First posted on Instagram · @profilopolitics
Mamdani's statement opened the way his critics wanted it to. "This day is profoundly painful for so many New Yorkers. It marks three years since the horrific war crimes of October 7," he wrote. "On that day, Hamas killed more than 1,100 Israelis and abducted 251 others. We grieve alongside our many friends and neighbors who still carry that unthinkable loss." Then came the turn that detonated the day: "The suffering did not begin nor end that day. It instead continued through the Israeli government's devastating, ongoing genocide in Gaza, in which it has killed more than 74,000 Palestinians — including more than 21,000 children."
He went further. Mamdani wrote that even since the "so-called ceasefire," more than 1,400 Palestinians have been killed, and accused Israel of dropping bombs on ambulances outside hospitals, drone-striking residential buildings and journalists, and turning food aid away at border crossings. "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," he wrote, closing with a call to refuse "a world where occupation and apartheid continue."
The response was swift and heavyweight. U.S. Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee called it "an outrageous & disgusting rant" on a day that "ought to honor the over 1200 civilians butchered by Hamas including 46 Americans," adding: "There is NO genocide in Gaza." He closed with a line that will follow Mamdani for a while: "God help the people of New York for electing a jihadist sympathizer!" Israel's UN Ambassador Danny Danon accused Mamdani of trying to "hijack the anniversary of October 7," writing: "It is like turning September 11 into a day of mourning for al-Qaeda terrorists."
Nikki Haley called the post antisemitic — "This is antisemitism, no matter how you try to put a bow on it" — while ADL chief Jonathan Greenblatt noted that "not once do you say 'Jews.'" Arkansas Governor Sarah Huckabee Sanders, Rep. Jared Moskowitz (D-FL), commentator Ben Shapiro and "The View" host Alyssa Farah Griffin all piled on, with Griffin asking why the mayor couldn't "give Jews one day" to mourn. The fury had a backdrop: just last week, major Jewish organizations warned that Mamdani's new city antisemitism policy said nothing about Israel-related antisemitism and that rhetoric "demonizing and delegitimizing Israel" could endanger Jewish New Yorkers.
Mamdani, for his part, has not backed down from the substance. His account of the war — the death toll, the bombing of medical and press targets, the blocked aid — is the version of Gaza carried by much of the international press and human-rights world, and his supporters argue a mayor of the most diverse city on earth was never going to mark October 7 with only half the story. He spent the evening at an October 7 remembrance vigil before meeting with Palestinian New Yorkers, a split-screen day his office clearly planned.
Three years after the deadliest day for Jews since the Holocaust, New York's mayor managed to make the anniversary about the war that followed it — and learned, within hours, the price of that choice.