New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani will participate tonight (Wednesday) in a “Vigil in Remembrance of October 7th,” then meet with residents “of ‘Palestinian’ origin” shortly after. According to a schedule published by his office, he’ll attend the memorial at 7:00 p.m., then head to a meeting with ‘Palestinian New Yorkers’ two hours later at 9:00 p.m.
1+During the official memorial ceremony held by the Israeli Consulate in New York for the massacre, Consul Ofir Akunis personally invited Mamdani to watch the ‘atrocity footage’: “If he comes, he’ll see what the people he supports actually did. Maybe it will make him stop with the hatred and blood libels against the State of Israel.”
Mamdani recently sparked controversy when it was revealed that his “flagship program” to combat antisemitism—which allocates tens of millions of dollars to fight hate crimes—would funnel part of the budget to a pro-jihad organization. The program, published under the title “Strategy to Combat Antisemitism,” included an additional $6.4 million for a city initiative to fight hatred.
1+According to reports, one of the prominent partner organizations in the program is the Arab American Association of New York—an organization identified over the years with anti-Israel activity. The group has repeatedly supported protests against Israel, and in the days following the October 7 massacre, declared that “we stand in solidarity with the right of all occupied peoples to resist their oppressors.”