“I wish Mayor ‘Jihad Mandami’ sent a message like @realDonaldTrump for Oct 7. But Mayor Mayhem sends loves & kisses to Hamas,” Huckabee wrote.
By United with Israel Staff
New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani faced a wave of condemnation from Israeli and American officials after using the third anniversary of the Oct. 7 massacre to accuse Israel of “genocide,” “apartheid” and “war crimes.”
Among the strongest responses came from Israel’s ambassador to the United States, Yechiel Leiter, who issued his rebuke from the bedside of his son, Neria, who remains on life support after being struck by a Palestinian terrorist.
“I have to take a moment from my son’s bedside, on life support after being struck by a Palestinian terrorist, to respond to the dangerous lies being spewed by @NYCMayor,” Leiter wrote.
“It’s actually hard to find a sentence in Mamdani’s post that isn’t a lie,” he continued. “Paying lip service to the victims of October 7 just to spread blood libels about Israel might play nicely to the red-green/communist-Islamist alliance that he promotes in the U.S., but those of us who know better see his perverted language for what it is.”
Leiter accused Mamdani of defending Palestinian terrorism, promoting antisemitism and using the anniversary of the massacre to spread “absurd accusations and outright propaganda” against Israel.
“Let’s be clear: the only attempted genocide in this conflict was perpetrated by the barbarians he supports, Hamas, who butchered, raped, and murdered in the most horrific ways imaginable,” Leiter wrote.
He also rejected Mamdani’s allegations about Israel’s conduct in Gaza, pointing to Hamas’s practice of embedding itself among civilians.
“Hamas embeds itself among, behind, and beneath the people of Gaza, knowing that the IDF will not, ever, intentionally target civilians,” Leiter said.
US Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee issued an equally blistering response, calling Mamdani’s statement an “outrageous & disgusting rant” released on a day that should be devoted to remembering those murdered by Hamas.
Huckabee compared Mamdani’s message to using the anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks to condemn the United States for its response to al-Qaeda.
“There is NO genocide in Gaza,” Huckabee wrote. “The death toll there is due to Hamas having continued to hold hostages (including Americans) and starving, raping, torturing and killing them.”
Huckabee later contrasted Mamdani’s statement with President Donald Trump’s Oct. 7 memorial message.
Trump called Oct. 7 “one of the darkest and most evil days in the history of Israel” and remembered the men, women and children “murdered, kidnapped, and subjected to unimaginable horrors at the hands of Hamas TERRORISTS.”
“We will NEVER forget October 7th. We will NEVER forget the victims. And we will always stand against the forces of Terror and Evil,” Trump wrote.
Responding to Trump’s message, Huckabee wrote, “I wish Mayor ‘Jihad Mandami’ sent a message like @realDonaldTrump for Oct 7. But Mayor Mayhem sends loves & kisses to Hamas.”
I wish Mayor “Jihad Mandami” sent a message like @realDonaldTrump for Oct 7. But Mayor Mayhem sends loves & kisses to Hamas.
— Ambassador Mike Huckabee (@GovMikeHuckabee) October 8, 2026
Israel’s UN Ambassador Danny Danon also invoked the Sept. 11 attacks in condemning the anti-Israel rhetoric surrounding the anniversary.
“Imagine protesters taking to the streets of New York on the anniversary of 9/11, demonstrating against America and praising al-Qaeda terrorists,” Danon wrote. “That is the absurdity that we are witnessing on the anniversary of October 7.”
Rep. Ritchie Torres (D-N.Y.) similarly questioned why critics of Israel could not set aside their attacks on the Jewish state for the anniversary of the massacre.
“The world demonizes Israel 365 days a year,” Torres wrote. “Perhaps, for just one day—October 7th—the critics of Israel could take a vacation from their hysterical hatred of the world’s only Jewish State and find it within themselves to express condolences for the thousands of Israelis murdered, maimed, mutilated, raped, and abducted at the hands of Hamas.”
The condemnations came after Mamdani briefly acknowledged the Hamas atrocities in his Oct. 7 message before quickly pivoting to accuse Israel of an “ongoing genocide in Gaza,” “occupation,” “apartheid” and war crimes.
Even on the anniversary of the worst massacre of Jews since the Holocaust, Mamdani could not bring himself to simply honor the victims.
Instead, he hijacked their day of remembrance to demonize the Jewish state, falsely accusing Israel of genocide, deliberately bombing ambulances, residential buildings and journalists, and blocking food aid from entering Gaza.
Even on Oct. 7, Mamdani could not stop attacking Israel.
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