New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani commemorated Nakba Daya, which is an annual Palestinian commemoration of the 1948 displacement of Palestinians by a war their leaders started.
Many saw it as a deliberate effort to rile up the violent protesters, and it did. You can view videos here, here, and below.
Watch this clip. This is what Nakba Daya is: a memorial to the failure to destroy the Jewish state.
Today, the Mayor of New York posted a tribute to Nakba Day, marking the aftermath of the 1948 war launched against the newly created State of Israel after the Arab world rejected partition. At a time of rising antisemitism across the city, anti-Israel mobs filled Washington… pic.twitter.com/xZcqjOtlYW
— Samantha Ettus (@samanthaettus) May 16, 2026
On May 15, 2026, Mamdani posted a video (which you can view here) and a statement that memorialized the day. It featured a New York resident, Inea Bushnaq, described as a “Nakba survivor.” In the video, Bushnaq recounted her family’s flight from East Jerusalem as “Zionists came into Jerusalem.” She described the loss of her home as symbolized by the keys she kept.
The video was one-sided and ignored the wider 1948 war launched by 22 Arab states against Israel that led to the expulsion of over 800,000 Jews from Arab lands, which led to the displacement of 700,000 Arabs (‘Palestinians’).
The backlash to the mayor’s video and statement did what he must have known it would do. It led to radicals taking to the streets. The demonstrations intensified in Manhattan as the day wore on. ‘Protesters’ carrying Hezbollah flags and chanting calls for Israel’s destruction took over, as per World Israel News and videos of the scenes.
Then we had this:
#ICYMI: Speakers at NYC Nakba Rallies Call for the Destruction of Israel: Israel Has No Right to Exist; Only “Resistance” Will Liberate Palestine; If Israel Is Not Destroyed, We Will All Suffer the Consequences of Its Evil – Ending Israel Will Bring Down Capitalism pic.twitter.com/DXOUlLydIZ
— MEMRI (@MEMRIReports) May 23, 2026
📍 New York City – May 15
Hamas headbands and open support for a U.S.-designated terrorist organization were displayed in the streets of New York City.
This is Mamdani’s NYC: a city where leadership revoked the IHRA definition of antisemitism, then left Jews to face the… pic.twitter.com/P4OCJfk6I9
— TheJewishAlly (@TheJewishAlly) May 23, 2026