LONDON: Top New York Democrats who took part in the city’s Israel Day parade have condemned the presence of Israel’s far-right finance minister, The Guardian reported.
Bezalel Smotrich was among several Israeli government figures who took part. It marked his first trip to the US in more than a year, and less than a month after he said the International Criminal Court was pursuing an arrest warrant against him.
An array of New York political leaders took part in the annual parade, including Sen. Chuck Schumer, House Reps. Dan Goldman and Jerry Nadler, New York Gov. Kathy Hochul and the state’s Attorney General Letitia James.
Zohran Mamdani, New York City’s mayor, was criticized by pro-Israel figures for his absence.
Statements by high-profile attendees in the wake of the event highlight the growing schism between pro-Israel liberals and Israel’s ascendant far-right movement.
Hochul said on X: “Bezalel Smotrich is a far-right extremist whose hateful and divisive rhetoric is fundamentally at odds with the values we hold dear in New York … I strongly condemn his participation.”
James said: “Islamophobia has no place in New York. I unequivocally condemn Bezalel Smotrich’s hateful rhetoric.”
Schumer’s spokesperson told the New York Times that the senator’s condemnation of Smotrich is “longstanding, public and unchanged.”
Questions have also mounted over how Smotrich was approved to attend the parade. Mark Treyger, CEO of the Jewish Community Relations Council and lead organizer of the event, said Smotrich and other far-right Israeli officials appear to have been invited as part of a group from Israel’s consulate-general in New York City.
In a social media post, Treyger said: “While some individuals who attended were neither invited by JCRC-NY nor known to us in advance, participation in the parade is not an endorsement of any political figure or ideology.
“We reject rhetoric that dehumanizes others, fuels division, or diminishes the dignity of any human being.”
Mamdani said he was “offended” by the Israeli finance minister’s presence at the event, describing Smotrich’s vision as one of “annihilation, a complicity in genocide and, frankly, a belief that does not have much value for even the sanctity of children in Gaza.”
Smotrich has called for Israel’s annexation of the West Bank and for Palestinian villages there to be ethnically cleansed. He has also called for Gaza’s destruction.
The UK, Australia, Canada, New Zealand and Norway last year imposed sanctions on him and National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir.
