New York City mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani attends a press conference at the Unisphere in the Queens borough of New York City, US, Nov. 5, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Kylie Cooper

New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani repeatedly declined Wednesday to describe Hamas’s Oct. 7, 2023, massacre in Israel as an attempt at genocide, even as he continued to categorically accuse Israel of committing genocide in the Gaza Strip.

Invoking what he called the “universality of humanity,” Mamdani insisted that his political principles compelled him to condemn atrocities committed by both Hamas and Israel. Yet he applied markedly different language to the two sides: describing the Hamas-led massacre as a “horrific war crime” while presenting the accusation that Israel is committing genocide as an established fact.

“It is from a universal politics that I can look at Oct. 7 and describe it for what it is, which is a horrific war crime, and I can also look at Benjamin Netanyahu and see the way that he’s orchestrated this genocide, and also deem him similarly to be a war criminal,” Mamdani said.

The mayor faced a barrage of questions from local reporters one morning after releasing a video in which he abandoned his campaign pledge to arrest Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, conceded that New York City lacks the legal authority to carry out such an arrest, and declared the Israeli leader “not welcome” in the city.

Reporters pressed Mamdani over the one-sided account of the war presented in the video, which denounced Netanyahu as “the architect of a horrific genocide against the Palestinian people” but made no mention of the Hamas-led invasion and massacre that triggered the conflict.

Asked directly whether he considered the Oct. 7 attack to be genocide, Mamdani did not adopt the term.

“I consider Oct. 7 to be a horrific war crime,” he said during the Wednesday morning press conference.

When asked a second time, Mamdani again declined to call it genocide.

“I consider it to be something that should be deeply opposed with every single fiber of our being,” Mamdani said, according to Jacob Kornbluh, senior political reporter for The Forward.

Mamdani also defended his failure to condemn Hamas in Tuesday night’s video, arguing that his opposition to the terrorist organization should have been implied by his broader message, despite Hamas and the Oct. 7 massacre going unmentioned.

During the Hamas-led assault, thousands of terrorists stormed communities and a music festival across southern Israel, murdering approximately 1,200 people and abducting 251 others. The attack was the deadliest single-day massacre of Jews since the Holocaust.

Hamas-led terrorists also committed widespread sexual violence during the invasion, according to Israeli evidence and United Nations investigators, who found reasonable grounds to believe rape and gang rape occurred in multiple locations.

Wednesday’s exchange renewed scrutiny of Mamdani’s practice of using the most severe terminology to describe Israel’s conduct while adopting more restrained language when discussing Hamas.

It also extended the controversy generated by his Tuesday video, in which Mamdani formally retreated from one of his most provocative campaign promises.

“My administration has reviewed every avenue available under applicable law to determine whether New York City could execute the International Criminal Court’s arrest warrant if Benjamin Netanyahu came here,” Mamdani said.

“It is clear that we do not have the independent legal authority to enforce this warrant,” he acknowledged.

Mamdani nevertheless called on the federal government to join the ICC and arrest Netanyahu if the Israeli prime minister enters the United States.

“Benjamin Netanyahu is not welcome in New York City, nor is any other war criminal at large,” Mamdani said.

The mayor had repeatedly promised during his 2025 campaign that he would have Netanyahu arrested if the Israeli leader visited New York, including to address the annual United Nations General Assembly.

The issue returned to the foreground last week when Mamdani told The New York Times that his administration remained in “active conversation” with the city’s Law Department about possible avenues for apprehending Netanyahu.

“I believe that Prime Minister Netanyahu belongs in The Hague,” Mamdani said. “He’s a war criminal who has been charged by the International Criminal Court.”

President Donald Trump responded Monday by declaring that Netanyahu “will not be arrested, in any way, shape, or form, while in the United States of America.”

The United States is not a party to the Rome Statute, which established the ICC, and federal law imposes substantial restrictions on American cooperation with the tribunal.

The ICC issued arrest warrants for Netanyahu and former Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant in November 2024, alleging there were reasonable grounds to believe they bore criminal responsibility for the war crime of using starvation as a method of warfare and crimes against humanity including murder and persecution.

Israel has vehemently rejected the allegations, arguing that the court lacks jurisdiction, disregarded Israel’s independent judicial system, and distorted the conduct of a defensive war launched after the Oct. 7 massacre.

Israeli and American officials have also accused the ICC of drawing a false moral equivalence between the elected leaders of a democratic country and Hamas terrorists.

Jewish organizations sharply condemned Mamdani’s Tuesday video. The UJA-Federation of New York called it “rife with distortions and disinformation” and accused the mayor of repeatedly singling out the world’s only Jewish state at a time of rising antisemitism.

“At a time of rising antisemitism, repeatedly singling out and vilifying the world’s only Jewish state for perceived political benefit is repugnant, puts Jews at greater risk — and leaves many Jewish New Yorkers feeling targeted and unwelcome in the city we call home,” the organization said.

Mamdani has long supported the boycott, divestment, and sanctions movement against Israel, repeatedly accused the Jewish state of “apartheid” and “genocide,” and declined to affirm Israel’s right to exist specifically as a Jewish state. During the mayoral campaign, he also resisted demands to unequivocally condemn the slogan “globalize the intifada,” language many Jews associate with terrorism and violence against Israelis.

Wednesday’s press conference is likely to deepen concerns among Jewish New Yorkers who argue that Mamdani applies a glaring double standard to Israel.

The mayor framed his position as one of moral consistency and universal human concern. But when repeatedly asked whether the term he freely uses against Israel also applied to Hamas’s massacre of Israelis, Mamdani would not say yes.