New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani is drawing widespread criticism after again accusing the Jewish state of “genocide” in a statement ostensibly about marking the third anniversary of the Hamas-led Oct. 7, 2023, terror attacks, which was the bloodiest day for Jews since the Holocaust.
“This day is profoundly painful for so many New Yorkers. It marks three years since the horrific war crimes of Oct. 7,” the mayor stated. “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.”
It wasn’t immediately clear why the mayor referred to “more than 1,100 victims,” when his predecessor, and many others, have said “more than 1,200.”
Mamdani, who campaigned on having the Israeli prime minister arrested and whose spokeswoman said that synagogues violate international law when they host pro-Israel events, is scheduled to attend a 7 p.m. “vigil in remembrance of Oct. 7,” followed by a 9 p.m. meeting with “Palestinian New Yorkers,” according to his official schedule.
His Oct. 7 statement appeared to blame Israel for being attacked by Hamas, a U.S.-designated terror organization since 1997.
“The suffering did not begin nor end that day,” Mamdani said of Oct. 7. “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.”
The mayor claimed that more than 1,400 Palestinians have been killed “since the so-called ceasefire” and that the “suffering has intensified with every Israeli bomb dropped on ambulances waiting outside hospitals, every drone strike targeting a residential building or journalist and every shipment of food aid turned away at a border crossing.”
The mayor, whose rhetoric leaders of major Jewish organizations have said endangers Jews, didn’t differentiate between civilians and Palestinian terrorists.
“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,” the mayor 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.”
Danny Danon, the Israeli ambassador to the United Nations, told JNS that Mamdani’s statement is like “turning Sept. 11 into a day of mourning for al-Qaeda terrorists” and “an attempt to hijack the anniversary of Oct. 7 and turn it into yet another propaganda attack against Israel.”
“We will not let this happen,” Danon told JNS. “We will remember those who were murdered, and we will never forget who was behind this massacre.”
Jonathan Greenblatt, CEO and national director of the Anti-Defamation League, noted that the word “Jew” was absent from Mamdani’s statement.
“On Oct. 7, Hamas-led attackers murdered civilians, committed sexual violence, mutilated bodies and took hostages,” Greenblatt stated. “You are weaponizing a day meant for mourning the worst massacre of Jews since the Holocaust to recycle your usual anti-Zionist talking points.”
“The city with the largest Jewish population outside Israel deserves a mayor who can honor the dead without exploiting them,” he stated.
AIPAC stated that Mamdani’s remarks are a “disgraceful moral failure.”
“Weaponizing the anniversary of the mass murder and kidnapping of Israelis to amplify a modern blood libel against Israelis does nothing to promote peace,” the pro-Israel group stated. “It only fuels more violence and hate.”
Inna Vernikov, a Jewish Republican on the New York City Council, told JNS that “Mamdani gave the worst massacre of Jews since the Holocaust one sentence, then spent paragraphs falsely accusing Israel of genocide. Zero mention of terrorism.”
“Hamas raped women. Burned families alive. Dragged babies into tunnels and slaughtered them,” Vernikov said. “Mamdani buried all that and instead defames the very same people who stopped it.”
“Mamdani could not even give us one day to mourn without defaming the Jewish people and giving cover to our enemies,” she told JNS. “We will not let Mamdani and his radical pals rewrite Oct. 7.”
Evan R. Bernstein, CEO of B’nai B’rith International, stated that “as mayor of the city with the largest Jewish population outside Israel, Mamdani has a profound responsibility to recognize the weight this day carries for New York’s Jewish community.”
Instead, according to B’nai B’rith, the mayor issued a “disgraceful and extremely offensive statement marking the third anniversary of the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas-led attacks, in which he distorted and erased the experiences of the victims and the brutality Hamas inflicted upon them.”
Bernstein said that Mamdani “used his platform to promote inflammatory accusations against Israel while shifting the focus to deceptive accusations that Israel is committing genocide and apartheid.”
“That choice is particularly reckless in a city where anti-Jewish incidents have accounted for 52.9% of all confirmed hate crimes so far in 2026, though Jews make up roughly 10% of the city’s population,” he said. “More than 1,200 people were murdered on Oct. 7, 2023, including 49 Americans, and 251 were taken hostage, including 12 Americans. New Yorkers were among those murdered and abducted. Yet rather than remembering the people whose lives were destroyed by Hamas terrorists that day, Mamdani made accusations against Israel the focus of his message.”
Bernstein noted that Mamdani recently unveiled a city-wide strategy to combat Jew-hatred.
“A mayor cannot credibly claim to fight antisemitism and terrorism while using the anniversary of a terror attack to promote disinformation,” the B’nai B’rith leader said.
Arkansas Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders, a Republican, stated that it was “disgusting and shameful to use Oct. 7 as an excuse to repeat Hamas’s talking points.”
“The terrorist enemies that seek to destroy us will not prevail,” she stated. “We stand with the Jewish people, and we pray for the victims, their families and the survivors.”
The Republican Jewish Coalition stated that “on the three-year anniversary of the worst slaughter of Jews since the Holocaust, the mayor of New York chooses to spew Hamas propaganda.”
“Vile,” the RJC said, adding that the mayor “should be ashamed.”
The Israeli-American Council said that “for the Jewish and Israeli community, Oct. 7 is, first and foremost, a day of mourning, remembrance and trauma.”
“On the third anniversary of Hamas’s mass murder, mass rape, mass torture and mass hostage taking of over 1,200 Israelis, Mayor Mamdani chose, once again, to use the day to accuse Israel of ‘genocide,’” the IAC stated.
“That claim is demonstrably false. The IDF has taken extraordinary steps to minimize civilian casualties, far beyond what the law of armed conflict requires, while fighting an enemy that systematically hides beyond women and children and uses civilians as human shields,” it stated. “This is not a one-time lapse. Every year, on the anniversary of the day our community buries its dead, the mayor reaches for the same blood libel against the Jewish state.”
“Rhetoric like this doesn’t stay online,” it added. “It is exactly the kind of messaging that has fueled a documented rise in antisemitic incidents across New York City.”
Rabbi Marc Schneier, president of the New York City-based Foundation for Ethnic Understanding, stated that Mamdani “cannot give Jewish New Yorkers even a single day to mourn without gaslighting us and appropriating the trauma of Oct. 7.”
“He expresses sympathy at rising antisemitism while accusing Israel of deliberately killing children, bombing hospitals and committing ‘genocide,’” the Orthodox rabbi stated. “His rhetoric fuels hostility toward Jewish New Yorkers. Today, he could have honored the victims and promoted peace and prosperity for Israelis and Palestinians. Instead, he chose to incite hatred.”
The Jewish commentator and Daily Wire co-founder Ben Shapiro wrote that Mamdani issued “49 words in tribute to the Jews murdered on Oct. 7” and “141 words on how Israel is responsible for everything and the only answer is to hand more power, money and authority to those who wish to destroy Israel.”
