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Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s first St. Patrick’s Day in office has already included a heavy dose of the Middle East.
Mamdani hosted Mary Robinson, Ireland’s first female president, for breakfast at Gracie Mansion on Tuesday. He dedicated a significant portion of his remarks to Robinson’s advocacy for Palestinians and Ireland’s history of solidarity with Palestinians.
“As we’ve witnessed a genocide unfold before our eyes, there has been deafening silence from so many,” said Mamdani, adding that Robinson “has never been silent” in standing “steadfast alongside the people of Palestine.” He further praised Robinson’s decriminalization of homosexuality in Ireland and her advocacy for climate action, workers and reproductive rights.
Mamdani linked Robinson’s pro-Palestinian activism to her country’s experience of British imperial rule.”The story of the Irish, both in Ireland and in New York City, is at one time a story of oppression, of subjugation and of discrimination — as we know it was on Irish soil [that] the British Empire developed their colonial project,” Mamdani said.
In her own comments, Robinson also noted “echoes of Ireland’s past in the suffering of others today” in her remarks. She said the Irish gathered to celebrate St. Patrick’s Day while “we know others are living under the shadow of war and suffering, in Iran, in Lebanon, in Palestine, in Ukraine, in Sudan, in the Democratic Republic of Congo, and too many other places.”
Marc Treyger, executive director of the Jewish Community Relations Council of New York, rejected Mamdani’s characterization of history on social media. “The same British colonialism that impacted Ireland also extended into the Middle East where, after WWI, both Jews and Arabs lived under British rule through the League of Nations mandate system,” he tweeted. “If we’re invoking the Middle East and British colonialism at a St. Patrick’s Day gathering in NYC, then we owe people the full historical context.”
Mamdani is attending the St. Patrick’s Day Parade on Fifth Avenue. It’s his second march as mayor following the Lunar New Year parade, though he said during the election that he would likely “miss a lot” of parades. Mamdani has said he does not intend to join the Israel Day parade, managed by the JCRC, in May.