View panelist Alyssa Farah Griffin slammed New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani for using the October 7 anniversary to accuse Israel of genocide instead of letting Jews mourn.
Republican View panelist Alyssa Farah Griffin tore into New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani on X less than an hour after he marked the third anniversary of Hamas’s October 7, 2023 attack by charging Israel with “ongoing genocide.”
Griffin, 37, said the mayor could not set politics aside for a single day of remembrance. Her post joined a wave of criticism from Jewish leaders and Israeli officials who said Mamdani hijacked a day meant for victims and survivors.
Mamdani, 34, opened by noting that Hamas killed more than 1,100 Israelis and abducted 251 people that day. He then pivoted hard. Palestinian suffering “did not begin nor end” on October 7, he wrote, and the conflict since “has killed more than 74,000 Palestinians,” including “more than 21,000 children.” He labeled Israel’s campaign an “ongoing genocide,” said U.S. tax dollars fund “war crimes,” and accused Washington of “complicity with every arms shipment.”
The mayor’s post drew nearly 7 million views within five hours. Griffin answered fast.
Daily Mail reporting captured her rebuke and the broader backlash that followed.
"I don’t understand why the Mayor couldn’t simply give Jews *one day* to mourn the largest mass killing of Jews since the holocaust."
That line landed because the anniversary is not abstract in New York. Vigils and ceremonies filled the city. Mamdani was scheduled to attend one that evening even as his statement shifted focus from the murdered and the kidnapped to charges against the Jewish state.
The New York Post reported that Mamdani devoted less than a quarter of the statement to the Israelis killed and abducted, then moved into attacks on Israel’s conduct, “occupation and apartheid,” and American arms support. He cited casualty figures from the Hamas-run Palestinian Ministry of Health for deaths after a ceasefire took effect a year earlier.
ADL CEO Jonathan Greenblatt did not mince words.
"You are weaponizing a day meant for mourning the worst massacre of Jews since the Holocaust to recycle your usual anti-zionist talking points."
Israeli UN Ambassador Danny Danon told the Post the mayor tried to “hijack” a day reserved for victims and survivors. Moshe Spern, president of the New York-based United Jewish Teachers, was blunter still: “You marked the anniversary of a massacre by accusing the people who were massacred of genocide.”
One top reply on the mayor’s thread captured the same anger in plain language: he could not, “for just ONE day,” keep the focus on the terrorists and on October 7 itself.
The Washington Examiner published a longer stretch of the mayor’s text. After the brief acknowledgment of Israeli losses, Mamdani wrote that the suffering “instead continued through the Israeli government’s devastating, ongoing genocide in Gaza.” He said many New Yorkers “mourn alongside them, all while knowing that our tax dollars fund these war crimes,” and closed by calling for a fight against occupation, apartheid, and impunity.
"On that day, Hamas killed more than 1,100 Israelis and abducted 251 others. We grieve alongside our many friends and neighbors who still carry that unthinkable loss. The suffering did not begin nor end that day. It instead continued through the Israeli government’s devastating, ongoing genocide in Gaza, in which it has killed more than 74,000 Palestinians, including more than 21,000 children."
That framing treats the anniversary of a massacre of Jews as the launch point for a brief against Israel. Critics called it exactly that.
This was not Mamdani’s first clash with Israeli leadership. While running for mayor late last year, he aired his intent to arrest Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. He has continued to brand Israel’s response a genocide. Coverage of how Mamdani reacted to a Netanyahu U.N. rebuke after pushing for an arrest shows the same posture in earlier form.
He has also urged the United States to join the International Criminal Court and enforce a warrant against Netanyahu, language tracked when Mamdani pressed ICC action and called the Israeli premier a genocide architect on a podcast. The October 7 statement fits that record rather than breaking from it.
New Yorkers already know the mayor’s larger project. Critics have dissected how Mamdani’s socialism pitch puts government in charge of “whatever you need,” and progressive networks keep booking him as a national draw, including when a Michigan Senate nominee lined up Obama, AOC, and Mamdani for the closing stretch. Foreign-policy radicalism travels with the brand.
City governance fights follow him too. A judge recently forced a restart of second-home tax notices after due-process failures, a reminder that Mamdani’s tax machinery has already drawn court correction at home while he lectures on international law abroad.
October 7 remains the deadliest day for Jews since the Holocaust. Hamas murdered families, burned homes, and dragged hostages into Gaza. Israelis marked the third anniversary at sites including the Nova music festival memorial. In New York, the mayor’s own constituents held vigils.
Mamdani’s statement gave the Israeli dead a short preface, then spent its force on “war crimes,” “apartheid,” and American “complicity.” He used the anniversary of Jewish slaughter to put the Jewish state in the dock. Griffin asked the obvious question: why not one day?
The Daily Mail approached the mayor’s office for comment. Jewish organizations and Israeli officials did not wait. They said the day belonged to the murdered, the kidnapped, and the survivors, not to a fresh round of anti-Israel talking points from City Hall.
Leaders who cannot honor the dead without turning the funeral into a rally have already told voters what they value. New Yorkers heard it clearly on the anniversary that should have needed no translation.
