A Republican New York City councilwoman facing outrage over her “Islamophobic” posts ripped her lefty detractors for staying silent after one of her DSA colleagues condemned Muslim pro-Israel protesters to hell.
Brooklyn Councilwoman Inna Vernikov brushed off calls for her removal from office Friday by a new coalition dubbed “One Standard NYC” that rallied outside City Hall, with about two dozen faith-leaders and members of civil liberty minded groups showing up.
Vernikov has been under fire for posting on social media a video of Muslim men praying in public in Brooklyn near a Jewish girls’ school, and asking whether they were there intentionally to intimidate the students.
“Why do a bunch of GROWN MEN need to do this right outside of a school full of little Jewish girls??? Isn’t this what MOSQUES are for? Is this intentional?” the firebrand councilwoman wrote on X.
Speakers like Queens community activist and former political candidate Japneet Singh described both Vernikov and Queens Republican Councilwoman Vickie Paladino as “cancerous” while others called on City Council Speaker Julie Menin to take action against the members.
“We cannot pick and choose who we want to represent. If you decide to lead this body, you represent each and every constituent, each and every constituent — whether they’re Muslim, Jewish, Sikh, Hindu– if they don’t believe in anything,” said Singh.
“At the end of the day, when you come into this building and you get elected by the people your job is to represent the people.”
But Vernikov — who infamously brought a gun to an anti-Israel rally a few years ago — noted that democratic socialist Brooklyn Councilwoman Shahana Hanif recently lashed out against a pair of Muslim organizers of a massive pro-Israel protest at Gracie Mansion.
Hanif, best known for her frequent anti-Israel remarks, raged in a post on X that she hoped the organizers were condemned “to Jahannam” — the Islamic equivalent of hell.
“The people rallying against me are the same people who remained silent on the vile rhetoric of Councilmember Shahana Hanif when she condemned a fellow Muslim to ‘Jahannam,” same people who wanted me removed before I even co-chaired the task force to combat antisemitism and the same people and entities who associated themselves with atrocious antiseptic ideologies and terrorist organizations,” she said.
CAIR-NY — the Big Apple offshoot of the controversial Muslim charity accused of Hamas links — was also part of the coalition rallying against Vernikov.
Afar Nasher, the executive director of CAIR-NY would not directly comment on Hanif’s posts, saying, “So, this event in particular is about what we’re standing her for, and that is solidarity and unity against Islamophobic statements that happened on that particular date with Vernikov.”
“Often, Muslims are at the bottom of the barrel in which and how things are treated within terms of accountability, right? So that’s what we’re trying to focus on,” she said.
Speaker Menin and Hanif did not respond to requests for comment.
The Council recently had to drop a planned disciplinary action against Paladino after she sued when her colleagues hit her with ethics complaints calling for the “expulsion of Muslims.”