On October 7, Words Matter

This statement alone may seem innocuous, but it still contains a very egregious lie. It rewrites the history of what occurred on October 7, 2023, calling it “ horrific war crimes,” instead of the radical Islamic terrorism that it was.

Through this word choice, what seems on its face to be a condemnation of Hamas redefines the Israel/Hamas conflict from a fight between a State and an internationally recognized terrorist organization into a conflict between two warring states. “War crimes” implies that the conflict is a legitimate, ongoing war, and Hamas violated the international law of war in the October 7 attacks.

However, the reality is that Hamas is an ideologically driven Islamic terror organization that follows no internationally recognized conventions, indiscriminately targets Jews with genocidal aims, and uses all manner of violence to keep the Israeli population under constant fear and terror.

His visible word choice is egregious enough, but when you click “SHOW MORE,” the Mayor’s word choice is revealed to be no accident. The entire blame shifts from Hamas to Israel.

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. Even since the so-called ceasefire, more than 1,400 Palestinians have been killed. That 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. 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. (Emphasis added)

Hamas’ actions are seen through the lens of the singular “war crime” of October 7. Not the decades of death and destruction they delivered on the Israeli people, as well as the people of Gaza. Israel is once again labeled as a perpetuator of genocide.

It’s shocking, though not unexpected, that this is the direction Mayor Mamdani steers this message on the anniversary of the deadliest day for Jews since the Holocaust. Sadly, the statement gets worse from here.

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.

To honor the dead, we must fight for a world in which every person can live with freedom, safety, and dignity. (Emphasis added.)

The Mayor’s choice of “war crimes” earlier in the post is now revealed to show how sinister the motive really was. For many decades, the false equivalence of Hamas and Israel has been what we have had to combat with truth. This statement begins with that false equivalency, but shifts into an entirely new lie that we must combat even more.

Here, the Mayor only places blame on Israel and the United States, while effectively absolving Hamas of their terror. By calling on the collective “we” to “refuse to accept a world” where war crimes are met with impunity, Mayor Zohran Mamdani is effectively calling on the world to move on from Hamas’ terror and only focus on Israel.

He called the brutal October 7 attacks “war crimes” at the beginning to draw the distinction between those that are met with impunity and those that are met without impunity. This is a distinction that turns Hamas into the victim that paid a price for their singular action against Israel, which he alleges is ongoing in their crimes.

No longer are we fighting against the public fallacy that Hamas and Israel are equivalent combatants. We now see the new leader of the global anti-Israel movement declaring that Hamas is the victim and Israel is the eternal oppressor.

Flashback to the antisemitism strategy announcement: It sounds like it’s coming from two completely different people. The Mayor’s opening letter of the document states:

The rise in antisemitic rhetoric and violence has taken a real and painful toll. Our Jewish neighbors have been attacked for wearing a yarmulke or a Star of David. . . .

The numbers are indisputable: Jewish New Yorkers make up only 12% of our population, yet they are the victims of roughly half of all reported hate crimes. That is not unique to New York City — disproportionate levels of hate crimes targeting Jewish people have been reported in cities across the world.

I pray there are those in Mayor Mamdani’s administration who will read those words and genuinely do something about antisemitism, but I don’t believe that we will see more than lip service from Mamdani going forward. The Mayor didn’t create the rise in antisemitism in New York, but his election and continued rhetoric are symptomatic of the new reality those of us face in combating this evil.