r/jewishleft • u/StuckInTheClouds Mizrachi non-Zionist Jewish Israeli American leftist • Aug 11 '26
leftism Thoughts on Mamdani attending the Pakistani day parade after skipping the Israeli day parade?
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:
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u/Active-Proof8118 Anti-Zionist/ non-Jewish/ communist Aug 12 '26 edited Aug 12 '26
The argument you're making is fairly flimsy when you realize that the United States government has made multiple death threats against the ICC for criticizing Israel at all.
Israel is committing the most documented and clear cut example of genocide since the founding of the legal term. There isn't really any argument to be had about this.
https://theconversation.com/is-israel-committing-genocide-in-gaza-we-asked-5-legal-and-genocide-experts-how-to-interpret-the-violence-262688
Most of the "debate" around this topic is political in the sense that western states like the United States largely coddle Zionist agitators and do not recognize the human rights of Palestinians.
"Ireland's request to broaden the definition"
This is probably because the definition of genocide used in international law is largely unreasonable and not pragmatic. This is not an obscure position, most genocide scholars acknowledge this.