Israeli Consul General Ofir Akunis has formally invited New York City mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani to view footage from the October 7 attack at the Israeli Consulate in New York, according to the Washington Examiner, which reported the invitation as the anniversary of the attack approaches.
The invitation was extended during a memorial ceremony held by the Israeli Consulate in the city, which was attended by roughly one thousand people, according to the Jerusalem Post. Akunis sent Mamdani a formal letter at the same time, the paper reported.
In that letter, Akunis said the film uses footage captured by Hamas terrorists on GoPro cameras during the attack, according to reporting on the invitation. The consul's office has not released the full text of the letter publicly.
The post from the Washington Examiner's account, @dcexaminer, carried the news in a single line: ".@ZohranKMamdani invited to watch Oct. 7 footage at Israeli Consulate ahead of anniversary."
The setting for the invitation was a consulate memorial ceremony marking the anniversary, which the Jerusalem Post described as drawing about a thousand attendees. It was there that Akunis raised the offer, and the formal letter followed, according to the paper.
The consul's letter describes the source of the footage: video recorded by Hamas operatives on GoPro cameras during the attack, per reporting on the letter. That description matches what Israeli officials have said about such footage in the past, though the specific film Akunis is offering Mamdani has not been screened publicly or released by the consulate.
What the letter asks of Mamdani is straightforward: that he come to the consulate and watch the film. Whether the candidate has responded, either to accept or decline, has not been made public.
Mamdani, a candidate for mayor of New York City, has been the subject of national attention during the campaign. The invitation from Akunis places him at the center of a public exchange with an Israeli diplomat as the anniversary of the October 7 attack is marked in New York and elsewhere.
Requests for comment from Mamdani's campaign were not immediately answered, and no statement from the candidate about the invitation has been released as of this writing. It is not yet known whether he plans to attend, send a representative, or respond in writing.
The consulate has not said whether the screening would be private or whether other officials or candidates have received the same invitation. The Jerusalem Post reported only that Akunis extended the offer during the ceremony and sent the letter simultaneously.
Next News Network could not independently verify the contents of the letter, the details of the ceremony, or the nature of the footage described.
The exchange is the latest in a series of public back-and-forths between Israeli officials and American political figures as the anniversary of the October 7 attack is observed. The consulate in New York has held memorial events in previous years, and this year's ceremony drew a substantial crowd, according to the Jerusalem Post.
For Mamdani, the invitation creates a decision point he has not yet addressed publicly. For Akunis, the letter puts the offer on the record in a way that can be pointed to regardless of the response. Neither side has said what happens next.
The Examiner's post and the Jerusalem Post's reporting are the primary public accounts of the invitation so far. No other outlet has published the letter's text or confirmed the screening's details independently.
Our Take
The invitation is a test, and it was issued in public on purpose. Akunis did not need Mamdani to show up to make his point; the letter itself does the work, putting the candidate in the position of either accepting a viewing of footage from the deadliest day in Israeli history or explaining why he will not. That is the kind of choice that follows a candidate through a campaign, and Mamdani's silence so far is its own answer. New York voters deserve to know whether their would-be mayor is willing to sit in a room and watch what Hamas did, and the consul has now made it easy for them to find out where he stands. The ball is in Mamdani's court, and every day he leaves it there, the question gets louder.
