{"id":840366,"date":"2026-06-03T01:23:12","date_gmt":"2026-06-03T01:23:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/840366\/"},"modified":"2026-06-03T01:23:12","modified_gmt":"2026-06-03T01:23:12","slug":"right-wing-officials-appearance-at-israel-day-parade-leads-to-backlash","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/840366\/","title":{"rendered":"Right-Wing Officials\u2019 Appearance at Israel Day Parade Leads to Backlash"},"content":{"rendered":"

Elected officials and pro-Israel Jewish organizations spent weeks criticizing Mayor Zohran Mamdani<\/a>\u2019s decision not to attend the annual Israel Day Parade in Manhattan on Sunday, calling the event an apolitical celebration of Jewish identity and heritage that was separate from Israeli politics or the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.<\/p>\n

But both turned out to be major elements of this year\u2019s parade<\/a>, which featured a delegation of far-right Israeli lawmakers and cabinet officials. Chief among was the nation\u2019s finance minister, Bezalel Smotrich. <\/p>\n

Israeli officials do typically march in the parade, but organizers said that they were surprised that among the officials was Mr. Smotrich, a leader of the Israeli settler movement who has a long record of hostile statements toward Palestinians, L.G.B.T.Q. people and Reform Jews.<\/p>\n

New York elected officials who participated, and who had sought to characterize the parade as an apolitical event, insisted on Monday that they had not known they would be sharing Fifth Avenue with Mr. Smotrich and other politicians who are widely viewed as hard-liners.<\/p>\n

\u201cBezalel Smotrich is a far-right extremist whose hateful and divisive rhetoric is fundamentally at odds with the values we hold dear in New York,\u201d Gov. Kathy Hochul said in a statement<\/a>. \u201cYesterday\u2019s parade was a celebration of Jewish pride, community and unity. I strongly condemn his participation.\u201d<\/p>\n

The presence of Mr. Smotrich and other far-right ministers also drew condemnation from progressive groups, who said they were appalled that Mr. Smotrich appeared to be celebrated on Fifth Avenue just three years after many Jewish groups urged that he be shunned<\/a> in the United States.<\/p>\n

\u201cBezalel Smotrich is a zealot who should be sanctioned by the American government and shunned by Jewish communal leaders \u2014 not cheered while marching in our streets or speaking in our synagogues,\u201d said Jeremy Ben-Ami, the president of J Street, a liberal pro-Israel group that has been attacked by the Netanyahu government.<\/p>\n

Mr. Smotrich said last month that he had learned the International Criminal Court prosecutor had requested a warrant for his arrest<\/a>, though he did not specify what charges he might face. The court, whose warrants are typically secret, declined to confirm nor deny.<\/p>\n

Mark Treyger, the chief executive of the Jewish Community Relations Council, the lead organizer of the parade, said his group had not known that Mr. Smotrich and other far-right officials, including Yitzhak Wasserlauf, Ofir Sofer and Amichay Eliyahu, were planning to march.<\/p>\n

\u201cParticipation in the parade is not an endorsement of any political figure or ideology,\u201d Mr. Treyger said in a statement, which did not name the officials. \u201cWe reject rhetoric that dehumanizes others, fuels division or diminishes the dignity of any human being.\u201d<\/p>\n

In an interview, Mr. Treyger said it appeared the officials had been brought to the parade with a group from Israel\u2019s consulate general in New York, which typically organizes Israeli delegations to the event.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere was a complete lack of transparency here,\u201d said Mr. Treyger, who said that he did not know Mr. Smotrich was at the parade until it was nearly over. \u201cThey did not share any information about these attendees coming to the parade. We certainly asked, and they did not share these names.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Israeli consulate did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Monday.<\/p>\n

Mr. Mamdani had said for months that he would not attend the Israel Day Parade, citing his longtime opposition to the Israeli government<\/a>. Still, he said last week<\/a> that he took \u201cseriously my responsibility to protect the safety and well-being of every New Yorker and every event,\u201d and unveiled a sweeping security plan for the parade.<\/p>\n

But many other prominent elected officials in New York did march. In addition to Ms. Hochul, they included Senator Chuck Schumer, the minority leader; Letitia James, the state attorney general; Mark Levine, the city comptroller; and Julie Menin, the City Council speaker.<\/p>\n

Last week, Mr. Levine said the parade should be viewed \u201cbeyond the policy debates of the day.\u201d Ms. Menin said, \u201cI just don\u2019t think a parade should be synonymous with the Israeli government, because it\u2019s not.\u201d And Jessica Tisch, the police commissioner, described the parade as \u201cone of the most joyful days of the year,\u201d saying she intended to \u201cmarch proudly.\u201d<\/p>\n

By Monday, many had shifted their tone, releasing statements condemning Mr. Smotrich and saying they had not known he would be at the parade.<\/p>\n

A spokesman for Ms. Menin said she \u201cfully condemns his views and participation in what was otherwise a positive show of Jewish pride and unity.\u201d Ms. James said in a statement<\/a>: \u201cIslamophobia has no place in New York. I unequivocally condemn Bezalel Smotrich\u2019s hateful rhetoric.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ms. Tisch said the parade had been \u201ca safe and joyful celebration for tens of thousands of families\u201d and that \u201chateful and offensive language has no place in that celebration.\u201d And a spokesman for Mr. Schumer said his \u201ccondemnation of Smotrich\u2019s extremism is longstanding, public, and unchanged<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n

On Monday, Mr. Mamdani condemned the participation of Mr. Smotrich and the other cabinet officials in the parade.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou can see in the participation of the far-right Israeli Minister Smotrich, as well as a number of other ministers, a vision of annihilation, a complicity in genocide and frankly, a belief that does not have much value for even the sanctity of children in Gaza,\u201d he said in an interview on MS NOW. \u201cAnd I am offended, as I know many New Yorkers are, by their participation.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mr. Smotrich, the most senior Israeli official to march in the parade, has said he hopes to bury the idea<\/a> of an independent Palestinian state.<\/p>\n

He has called<\/a> for Israel to annex the occupied West Bank without giving its roughly three million Palestinian residents the right to vote or to be elected to positions in Israel\u2019s government. While Israeli and international human rights groups have denounced that idea as tantamount to apartheid<\/a>, Mr. Smotrich has argued that Israel does not need to remain a \u201cperfect democracy.\u201d<\/p>\n

As a government minister, he has promoted the expansion of Israeli settlements in the West Bank and argued that Israel should build settlements in Gaza, whose Palestinian residents he has said should be encouraged to leave.<\/p>\n

He has also criticized Reform Judaism, the largest Jewish denomination in the United States, and he has a history of anti-L.G.B.T.Q. remarks. As a young activist, he helped organize<\/a> \u201cthe Parade of Beasts\u201d to mock gay pride parades, and once called himself a \u201cproud homophobe<\/a>.\u201d He later apologized, but has remained opposed to L.G.B.T. recognition in Israel.<\/p>\n

Mr. Eliyahu, Israel\u2019s heritage minister, said in a radio interview<\/a> last year that Israel was \u201crushing toward Gaza being erased. Thank God, we are erasing this evil.\u201d He added: \u201cAll of Gaza will one day be Jewish.\u201d<\/p>\n

The parade also featured lower-level Israeli lawmakers with a history of extreme views. One of them, Ariel Kallner, said Israel should commit another Nakba<\/a> \u2014 the term used by Palestinians to refer to their displacement during the creation of Israel in 1948 \u2014 in response to the deadly Hamas-led attacks on the nation.<\/p>\n

Another lawmaker who attended, Yitzhak Kroizer, has called<\/a> for Gaza to \u201cbe wiped off the map\u201d and argued that \u201cin the Gaza Strip, there are no innocents.\u201d<\/p>\n

After Israeli police opened fire in the West Bank<\/a> in March, killing several civilians, Mr. Kroizer said he backed Israeli soldiers \u201cin every situation, even if the collateral damage is women or children or whatever it may be.\u201d<\/p>\n

Sally Goldenberg and Chelsia Rose Marcius contributed reporting.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Elected officials and pro-Israel Jewish organizations spent weeks criticizing Mayor Zohran Mamdani\u2019s decision not to attend the annual…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":840367,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[2],"tags":[344169,8771,99,202213,145325,5708,403,17050,50,21701,344168,5709],"class_list":["post-840366","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-news","tag-bezalel-1980","tag-hochul","tag-israel","tag-jews-and-judaism","tag-kathleen-c","tag-mamdani","tag-new-york-city","tag-new-york-state","tag-news","tag-parades","tag-smotrich","tag-zohran"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/116683565089436563","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/840366","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=840366"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/840366\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/840367"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=840366"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=840366"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=840366"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}