Israel’s Foreign Ministry condemns New York mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani for accusing Israel of “genocide” while parroting Hamas talking points on the massacre’s anniversary.
On the solemn second anniversary of Hamas’s October 7 massacre, New York City mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani ignited outrage by accusing Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government of waging a “genocidal war”—a statement the Israeli Foreign Ministry condemned as “Hamas propaganda wrapped in political cynicism.”
In a post commemorating the day when 1,200 Israelis were slaughtered and more than 250 taken hostage, Mamdani acknowledged that Hamas had “committed a horrific war crime,” but in the same breath accused Israel of conducting a “genocide” in Gaza.
“The IDF has turned Gaza into a sea of ruins,” Mamdani claimed, alleging that the death toll had “exceeded 67,000” and accusing the U.S. government of being “complicit in these crimes.” He further called for “an end to occupation and apartheid,” and insisted that “peace should be pursued through diplomacy, not war crimes.”
While Mamdani offered a token acknowledgment of the Israeli hostages still held in Gaza, his framing of the war as a “genocide” sparked fury in Jerusalem and across Jewish communities worldwide.
In a scathing response on X, the Israeli Foreign Ministry accused the New York politician of “acting as a mouthpiece for Hamas” and spreading “the same fabricated genocide narrative” used by terror sympathizers to delegitimize Israel’s right to self-defense.
“Two years after Hamas launched its barbaric massacre against Israel and the Jewish people, Mamdani has chosen to act as a mouthpiece for Hamas — spreading its fabricated genocide narrative,” the statement read. “By repeating these lies, he excuses terrorism and helps normalize antisemitism. He stands with Jews only after they are dead. Shameful.”
Mamdani—already under scrutiny for rejecting the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) definition of antisemitism and for his refusal to condemn calls to “globalize the intifada”—has once again aligned himself with the most radical anti-Israel rhetoric in American politics.
Israeli officials said the comments are “beyond offensive” to survivors and the families of the October 7 victims, especially as negotiations for the release of 48 remaining hostages continue in Egypt under the framework of President Trump’s peace initiative.
A senior diplomatic source in Jerusalem added:
“While Israel fights to bring home its citizens and defend the Jewish people from genocidal terror, Mamdani chooses to slander Israel on the very day we remember our dead. This isn’t moral posturing—it’s moral decay.”
The backlash highlights a growing divide in U.S. political circles between those who stand with Israel’s fight for survival and those who amplify Hamas’s propaganda under the guise of human rights.
