Several prominent New York Democrats who marched in Sunday’s annual Israel Day parade condemned the participation of Bezalel Smotrich, Israel’s far-right finance minister and a leading figure in the settler movement, after the event, according to the Guardian.
Smotrich was among several Israeli lawmakers and cabinet officials who marched in the parade, marking his first trip to the United States in more than a year. His appearance came less than a month after the International Criminal Court sought an arrest warrant against him.
New York Governor Kathy Hochul said on Monday that Smotrich is “a far-right extremist whose hateful and divisive rhetoric is fundamentally at odds with the values we hold dear in New York.” She said she strongly condemned his participation. State Attorney General Letitia James also criticized Smotrich, writing on social media that “Islamophobia has no place in New York. I unequivocally condemn Bezalel Smotrich’s hateful rhetoric.” A spokesperson for Senator Chuck Schumer told the New York Times that the senator’s “condemnation of Smotrich’s extremism is longstanding, public and unchanged.”
Representative Dan Goldman, who marched in the parade, said during a primary debate Monday that he was “proud” to participate “to celebrate the nation and state of Israel,” which he said is “distinct from its government.” He added that he opposed the Netanyahu government and was unaware Smotrich would attend. “I am incredibly disappointed that that occurred because I have called for his removal, I have called for sanctions against him,” Goldman said.
Mark Treyger, chief executive of the Jewish Community Relations Council (JCRC-NY), the parade’s lead organizer, told the New York Times that the council did not invite Smotrich and was not aware he would attend. Treyger said that Smotrich and other far-right Israeli officials — including ministers Ofir Sofer, Yitzhak Wasserlauf and Amichay Eliyahu — appeared to have been brought to the parade by the Israeli consulate in New York. “There was a complete lack of transparency here,” Treyger said, adding that he did not learn of Smotrich’s presence until near the end of the event. The Israeli consulate did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani, who declined to attend the parade, said he was “offended” by Smotrich’s participation. “You can see in the participation of the far-right Israeli minister Smotrich, as well as a number of other ministers, a vision of annihilation, a complicity in genocide and, frankly, a belief that does not have much value for even the sanctity of children in Gaza,” Mamdani said Monday.
Smotrich has called for Israel to annex the West Bank and for Palestinian villages there to be ethnically cleansed, and for Gaza to be “destroyed.” He has described himself as a “proud homophobe.” Last year, the United Kingdom, Australia, Canada, New Zealand and Norway imposed sanctions on Smotrich and National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, saying the ministers had “incited extremist violence and serious abuses of Palestinian human rights.”
Former US Ambassador to Israel Dan Shapiro said Smotrich “crashed” the parade. “His extremist views do harm to the US-Israel relationship,” Shapiro wrote.
Former New York City Comptroller Brad Lander, who is challenging Goldman in a Democratic primary that has focused on the candidates’ positions on Israel, also skipped the parade. During Monday’s debate, Lander said that “while Israel is committing genocide in Gaza, violating international law, violating Palestinian human rights, I believe we should not be sending additional US military aid to Israel, and I won’t be marching in the Israel Day parade alongside government ministers in Netanyahu’s government like Bezalel Smotrich.”