UPDATE: In what can only be a gesture of anti-Israel defiance, Mamdani ate dinner on October 7 at an ideologically-themed Palestinian restaurant (h/t Wayne):
New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani dined at a Palestinian restaurant chain blasted for being “openly genocidal” against Jews on the third anniversary of the Oct. 7 terrorist attacks in Israel.
Hizzoner ate dinner at Ayat Hinds Hall on the Upper West Side — part of a chain whose sister restaurant in Brooklyn was blasted for featuring a menu section entitled “From the River to the Sea,” in the wake of the 2023 attacks.
The restaurant is named after Hind Rajab, a five-year-old Palestinian child who was killed by IDF forces in Gaza in Jan. 2024, and also pays homage to the anti-Israel protesters at Columbia University, who renamed Hamilton Hall “Hind’s Hall” when they took over the building.
A tweet:
Mamdani dined at Palestinian restaurant blasted for ‘openly genocidal’ menu on Oct. 7 anniversary https://t.co/4RoWxaKUoM https://t.co/YosQcBhzZg
— New York Post (@nypost) October 8, 2026
**********************************
Yesterday, New York City’s Mayor, Zohran Mamdani, issued a statement commemorating the October 7, 2023 attack of Hamas on Israel. The problem for me and many others was the the commemoration was more about the depravity of Israel than of Hamas, and more sympathetic to the Palestinians to the Israelis. Here’s the statement as given by the Mayor’s Office:
This day is profoundly painful for so many New Yorkers. It marks three years since the horrific war crimes of October 7. 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.
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.
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.
There you have it: 49 words devoted to Hamas’s attack, and 163 words on the crimes of Israel, including an erroneous statement about the death toll as well as inclusion of the Three Big Lies about Israeli apartheid, occupation, and genocide.
And it’s not that different from the statement he made on October 7 of last year:
Yesterday’s small-beer “commemoration” was decried by Jews and Jewish organizations, but what is surprising is that Mamdani was booed for it—by supporters of Palestine! When I first saw the headline below in the NYT, I thought, “Well, of course the Jews harbor anger and bitterness”about the statement, but then I learned that, no, it was supporters of Palestine who were angry and bitter. Click to read, or see an archived version of the article here:
An excerpt, and I have to say it brought me a frisson of pleasure:
It seemed inevitable that the third anniversary of the Oct. 7 attacks would touch off tensions for Zohran Mamdani, a longtime critic of Israel and the first Muslim mayor of a city that is 12 percent Jewish.
But Wednesday erupted with such anger and emotion that it seemed to overwhelm any efforts to solemnly mark the deadliest day in Israeli history.
Mr. Mamdani began the day shortly before 9 a.m. by issuing a statement that was meant to acknowledge the Oct. 7 anniversary but almost immediately caused an uproar among some Jewish leaders, who said it minimized Israeli suffering in the Hamas-led attacks.
It took a turn roughly 12 hours later at a vigil organized by Israeli peace activists in Union Square in Manhattan, where pro-Palestinian demonstrators disrupted the event to jeer the mayor. He appeared ashen and upset as he left, without addressing the crowd, flanked by his security detail as he walked to a waiting S.U.V. at 8:50 p.m.
The events raised questions about whether Mr. Mamdani, who energized his campaign with his embrace of the Palestinian cause and ardent criticism of Israel, can now, as mayor, unite New Yorkers whose emotions remain inflamed over the issue.
“This is a moment when people are looking to see if we have the kind of leadership that brings people together, lowers the temperature and makes everyone feel respected,” said Mark Treyger, the chief executive of the Jewish Community Relations Council. “And today was just not it.”
The mayor, who is known for his broad, effervescent smile, seemed especially stung by the opposition to him expressed by the pro-Palestinian crowd in Union Square, given his consistent support of their cause.
During the vigil, he stared stone-faced, and at times looked crestfallen, as the activists chanted in support of Hamas, called for the deaths of Israeli soldiers and denounced him as a “traitor,” many citing his meetings with President Trump or his efforts to build ties with Jewish leaders.
“Zohran, you coward!” someone yelled from the crowd, which numbered in the hundreds. Others yelled, “Zohran is a sellout!”
The chickens have come home to roost: now Mamdani, who’s tried to walk a fine line between the Jews and Muslims, is being booed by his own ilk—and it bothers him.
I have no doubt that Mamdani is not only anti-Israel and pro-Palestinian, but also suspect he’s an Islamist and may even be anti-Semitic.
There are more Jews than Muslims in NYC: Grok estimates about 960,000 Jews and between 250,000 and 700,000 Muslims.)Yet about a third of Jews who voted for Mayor in 2025 voted for Mamdani. Granted, they may have been “progressives” taken in by Mamdani’s promises of free daycare, free public transportation, and subsidized grocery stores, but in the end they’re like chickens voting for KFC. You just know that when Mamadani goes home at night to his antisemitic wife Rama Duwaji, they don’t sit around and praise Israel!
Here’s a news clip showing some of the booing at the candlelight vigil.
Maybe this is a watershed moment for Mamdani. Perhaps a glimmer of comprehension on his part, realizing that many of his supporters don’t just want a “two-state solution”, but rather the massacre of every Jew in Israel.
I think he knows that. What it may show him is that his supporters aren’t going to put up with his being a politician. It’s a warning to all the DSA candidates out there that, if they are elected, expediency won’t be tolerated.
“We cannot repeat too often that men do not lead the Revolution; it is the Revolution that uses men.”
Joseph de Maistre
Considerations on France
1796
“Their fellows, therefore, follow these soul-leaders; for they feel the irresistible power of their own inner Spirit thus embodied. If we go on to cast a look at the fate of these World-Historical persons, whose vocation it was to be the agents of the World-Spirit — we shall find it to have been no happy one. [..] When their object is attained they fall off like empty hulls from the kernel.”
G.W.F. Hegel
The Philosophy of History
Originally lectures ca. 1820-1830
The mayor here, despite all his protestations to the contrary, is fomenting antisemitism. The distinction between anti Zionism and antisemitism that people make is bullshit, in my opinion. There is a difference, but to the haters, it is a technical distinction.
One of the most detailed take downs of the libelous genocide claims was published in Skeptic Magazine this past May: https://www.skeptic.com/article/when-genocide-loses-its-meaning-law-war-gaza/
The clearest response to the ridiculous claims of apartheid is to compare the percentage of Arab citizens of Israel to the percentage of Jews in any of the 22 Arab League countries. A large number of those countries practice gender apartheid as well, with women treated as less than second class citizens.
I would love to see Mamdani pressed on those two topics in every interview. Given the political leanings of much of the mainstream media, that is unfortunately unlikely to happen.
He doesn’t let serious interviewers near him, Patrick.
D.A.
NYC
ps Sorry I’m busting the rules a bit here but it’s a New York story and I am a loudmouth! 🙂
Did you know that some of your fellow New Yorkers once wrote a song about you??? https://youtu.be/ZYmy–9NfYk
And afterwards, just to hammer home his message, Mamdani had dinner at a Palestinian restaurant.
Since I read your commentaries in order, I’m two hours behind Chicago (on the left coast), so I posted my Mamdani comment earlier. Please forgive the duplication, but my comment really belongs here:
New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani:
And speaking of bad guys, Mamdani’s statement regarding the atrocities of October 7, 2023 was a disgrace. He was at the memorial gathering, close to all those who came together to remember the lost—Jews and non-Jews alike. Mamdani was right there among the mourners. He didn’t need to write that statement. He could have just spit on them in person.
He shows his colours. I mean, he had before but this indicates he hasn’t changed a bit.
Mamdani needs to learn how to wink to indicate he doesn’t mean what he’s saying.
No, he doesn’t, Dr. B. We already know he’s lying every time he opens his mouth. He is the nation’s second biggest con man.
🙂
Keep well, my friend.
D.A.
NYC
I definitely think Mamdani is anti-Israel, pro-Hamas, and antisemitic. But not sure about Islamist. He is VERY enthusiastic about gender diversity and queerness and other very haram things.
That is just part of the plan to destabilize the West via temporary alliance with so-called “progressives”. Support for gender diversity and queerness will quickly melt like snow beneath a blazing sun if Islam ever wins.
Allow me to say, “HA HA”
Fine, but it’s not clear what you’re laughing at!
I suspected it would come to this. The Islamists and their sympathizers who support(ed) Mamdani were bound to be outraged as the mayor had to navigate the actual world, not the nightmare fantasy world the Islamists dream of. His base doesn’t understand that he has to feign tempering their collective dreams along the way to their ultimate goal. I mean, do people really think he’s not homophobic, transphobic, or misogynistic, and that he honestly meant those first 49 words?
It’s actually pretty funny that he was out-progressived by the crazed mob. Purity spirals are a bitch.
BTW, he didn’t write those words of sympathy. I’d put big money on that.
He has a little clique of young, female, some Jewish, lesbian leftists in City Hall who handle this type of P.R. business for him.
D.A.
NYC
When I first saw the headline below in the NYT, I thought, “Well, of course the Jews harbor anger and bitterness”about the statement, but then I learned that, no, it was supporters of Palestine who were angry and bitter.
Right, right, right, my droogs, you’re never woke enough!
Until the day when they achieve power, and, like Stalin, discover that there are left deviationists and well as right deviationists.
Deviationists to right of them,
Deviationists to left of them,
Deviationists in front of them
Volley’d and thunder’d;
Storm’d at with shot and shell,
[Adapted for ideological purity from Alfred, Lord Tennyson]
In addition, I await a retrospective charge of genocide against Poland for invasion, along with British and US allies, of Germany in 1944-45. Many thousand Germans were killed in that invasion—none of them, of course, combatants, any more than there was a single combatant in Gaza recently.
See what I have to –deal– with here?
Ugh. I’m not going anywhere. I can’t, won’t and shan’t leave New York, but it pXXses me off!
BTW this:
“Mamdani is not only anti-Israel and pro-Palestinian, but also suspect he’s an Islamist and may even be anti-Semitic.”
Correct on all four counts, PCC(E).
D.A.
NYC
A true Muslem will show no compromise. The word of Allah must be for all the world.There is no room for alternatives. It is scary.
Comment by Greg Mayer
The revolution devours its children. Just ask James Bennett.
GCM