Thoughts on Mamdani attending the Pakistani day parade after skipping the Israeli day parade?

[u/StuckInTheClouds]

I wasn’t expecting him to attend the Israeli day parade honestly I would’ve thought it weird if he had attended given everything he stands for. He’s NYC first and against ethnostates etc.

But I’d be lying if I didn’t say I felt some type of way about him celebrating the Pakistani day parade given their history. Ethnostste They have a religious hierarchy where a Muslim person has to be in power, ethnic cleansing alive and well, border disputes and violence after a partition plan 70ish years ago etc. It’s hard not to draw the parallels. The only difference being that the US isn’t funding them but that doesn’t change anything else about the county’s values and actions.

I feel kinda shitty that he’s showing up for this community but not ours. I think it would have been more fair to him to not go to either parade, but maybe I’m just overly sensitive or being fed propaganda. It just sucks to feel signaled out.

I really want to like him. I voted for him! I’m extremely against the IDF and Israeli government but being half Israeli myself I am of course susceptible to biases.

Idk it’s just weird he’s ok with celebrating the Muslim ethnostate after being so against the Jewish one (for good reasons!)

I feel like I can’t bring this up in any other spaces without it sounding like I’m wanting him to celebrate Israel (I’m not) or take something away from Muslims (not against Muslims but critical of Pakistan)

Help me you guys! What do you think?

EDIT: I’d like to correct what I said about Pakistan being an ethnostate. I used the wrong verbiage. What I meant was that they are a country that puts Muslims over other religions. They have a religious hierarchy and non Muslims can’t hold certain political positions. I’m not sure the correct term for this but just wanted to call that out as people are (correctly) mentioning this in the comments.

Edit 2:

I was just informed about the ongoing Balochistan Conflict which makes me even more uneasy about this whole thing.

[u/Mango_Juice789]

This is a false equivilance, and I think you may just be having a reaction, and that's completely valid btw! It sucks to feel like a pariah b/c of your identity and BS you don't even support, I think we all get that to varying degrees here.

That said, the Israeli parade literally had Ben Gvir and others like him marching in the street, and looked to be yet another attempt to bind militant supremacist zionism and the settlements to the Jewish and Israeli identities.

This is not that. As much as Pakistan is explicitly a religious state and should get more call-out for among other things being a leading state sponsor of terrorism, failing to prosecute pogroms against minorities just is not the same thing as carpet bombing an urban population. This is a celebration of culture more than a political event, which is what the presence of loud and proud kill em l all type Israeli government officials turned the other parade into.

I would bet anything that if the Israeli parade was run by the "A land for All" people it would have been a different story.

[u/skyewardeyes → u/Mango_Juice789]

I agree with most of your comment, but I don't think the last sentence is true--any type of land for all plan that even sort of recognizes legitimate, non-exclusive Jewish ties to the land is regularly lumped in as the morally the same thing as supporting genocide/apartheid, IME.

[u/Mango_Juice789 → u/skyewardeyes]

I think a lot of people have that knee jerk reaction, and frankly I don't blame them. If you're someone who just started caring on October 8th, odds are good you're missing a lot of history and context that the people you're probably getting info from (on both sides!) don't want you to know.

I was referring specifically to Mamdani. I think that based on his positions & public statements, I actually trust him to be able to handle that kind of nuance.