Mamdani’s first 7 October as mayor, contested by pro-Pal supporters

On 7 October, in his first statement as Mayor of New York, Zohran Mamdani recalled in a note the more than 1,100 Israeli victims of the Hamas attack and the 251 people taken hostage, only to immediately shift focus to the ‘buts’ of the Israeli counter-offensive. “The suffering neither began nor ended on that day,” writes the mayor, before speaking of “ongoing genocide”, bombed ambulances, the occupation, apartheid and American weapons. Even on the anniversary of a massacre, for Mamdani the problem remains, in any case, Israel.

After all, this is the same stance Mamdani took thirteen days after the Hamas attack, when he was not yet mayor of New York. He took part in a march for a ceasefire, shouting himself hoarse with a megaphone in his hand and chanting the usual slogans: “End the occupation, apartheid, stop the genocide”. More or less the same words as in yesterday’s statement. 

The fact is that Mamdani has fallen victim to his own positions. For years, he has used the language of pro-Palestinian movements, helping to legitimise, at an institutional level, the rhetoric of the Palestinian people’s resistance and of Israel as an occupying power. Then yesterday he chose to take part in a vigil organised by Israelis for Peace, a left-wing Israeli group, to mark the anniversary of 7 October, and was criticised by his own supporters. 

The protest march gathered right in front of City Hall, where leaflets were handed out bearing the words “three years of genocide and three years of resistance”, complete with the slogan “Glory to the martyrs, victory to the resistance”, alongside the image of a man with a keffiyeh covering his face. 

The protesters then arrived at Union Square, the venue for the vigil, forcing the police to move the event behind the barriers. “Traitor”, “sell-out”, “corrupt”, the protesters shouted at the mayor, who stood motionless, holding a candle, clearly taken aback by the tone he himself had encouraged.  

In addition to yesterday’s vigil, pro-Palestinian organisations are criticising him for his plan to combat anti-Semitism (which, incidentally, does not adopt the IHRA definition), the restrictions on demonstrations outside synagogues, and his handling of Netanyahu’s visit to the United Nations. They accuse him of bowing to ‘Zionist pressure’ – in essence, of reneging on the promises he made to the Palestinian movement.

Moreover, among the organisers of the march were the Young Democratic Socialists of America, the youth organisation of Mamdani’s political party. In March, the Jewish Insider had also traced the likes given by Mamdani’s wife, Rama Duwaji, to Instagram posts on 7 October. One showed a bulldozer demolishing the barrier with Gaza and militants on an Israeli vehicle, accompanied by the phrases “Tear down the walls of apartheid and military occupation” and “Resisting apartheid since 1948”.