New York City Council Speaker Julie Menin received a standing ovation after delivering powerful remarks about keeping the anniversary of Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack sacred in a thinly veiled swipe at Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s tone-deaf comments.
“I just want to say that today should be a day about only one thing and that is honoring and remembering the 1,200 people who were murdered by Hamas terrorists. That is what October 7 is about,” Menin said Wednesday to a room full of people on the third anniversary of the attacks.
The Big Apple’s first Jewish council speaker remembered the “215 hostages taken, families who are torn asunder and the Jewish community – both in Israel and here in New York City, that has been grieving.”
“This is a very, very difficult day for the Jewish community. And I think to say anything but that is not OK,” she said as the crowd erupted in cheers and gave a standing round of applause.
Mamdani sparked outrage from Jewish advocates for doing exactly what Menin denounced earlier in the day.
He used Oct. 7’s third anniversary to issue a statement that largely focused on Israel’s “war crimes” and “ongoing genocide.”
Hizzoner dedicated less than a quarter of his written statement to the “unthinkable loss” suffered when “Hamas killed more than 1,100 Israelis and abducted 251 others” on Oct. 7, 2023 — with the vast majority devoted to his ongoing criticism of Israel.
“The suffering did not begin nor end that day. It instead continued through the Israeli government’s devastating, ongoing genocide in Gaza,” he said, citing Hamas statistics as he decried the Palestinian casualties of the war launched in response to the terrorist attack.
“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,” he 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.”
Many felt the mayor’s words undermined the horrors of the Oct. 7 terrorist attack and noted that he never once mentioned that Jews were targeted – the deadliest day for Jews since the Holocaust.
“Not once do you say “Jews,” Jonathan Greenblatt, CEO of the Anti-Defamation League, wrote on X. “On Oct. 7, Hamas-led attackers murdered civilians, committed sexual violence, mutilated bodies and took hostages.
“You are weaponizing a day meant for mourning the worst massacre of Jews since the Holocaust to recycle your usual anti-zionist talking points,” Greenblatt said.
