Mamdani Couldn’t Resist Attacking Israel in Oct. 7 Assertion

Photograph: Angela Weiss/AFP by way of Getty Photos

Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s strained relationship with New York’s Jewish Institution isn’t probably to enhance after Wednesday morning.

On the third anniversary of Hamas’ October 7, 2023, assault on Israel, and the primary of his mayoralty, Mamdani issued an announcement that, whereas initially acknowledging the “horrific struggle crimes” of the incursion — wherein Hamas murdered roughly 1,200 Israelis and kidnapped 251 — targeted totally on the struggle it sparked. Throughout that still-smoldering battle, Israel flattened Gaza and killed roughly 75,000 folks in a brutal marketing campaign that has earned worldwide condemnation.

Mamdani’s statements additionally notably didn’t embrace the phrases “Jews” or “Jewish folks.”

The mayor’s memorialization stood in stark distinction to those launched by different elected leaders in New York, who targeted solely on the occasions of October 7 and never its aftermath. Governor Kathy Hochul, as an illustration, wrote of “the power, resilience and enduring hope of the Jewish folks” with out mentioning the struggle. Metropolis Council Speaker Julie Menin, who’s Jewish, took a comparable tack, as did Comptroller Mark Levine. And a key Mamdani ally, Jewish progressive Democrat Brad Lander, pointedly alluded to the bigger ramifications of October 7 whereas urging his followers to not downplay the struggling of 1 group versus one other.

In line with his public schedule, Mamdani may also attend an October 7 vigil on Wednesday evening, as he did final yr.

Predictably, Mamdani’s assertion drew loads of loud pushback, largely from folks and organizations who’ve lengthy opposed the mayor, like Anti-Defamation League CEO Jonathan Greenblatt:

“What he’s attempting to do is hijack the one day we have now for the victims and survivors. He’s attempting to hijack the day to speak about attacking Israel,” Israeli U.N. ambassador Danny Danon instructed the New York Put up. “It’s like on 9/11 you talked about victims and al-Qaeda terrorists. It’s principally taking the one day we have now for victims and attempting to assault Israel with propaganda. He’s harmful and complex. He’ll go to each ceremonies and attempt to say he feels for each losses of life.”

Requested about Mamdani’s October 7 assertion, Governor Hochul stated, “I don’t suppose something ought to diminish from at the present time,” earlier than recounting her conferences with the dad and mom of an Israeli sufferer who was killed on October 7.

In line with exit polls, Mamdani earned a couple of third of Jewish New Yorkers’ votes when he triumphed over Andrew Cuomo in 2025. He’s well-liked amongst Jews on the left, who virtually uniformly oppose Israel’s actions in Gaza. However many others, particularly older and extra conservative Jews who nonetheless really feel deep attachment to Israel, have been cautious of him from the get-go, given the centrality of the Palestinian trigger to his political id. That faction holds sway at most of the metropolis’s lonstanding Jewish establishments.

Since not less than his faculty years, Mamdani has advocated passionately towards Israel’s remedy of Palestinians within the West Financial institution and Gaza. Throughout his stint as a state consultant and his marketing campaign for mayor, he used language about Israel not often seen earlier than in mainstream New York Metropolis politics. In a significant departure for any mayor earlier than him, Mamdani believes that Israel shouldn’t exist as an explicitly Jewish state.

Since assuming workplace, Mamdani has made a number of overtures to the Jewish group, typically drawing criticism from his left for doing so. He has met with rabbis who claimed he was endangering Jews together with his Israeli rhetoric, he has usually condemned assaults on Jewish New Yorkers, and simply final week he launched a main new initiative to fight antisemitism within the metropolis. However he has additionally not often missed an opportunity to talk out towards Israel. In a single notable instance, he issued a video assertion explaining why he couldn’t fulfill the unrealistic marketing campaign promise of getting Benjamin Netanyahu arrested for struggle crimes. Earlier this yr, he posted about Nakba Day, which marks Israel’s expulsion of 1000’s of Palestinians on the daybreak of the fashionable state. However in one other break from his mayoral predecessors, he skipped the annual Israeli Day parade.