Parading In Solidarity With Genocide
Sid Shniad
Parading In Solidarity With Genocide
Smotrich, one of the three top genocide architects, cheerfully marched too. And was applauded.
MJ Rosenberg
Jun 01, 2026
EXCERPTS FROM A PIECE BY PREM THAKKER in the great ZETEO
On Sunday, New York was host to the Israel Day Parade. Crowds of “pro-Israel” (scare quotes mine. What is “pro-Israel” about supporting policies that have turned Israel into the most despised country in the world) marchers, Christian Zionists, Israeli officials, and U.S. politicians descended on the Upper East Side.
Mayor Zohran Mamdani attracted vicious criticism for being the first New York mayor in more than 60 years not to attend the event….
Mamdani avoided marching alongside Israeli officials who have expressed extremist, genocidal, and viciously racist sentiments about Palestinians – and at least one for whom the International Criminal Court is reportedly seeking an arrest warrant.
That did not stop many other Democrats from marching. New York Senator Chuck Schumer, Governor Kathy Hochul, Attorney General Letitia James, Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch, Council Speaker Julie Menin, disgraced former Mayor Eric Adams, disgraced former Governor and failed mayoral candidate Andrew Cuomo, Rep. Dan Goldman, Rep. Jerry Nadler (and Alex Bores, vying to take Nadler’s seat) – were in attendance. New York Republican Rep. Mike Lawler joined them.
So, who were all these New Yorkers marching with? Let’s take a survey.
Among the most vile attendees was Israeli Finance Minister and self-proclaimed homophobe, racist, and fascist Bezalel Smotrich, a settler who has helped lead efforts to illegally annex more of the West Bank. The International Criminal Court has reportedly filed an arrest warrant application against the man who said it would be “right and moral” to starve 2 million Palestinians “to death.”
Joining Smotrich were:
Amichai Eliyahu, the heritage minister who has called for nuking and wiping out Gaza, and for starving Palestinians.
Yitzhak Wasserlauf, minister for Negev and Galilee affairs, who stormed Al-Aqsa Mosque, one of the holiest sites in Islam, and told Israeli soldiers to target babies.
Minister of Diaspora Affairs Amichai Chikli, who sought to ban Mamdani’s wife from Israel, said Israel should settle northern Gaza, banned aid groups from Gaza, and boosted a pro-Nazi Romanian politician.
Minister of Aliyah and Integration Ofir Sofer, who has worked with Smotrich to financially reward people who move into illegal settlements in the West Bank.
Knesset Speaker Amir Ohana, who has said Muslims are prone to “cultural murderousness,” ordered jails not to vaccinate Palestinian detainees for COVID-19, and called for the release of a Jewish man arrested in connection with a deadly shooting of an Arab-Israeli man, even saying, “Law-abiding citizens carrying weapons are a force multiplier for the authorities for the immediate neutralization of threat and danger.”
Meirav Ben Ari, an opposition politician who in October 2023 said, as Israel attacked, “The children in Gaza have brought this upon themselves!”
Ariel Kallner, a Likud politician who has said, “Gazans are plump and healthy; it’s all nonsense;” “Whoever remains in the north [Gaza] – we will truly starve them;” and, in October 2023, “Right now, one goal: Nakba! A Nakba that will overshadow the Nakba of 48. Nakba in Gaza and Nakba to anyone who dares to join!”
… and more.
Also in attendance was Israeli Ambassador to the UN Danny Danon, who Benjamin Netanyahu once fired after Danon criticized him for “leftist feebleness” during the 2014 Gaza War, which killed some 2,300 Palestinians and wounded 10,000.
“This encounter at the Israel March says it all,” Danon posted. “An NYPD cop, a proud Jew with a kippah, representing the incredible mosaic of the community in New York and the uncompromising support for Israel. 🇺🇸🇮🇱.”
Unwittingly, that embodied the actual message of the day: that the NYPD wasn’t pursuing any of the allegedly genocidal officials in attendance….
Pro-Israel actors and media figures sought to slander Mamdani.
“It is worth noting that this is nothing more than a peaceful and positive celebration of the existence of the only Jewish state in the world,” the New York and New Jersey chapter of the Anti-Defamation League said – a quaint way to describe a parade headlined by a murderer’s row of genocidal politicians.
Beth Miller, political director of Jewish Voice for Peace, countered the pro-Israel narrative.
“It’s antisemitic to conflate Jews and Israel. Which is exactly what the ADL is doing by calling the ‘Israel Day Parade’ a ‘Jewish celebration,’” she wrote.
“As a Jewish person who lives here, I’m pretty fucking glad we finally have a mayor who isn’t at a parade celebrating atrocity crimes.”