims into yet another occasion to demonize Israel.
Jewish leaders and elected officials responded to the mayor’s hypocrisy with sharp condemnation. ADL CEO Jonathan Greenblatt condemned the mayor for “weaponizing a day meant for mourning the worst massacre of Jews since the Holocaust” to advance his anti-Zionist agenda. Rabbi Ammiel Hirsch of Stephen Wise Free Synagogue condemned the statement as “morally perverse.” Democratic Rep. Dan Goldman of New York called the mayor’s remarks “reprehensible” and accused him of presenting disputed allegations as fact while professing sympathy for those mourning the massacre’s victims. Israel’s ambassador to the UN, Danny Danon, accused Mamdani of hijacking the anniversary, comparing his approach to turning September 11 into a day of mourning for al-Qaeda terrorists. Israeli Consul General Ofir Akunis, denounced the statement as a “disgrace, shame, and insult to the memory of those who were murdered on October 7.” Akunis had invited Mamdani to a screening of footage documenting the Hamas atrocities, but the mayor chose not to attend. Akunis had invited Mamdani to a screening of footage documenting the Hamas atrocities, but the mayor did not attend. The consul general subsequently posted a photograph of the empty seat.
The Wall Street Journal editorial board was equally scathing, accusing Mamdani of using the October 7 anniversary as another opportunity to “libel Israel” and describing his allegations of genocide, apartheid, and war crimes as propaganda that ignored Hamas’s combatants and its use of civilian infrastructure for military purposes.
But despite the backlash from those who deplored Mamdani’s single-minded anti-Zionist agenda, the mayor continued to stand by his remarks, accusing the Israeli government of using the Hamas massacre as “a justification for a genocide.” He contrasted [38:40-39:11] what he alleged was an “ongoing genocide” by Israel with the Oct. 7 massacre, which he dismissed as “something simply that was three years ago.” In doing so, he reduced Hamas’s mass murder of Israeli civilians to a one-time event in the past while presenting the propagandistic accusation of genocide against Israel as the continuing crisis, without acknowledging Hamas’s continuous role in the conflict.
