Predictably, New York City Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani did not march in the Veterans Day Parade. His decision to visit a veteran’s residence in the Bronx, having a meal with them, is no substitute for marching in the big parade. If he decided to have lunch with gays at a community center in Brooklyn, instead of marching in the New York City Pride Parade, everyone would know what he was doing. But he would never do that, nor would he ever offend Muslims.
Mamdani came up with the lame excuse that “I haven’t thought much about parades.” This is not true. As we pointed out November 10, he has marched in many parades, but he draws the line with those that honor Israel or Columbus. That’s because his radical left-wing ideology governs his views on Israel and the United States.
New York City Mayor Eric Adams marched in the Veterans Day Parade, as have mayors before him. Even Bill de Blasio marched. When asked if he would march in next year’s parade honoring veterans, Mamdani refused to answer. Everyone knows he won’t. His base would be furious if he did.
Patriotic Americans will always be horrified by what happened on 9/11. For Mamdani, the nearly 3,000 who were killed by Islamists are a footnote to what this day means. He sees “Islamophobia” as the number-one problem. “Growing up in the shadow of 9/11, I have known what it means to live with an undercurrent of suspicion in this city.”
More recently he has said that his aunt was too afraid to wear her hijab in public after 9/11. Besides the fact that she is his cousin, not his aunt, it is striking what really bothers him about that fateful day. To be exact, what radical Muslims did to innocent Americans seems not to bother him as much as alleged incidents of anti-Muslim bias.
Let’s face it. Mamdani is more at home smiling with his friend, Siraj Wahhaj, the Islamist linked to terrorist activity in the U.S., than he is smiling with veterans marching up Fifth Avenue. That says it all.
