NYC Mayor Zohran Mamdani will skip annual parade celebrating Israel but pledges big police presence
NEW YORK (AP) — New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani will not attend the annual parade honoring Israel on Sunday, breaking with decades of political tradition because of his support for Palestinian rights.
Although it has been called different names over the years, the Israel Day parade has always been a must-attend event for mayors, governors and other political leaders looking to win over the crowds of flag-waving revelers who gathered on Fifth Avenue to celebrate the birth of the Jewish state in 1948.
This is not the case for Mamdani. Two weeks ago, the mayor’s office released the tribute video. NakbaThe Arabic word for “catastrophe” used to describe the displacement of an estimated 700,000 Palestinians during the 1948 Arab-Israeli war that followed the founding of Israel.
“I said on the campaign trail that I would not attend the parade, and I made my views on the Israeli government abundantly clear,” Mamdani said at a news conference Thursday.
But he also promised a strong police presence to ensure the event goes “smoothly and peacefully.”
“Although I will not attend, our management has been preparing for weeks to ensure that the parade is safe for all participants,” he said.
Jessica Tisch, the city’s Jewish police commissioner, told reporters she would attend.
“It is the mayor’s decision not to march, and it is my decision to march proudly,” he said, standing next to Mamdani at the police station.
The long-awaited mayor’s absence has brought new fire to opponents who see his criticism of the Israeli government as antisemitic.
Rabbi Marc Schneier, senior rabbi at Long Island’s Hampton Synagogue and president of the Foundation for Ethnic Understanding, which advocates for better relations between Jews and Muslims, called Mamdani’s decision not to attend the parade “a slap in the face to all Jewish New Yorkers.”
“Do us a favor, stay at home,” he said. “We don’t need you. We don’t want you.”
Schneier also criticized Mamdani’s Nakba video as “propaganda”, echoing the concerns of other Jewish leaders who said the video left out context about the displacement of Jewish people during the period.
The video, which appeared to be New York’s first such tribute from a sitting mayor, featured the story of a woman displaced at age 9, interspersed with text about the Nakba, and the woman describing her feeling of missing home, saying “what really moved me was the gentle hills of Palestine.”
“I’ve lived in different places and I’ve always been a foreigner,” said the woman, Inea Bushnaq.
Supporters of Israel were outraged, saying the video was not supposed to acknowledge the mass displacement of Jews from Muslim-majority countries or the role that the mass murder of Jews in the Holocaust played in the effort to establish a Jewish state.
The mayors of New York City, which has the largest Jewish population in America, have long been among visible supporters of Israel and frequently visit the country.
Support for Israel increased among Americans deeply eroded But it’s a trend that has accelerated in recent years amid reactions to Israel’s military action in Gaza.
Mamdani, the city’s first Muslim mayor, remained steadfast in his pro-Palestinian advocacy.
He said he believes Israel has a right to exist but not as a hierarchy that favors Jewish citizens. He simultaneously pledged to protect New York’s Jews and highlighted the work of the city’s Office to Combat Antisemitism.
