Washington Holocaust museum takes Mamdani to task for Gaza genocide claims

US Holocaust Memorial Council chair invites Mamdani to museum over Gaza genocide claims

By World Israel News Staff

The chairman of the United States Holocaust Memorial Council has invited New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani to tour the US Holocaust Memorial Museum after the mayor repeatedly accused Israel of committing genocide in Gaza.

Jeffrey Miller, who leads the museum’s governing board, said he would personally arrange the Washington, DC, visit and accompany Mamdani through the museum.

“My invitation is sincere. Come to the Museum. Learn what genocide actually means,” Miller wrote in a social media post.

Miller said elected officials have a responsibility to consider how their language affects the public, arguing that rhetoric portraying Israel as uniquely malevolent can contribute to hostility toward Jews.

The invitation came after the UJA-Federation of New York expressed concern over the stabbing of two men on Manhattan’s Upper West Side. One of the victims was Jewish, and authorities were investigating that portion of the attack as a possible hate crime.

Miller said the incident reinforced his concern about inflammatory rhetoric directed at Israel and the Jewish community.

He later told Fox News that he wanted Mamdani to confront the Holocaust’s “systematic attempt to annihilate an entire people.” Miller said the mayor could also visit Rwanda or speak with survivors of other recognized genocides.

Mamdani had not publicly responded to the invitation as of Wednesday morning.

The dispute follows Mamdani’s renewed attacks on Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, whom he recently described as “a war criminal, the architect of a horrific genocide against the Palestinian people.”

Mamdani accused Netanyahu of responsibility for civilian deaths, restrictions on humanitarian assistance and attacks on medical facilities, journalists and aid workers during the Gaza war.

The mayor also reiterated his support for the International Criminal Court’s arrest warrant against Netanyahu, although he acknowledged that his administration lacks the legal authority to execute it.

“It is clear that we do not have the independent legal authority to enforce this warrant,” Mamdani said, while urging the federal government to join the court and act against Netanyahu.

Neither the US nor Israel is a member of the ICC. The Trump administration has rejected the court’s jurisdiction over Israeli officials and said Netanyahu would not be arrested if he traveled to the US.

Mamdani has repeatedly accused Israel of genocide in Gaza. During an appearance on ABC’s “The View” in October 2025, he said his support for international law led him to apply the term to the war.

The latest dispute is not Mamdani’s first confrontation with the Holocaust museum.

During his 2025 mayoral campaign, Mamdani resisted calls to condemn the slogan “Globalize the Intifada.” He noted that the museum had used the Arabic word “intifada,” meaning uprising, in Arabic-language material about the 1943 Warsaw Ghetto Uprising.

The museum rejected that comparison, calling the use of the Jewish resistance against the Nazis to defend the modern slogan “outrageous and especially offensive to survivors.”