Mamdani uses Oct. 7 anniversary to accuse Israel of ‘genocide,’ ‘apartheid’

The Hamas-led attack on Oct. 7, 2023, saw terrorists storm communities across southern Israel, murdering civilians in their homes, at kibbutzim, and at the Nova music festival while abducting hundreds of people into Gaza. Mamdani's remarks drew bipartisan condemnation from Jewish leaders, elected officials and Israel's ambassador to the United Nations, who accused Mamdani of hijacking a day of mourning to advance his anti-Israel agenda.

Mamdani opened Wednesday's statement by briefly acknowledging the Hamas-led massacre. “We grieve alongside our many friends and neighbors who still carry that unthinkable loss,” Mamdani said.

He then pivoted to demonizing Israel. “The suffering did not begin nor end that day. It instead continued through the Israeli government’s devastating, ongoing genocide in Gaza,” Mamdani wrote.

The socialist mayor went on to falsely accuse the Jewish state of committing war crimes and the United States of complicity for continuing to provide military assistance to the Jewish state. “Many New Yorkers are reckoning with this unbearable grief, and we mourn alongside them — all while knowing that our tax dollars fund these war crimes,” Mamdani said. “Three years later, we must refuse to accept a world in which occupation and apartheid continue, where war crimes are met with impunity, and our federal government continues its complicity with every arms shipment.”

Mamdani concluded by saying that “to honor the dead, we must fight for a world in which every person can live with freedom, safety, and dignity.”

The statement had received more than 11 million views on X by Wednesday evening and drew criticism from across the political spectrum, including Democratic Rep. Dan Goldman of New York, who called it “egregious and insulting.”

“There are 364 days of the year to focus on that. This is a day that should just be focused on what was by all agreement a horrific terror attack,” Goldman told Politico. “What the mayor’s statement did today was to blame Israelis for the attack that they suffered three years ago. Regardless of what you actually think of the conflict and what’s happened either since or before, there’s no excuse for victim blaming.”

Simon Wiesenthal Center CEO Jim Berk also condemned Mamdani's remarks in a statement provided to The Ari Hoffman Show on Talk Radio 570 KVI. “Mayor Mamdani, what was the real intention of your statement?” Berk said. “It couldn’t have been simply to express sincere condolences and remembrance for October 7, 2023, when over 1,100 people were intentionally murdered and 251 others were taken hostage in the deadliest massacre of Jews since the Holocaust. If that had been the intention, you would not have used this solemn anniversary to create a false equivalency and advance an entirely different political agenda.”

“A mayor who represents all New Yorkers should not use a solemn day of mourning to deepen divisions in the city he leads. Do not exploit and weaponize Jewish grief to advance a political agenda on the very day meant to remember those who were murdered and taken hostage,” Berk added. “Show us you are better than this.”

Israel's ambassador to the United Nations, Danny Danon, similarly accused Mamdani of attempting to hijack the anniversary to attack Israel, comparing the mayor's approach to “turning Sept. 11 into a day of mourning for al-Qaeda terrorists.”

Danon called Mamdani's statement “an attempt to hijack the anniversary of Oct. 7 and turn it into yet another propaganda attack against Israel.”

“We will remember those who were murdered, and we will never forget who was behind this massacre,” Danon told JNS.

Rabbi Ammiel Hirsch, president of the New York Board of Rabbis, called Mamdani's statement “morally perverse” and “like sticking a knife into the pain of the Jewish community in New York and in America.”

“It is so offensive to so many Jews that it is hard to describe how offensive it is,” Hirsch told Politico. “And it exacerbated the feeling that American Jews and New York Jews have had since he first came to prominence, which is that he has a problem with collective Jewish empowerment and he hates the state of Israel.”

Anti-Defamation League CEO Jonathan Greenblatt also blasted the mayor for using the anniversary to promote his anti-Israel positions and noted that Mamdani's statement did not mention Jews. “You are weaponizing a day meant for mourning the worst massacre of Jews since the Holocaust to recycle your usual antizionist talking points,” Greenblatt wrote on X. “The city with the largest Jewish population outside Israel deserves a mayor who can honor the dead without exploiting them.”

The Oct. 7 massacre also claimed dozens of American lives. Forty-nine Americans were killed in the attack, and 12 Americans were among the 251 people taken hostage.

Mamdani has faced longstanding criticism over his positions on Israel. Before becoming mayor, he pledged that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu would be arrested if he entered New York City while Mamdani was mayor.

Mamdani's public schedule indicated that he would attend a vigil for victims of the Oct. 7 attacks Wednesday before meeting with Palestinian New Yorkers.