Mamdani Compares Irish Struggle to Palestinian ‘Genocide’ at St. Patrick’s Breakfast

Mayor Zohran Mamdani marked Saint Patrick’s Day on Tuesday by comparing the struggles of the Irish at home and abroad to the “genocide” of the Palestinians.New York City’s democratic socialist mayor launched into a lengthy discussion of the Middle East while heaping praise on Ireland’s first female president, Mary Robinson, whom he hosted for a St. Patrick’s breakfast at Gracie Mansion. Mr. Mamdani lauded Ms. Robinson’s record on LGBTQ rights, climate change, and other progressive causes before turning to “how she stood steadfast alongside the people of Palestine.”“I say this as over the past few years as we’ve witnessed a genocide unfold before our eyes, there has been deafening silence from so many,” Mr. Mamdani said. “For Palestinians are so often left to weep alone. Yet, former President Robinson has never been silent. Not when she was president, not when she was high commissioner for human rights, and not in the decades since.”Mr. Mamdani suggested that “Irish solidarity” with the Palestinian cause is “no coincidence,” given that the Irish have long suffered from “oppression, subjugation, and discrimination.” He added: “Who can better understand those who weep than those who have been made to weep for so long?”The mayor’s lengthy aside struck some Irish commentators as out of place. An Irish PhD candidate and antisemitism activist, Rachel Moiselle, argued on X that “Mamdani should stick to New York, and stop telling Irish people who and what we are. Insulting beyond belief that he co-opts our holiday for his own political agenda.”An opinion columnist for the Irish Independent, Ian O’Doherty, offered a similar critique. “Could the Irish not have had one day for themselves without the Palestinians being inserted into that as well?” he wrote on X.The comments came just a week after Mr. Mamdani invited anti-Israel activist Mahmoud Khalil to Gracie Mansion to break the Ramadan fast and mark a year since his detention by federal authorities.Mr. Khalil, who served as the ringleader of a pro-Hamas student group at Columbia that advocates for the “total eradication of Western civilization,” was arrested by immigration officials in March 2025 after the State Department revoked his visa and green card. The Department of Homeland Security cited, among other reasons, his role in “leading activities aligned to Hamas.”Mr. Mamdani’s controversial dinner guest has added to scrutiny of the mayor that ignited after reports emerged that his wife, Rama Duwaji, had liked social media posts celebrating Hamas’s deadly attack on Israel.

Mamdani Compares Irish Struggle to Palestinian ‘Genocide’ at St. Patrick’s Breakfast

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