New York City Public Advocate Jumaane Williams expected to replace Mayor Eric Adams, should he resign over corruption scandal.
By Corey Walker, The Algemeiner
The next acting mayor of New York City might be a left-wing activist and staunch critic of the Jewish state.
US prosecutors charged New York City Mayor Eric Adams on Thursday with soliciting illegal campaign contributions from foreign nationals and bribery. Adams’s potential departure from office could prove consequential for New York City’s estimated 960,000 Jewish residents, representing roughly 10 percent of the Big Apple’s population, and supporters of Israel living in the city.
If Adams resigns as a result of the federal charges against him, New York City Public Advocate Jumaane Williams is widely expected to step into the mayoral role as his replacement. A review of Williams’s social media history reveals a pattern of denigrating Israel, raising questions over whether the public advocate would defend the city’s Jewish community.
Williams has condemned Israel’s defensive military operations in Gaza as a “war crime” and criticized the US Congress for inviting Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to speak in July.
“Aside from basic humanity, under accepted [international] Law Benjamin Netanyahu is quite literally, at this moment, engaged in [international] war crimes/human rights violations,” Williams posted on X/Twitter at the time. “Instead of Congress trying to stop it, they gave a platform.”
Williams issued a statement on Oct. 11 of last year, four days after the Hamas terror group’s Oct. 7 massacre across southern Israel, lamenting the terrorist attacks on the Jewish state before calling on Jerusalem not to retaliate and shifting attention to alleged “oppression” of Palestinians.
“We can, we have to be able to, at once grieve the hundreds of innocent lives taken in Israel, and oppose the escalating violence of retaliation, the endless war, the systemic violence and oppression of Palestinians too often ignored, excused, or condoned,” Williams wrote.
On Oct. 14, one week after Hamas’s brutal slaughter of roughly 1,200 people in southern Israel, Williams condemned “shameful” New York elected officials that “won’t even mention [Palestine] or [Gaza].”
Five days later, less than two weeks after the largest single-day mass-murder of Jews since the Holocaust, Williams called for an immediate “ceasefire” between the Jewish state and the terrorist group. Israel had not yet launched its military offensive in neighboring Hamas-ruled Gaza to dismantle the terror group’s military capabilities and free the 251 hostages kidnapped from southern Israel on Oct. 7. He also drew an equivalency between Israel’s military operations to the Hamas atrocities.
“The moral compass of our leaders shows stunning irregularities,” Williams wrote on Instagram.
“On point in condemning horrendous attacks on Israel and demanding hostages be returned,” he added. “[Yet, failure] to recognize the [United Nation’s] description of a humanitarian crisis in Gaza, let alone support de-escalation and ceasefire.”
On Oct. 24, Williams declared Gaza a “humanitarian crisis” and added that “all of us who rightly condemned Oct 7 on Israel should be rightly demanding a [ceasefire] now and before any ground invasion.”
Israel began striking Hamas targets after repelling the Oct. 7 invasion but did not launch a ground offensive into Gaza until Oct. 27.
In February, Williams appeared at a press conference conducted by the “NYC 4 Ceasefire” coalition to demand an end to Israel’s military operations in Gaza. During the event, participants referred to the Gaza war as a “genocide” and honored Palestinian “martyrs.”
“We have gathered here today to show city-wide support for an immediate and permanent ceasefire and end to the genocide in Palestine,” said Jawanza Williams, organizing director of left-wing activist group VOCALNY.
Williams harbors ties to the vehemently anti-Israel Democratic Socialists of America group (DSA). In a 2018 interview with the left-wing media outlet Jacobin, Williams said, “I have no problem saying I’m a Democratic Socialist.”
Williams has solicited an endorsement from the group while running for office in New York City. DSA has routinely praised Hamas’s so-called “armed struggle” against Israel. The group issued an explicit endorsement of Hamas, stating that the terrorist organization is a cornerstone in the “resistance” against the “Zionist project.” DSA has also accused Israel of committing “genocide” and praised the Hezbollah terrorist group for attempting to pummel the Jewish state with missiles.