Corporate Media Asks Why Mamdani Skipped the Israel Day Parade Because They Lack The Courage to Ask the Hard Question
A mayor who has increased funding by more than 800% to fight hate crimes amid rising antisemitism is being attacked for not sharing a stage with officials who have called for genocide and war crimes
There is a pattern with New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani and the media that has become almost poetic in its predictability.
When he was running for mayor, reporters asked whether he would travel to Israel if elected? He said he was focused on New York City and affordability for all New Yorkers. The media laughed. He won—by a historic margin—and his approval on inauguration day was +38.
Now he is mayor, and reporters are asking whether he will attend the Israel Day Parade? He says again he is focused on New York City and affordability for all New Yorkers. The media is once again predicting his political demise. His approval rating is now at +48.
The entire framing of this made up controversy is backwards. Corporate media is asking the wrong question, and the right one is one they don’t have the courage to ask. What exactly is that question? Let’s Address This.
The Question No One in Corporate Media Is Asking
The question every elected official, every member of the media, every person who cares about human rights should be asking is: Why would any elected official committed to justice and human decency attend a parade featuring officials who openly celebrate racism, dehumanization, and genocide?
Think I’m being hyperbolic? Call me CVS because I’m about to issue you some receipts. Let me introduce you to the Knesset delegation sent to represent Israel at this year’s parade:
Amir Ohana, the Knesset Speaker who is heading the entire Israeli delegation, has publicly claimed that Muslims are prone to “cultural murderousness.” He has called for the complete annexation of the West Bank as “the one and only way” to peace. He has declared that Gaza “will be a better place without the devil”—referring to Palestinian civilians. He is leading the delegation to the Israel Day Parade.
Amichai Eliyahu, Israel’s Heritage Minister and member of the far-right Kahanist party Otzma Yehudit, has stated that Israel should use a nuclear bomb on Gaza. He has said publicly that “all of Gaza will be Jewish.” He has called for the complete occupation of Gaza after the war and the rebuilding of settlements. He has called for executing Palestinian prisoners. As starvation rose across Gaza, he declared Israel is “driving out” Gazans. His prime minister had to publicly warn him to stop talking.
Yitzhak Wasserlauf, also a member of the Kahanist Otzma Yehudit party, whose presence at a Ben-Gurion memorial was described by Ben-Gurion’s own grandson as “disrespectful” to the founder of Israel’s legacy.
Amichai Chikli, Israel’s Diaspora Minister—the official literally tasked with representing Israel to Jewish communities abroad—has made an obscene gesture toward protesters at the very parade he is now returning to attend. He has been called someone who “doesn’t understand Jewish Diaspora” by a senior U.S. official. He has invited politicians from European far-right parties to Israel. He was ordered to apologize for inviting British far-right agitator Tommy Robinson to Jerusalem. He has met with far-right conspiracy theorist Laura Loomer.
As if these calls to violence are not revolting enough, I’m nowhere near done. Then there are the other members of this delegation whose documented statements include:
Ariel Kallner declared “Gazans are plump and healthy; it’s all nonsense”—as international aid organizations documented mass starvation—and added “whoever remains in the north, we will truly starve them.” The same official who in October 2023 called for “a Nakba that will overshadow the Nakba of ‘48.”
Yitzhak Kroizer stated that “even if collateral damage includes children or women, it doesn’t matter to me”—and “there are no innocent civilians, no innocent children in Jenin.” (These are war crimes by the way).
Meirav Ben Ari declared “the children in Gaza have brought this upon themselves.”
Imagine if these statements were made about any other marginalized community. Who in their right mind would tolerate them as a mere difference of opinion?
What elected official—what person of conscience—should be expected to share a stage, a platform, and a photo op with people who have uttered such horrors? What human rights advocate, what public servant, what mayor of Earth’s most diverse city should be required to stand alongside officials who have called for war crimes on civilians, bragged about starving people, and declared that dead children brought it on themselves?
The question is not why Mamdani stayed away.
The question is why the media and those in power are silent about the politicians showing up to lock arms with these violent extremists? Sadly, no one in corporate media is willing to ask that question. And we are all worse off for it.
Who Mamdani Actually Is to New York’s Jewish Community
The legacy media narrative being constructed around Mamdani’s absence is one of the most dishonest narratives in recent New York political history—and the Jewish Forward is calling it out directly.
Writing in the Forward, Libby Lenkinski—who attended Mamdani’s Shavuot gathering honoring Ruth Messinger—describes what the media is consistently missing:
When the mayor roared ‘chag sameach!’ into the room, smiling broadly, it did not feel performative to many of us because many of us actually know him. Personally. Through him showing up in Jewish spaces across New York over these past few years. I have run into Mamdani on Yom Kippur. At Oct. 7 vigils. At Passover events.
Lenkinski asks the question directly:
Why are we hearing so much more about the Jews who object to Mamdani’s policies than the many of us who embrace them? Last week’s gathering included progressive Jews, anti-occupation Jews, Israeli expats, liberal rabbis, artists, nonprofit workers, old-school establishment figures and more. Are our reasons for joyfully engaging with Mamdani so much less interesting than the boycotters’ reasons for questioning him?
And she makes the point that should reframe this entire conversation:
Almost 40% of American Jews believe Israel committed a genocide in Gaza. Is a mayor who has opened the door to those viewpoints—when those of us who hold them have often been excluded from official spaces—neglecting the Jewish community, or just engaging with it in a different way?
This is the truth the media refuses to tell. Mamdani does not represent a fringe view of the Jewish community. He represents the view of 4 in 10 American Jews—a view that has historically been silenced, marginalized, and excluded from official spaces. He has opened those doors.
And beyond his personal relationships, his governance tells the real story.
Under Mayor Mamdani, New York City has invested in a more than 800% increase in resources to fight hate crimes amid rising antisemitism. He has appointed Jewish leaders like Phylisa Wisdom to lead citywide efforts to confront hate and protect Jewish New Yorkers. The NYPD likewise reports that overall violent crime is at historic lows in the first quarter of his tenure.
This is what protecting Jewish New Yorkers and protecting all New Yorkers actually looks like—just as Mamdani promised on the campaign trail. Not a photo op at a parade featuring officials who praise the starvation of civilians. Actual policy. Actual investment. Actual results. And this begs another important question—who is actually behind the national rise in antisemitism?
Who Is Actually Driving Antisemitism in America?
And since the media wants to frame Mamdani’s absence as a Jewish community issue, let us talk about who is actually threatening Jewish Americans—because the data is unambiguous and it demolishes the premise of this entire controversy.
I have written in detail about the ADL’s own dataset of antisemitic incidents in the United States. Since 2002, the ADL has documented 40,180 cases of antisemitism in America. Of those, the number attributable to “Islamist” ideology is two. Not two percent. Two incidents. The number attributable to “Leftist” ideology is one.
Effectively 100% of documented antisemitic attacks in the United States come from right-wing extremists, white supremacists, and Christian nationalists.
Now look at the officials attending this parade. Amichai Chikli—the man who made an obscene gesture at protesters and invited Tommy Robinson to Jerusalem—invited politicians from European far-right parties to Israel. He met with Laura Loomer. The parade is featuring officials ideologically aligned with the very movement responsible for nearly every documented antisemitic attack in America.
Is it any surprise that those same right wing extremists are projecting their own hate on Mayor Zohran Mamdani—the Muslim mayor of New York City who invested 800% more in fighting hate crimes and antisemitism and shows up at Yom Kippur and October 7 vigils?
The people actually aligned with the forces threatening Jewish Americans are being celebrated at the parade he declined to attend.
This inversion of reality is not accidental. It is the product of a media ecosystem that, as the Forward’s Lenkinski writes, has become:
Invested in telling a story about Jews and public life that leaves very little room for complexity, coexistence, contradiction or ordinary human interaction. A story in which Jews are perpetually under threat from everyone around them. A story in which Muslim politicians and Jewish communities are naturally destined for conflict.
Reality, as the data shows, tells a very different picture. It is indefensible that corporate media continues to ignore that reality, as once again, it harms us all.
On Free Speech and What Mamdani Is Actually Doing
Finally, I want to address one more layer of this—because the argument proffered against Mayor Mamdani is not just factually wrong. It is philosophically incoherent.
No one is accusing Mayor Mamdani of calling for these Israeli officials to be censored. He has not. No one is accusing him of calling for them to be banned from the parade. He has not. He is not even protesting their presence or demanding they be silenced.
He is simply declining to stand next to them.
Free speech means tolerating even speech you find repugnant. It does not mean being required to personally associate with, endorse, or attend events featuring people who brag about starving children and calling for nuclear weapons on civilian populations. These are two entirely different things—and the conflation of them is either confused or dishonest.
Mayor Mamdani is exercising the same right that every American has: the right to choose who he stands with and what he lends his presence and his platform to.
That is not intolerance. That is integrity.
Mamdani Is What Moral Consistency Actually Looks Like
Finally, in closing, the vast majority of New Yorkers see this integrity. Mayor Mamdani’s +48 approval is not an accident. It is the verdict of a city that has watched this mayor show up for all New Yorkers, including Jewish New Yorkers—consistently and authentically. It is that consistency—that refusal to perform solidarity while abandoning its substance—that makes the intolerant so furious.
And it is that consistency that should inspire the rest of us to demand more of every leader we support. So rather than asking why Mayor Mamdani refuses to stand with politicians who violently dehumanize millions of people, ask the real question: why are certain politicians willing to do so?
Qasim Rashid is a human rights attorney, author, and host of Let’s Address This—a platform dedicated to human rights, accountability, and the journalism that corporate media refuses to deliver. Subscribe, share, and let’s remain relentless in our mission for a more perfect Union
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You show a real understanding of the issues and can effectively explain them. Well done, as always.
Excellent work, as always - it is very easy to just explain it all away by saying that the media is drinking the same Kool-Aid as Israel's leaders, but that answers nothing important.