NYC mayor compared anti-Israel protests after Oct. 7 to KKK rallies, lawsuit says

NEW YORK — Weeks after the October 2023 Hamas invasion of Israel, New York City Mayor Adams told staffers that the city’s Muslim community had not sufficiently condemned Hamas and compared anti-Israel protests to Ku Klux Klan rallies, according to a lawsuit filed on Tuesday.

Hassan Naveed, the former head of the city’s office to prevent hate crimes, filed the lawsuit in a New York court, alleging Islamophobia by the Adams administration.

Naveed, who is a Muslim, served as the director of the Office for the Prevention of Hate Crimes from October 2022 to April 2024. He was appointed by Adams and the office is under the mayor’s purview.

Naveed claimed he was removed from his position due to anti-Muslim discrimination and was subject to a “hostile work environment.”

The lawsuit shed light on the Adams administration’s immediate response to the October 7, 2023, attack. The Hamas invasion set off a wave of anti-Israel protests and antisemitic hate crimes in the city.

Adams, a centrist Democrat, is a staunch supporter of Israel and the Jewish community, and forcefully backed the city’s Jews after the start of the war.

Shortly after the Hamas attack, two of the mayor’s staffers asked Naveed what he thought about alleged Hamas atrocities. Naveed said in the lawsuit that he believed the questions were motivated by his Muslim identity. The lawsuit also alleged that administration staffers posted “anti-Muslim, anti-Arab, and anti-Palestinian” statements on social media, without providing details.

On October 23, 2023, Naveed and other Muslim staffers attended a closed-door meeting with Adams to discuss the alleged Islamophobia.

Adams told the group that the Muslim community “had failed to adequately condemn Hamas,” and that there had been no unified voice in the community distancing itself from the terrorist group, the lawsuit said. None of the leading pro-Palestinian groups in the city have condemned the attack or Hamas.

Adams also said that, instead of condemning Hamas, Muslims were “too busy organizing protests for Palestine,” comparing the rallies to Ku Klux Klan events.

The administration began to exclude the Council on American-Islamic Relations and the Arab American Association of New York from meetings on hate crimes, the lawsuit said.

Anti-Israel rallies started in New York City immediately after the Hamas attack, while Israel was still collecting its dead and before the IDF launched its counter-offensive in Gaza.

On October 8, 2023, Arab-led and far-left groups in New York City rallied in Manhattan to celebrate the massacre. Some of the anti-Israel protesters mocked, taunted and threatened Jewish counter-demonstrators.

Adams denounced the rally as “spreading hatred.” The Council on American-Islamic Relations New York defended the protest and condemned Adams for his response.

Jews are targeted in hate crimes more than all other groups combined in New York City, according to NYPD data.

The lawsuit also said that the Adams administration had “cherry-picked” Muslim representatives for a meeting on how to handle tensions surrounding the war, choosing an imam who led a group supporting dialogue with Israel and who said that Palestine “should not be a central issue for the Muslim community.”

The administration worked closely with the Israeli consulate to seek advice on public responses to events and issues, the lawsuit said.

Naveed claimed that when he was fired, the administration falsely said he had been removed due to a failure to submit an annual report.

Adams later said Naveed had been terminated because of an increase in hate crimes under his watch.

Adams’s office did not respond to a request for comment.

“This individual was an at-will employee who was let go for poor job performance, plain and simple, and not terminated because of his identity, religion or views,” a spokesperson for the mayor told The New York Times.  “Any suggestion otherwise is absurd. We will respond in court, where we are confident these claims will be disproven.”

The lawsuit, filed in the New York State Supreme Court, seeks a judgment declaring that Naveed’s termination violated civil rights laws, compensation, and punitive damages.

The Office for the Prevention of Hate Crimes, housed in the mayor’s Office of Criminal Justice, funds hate crime prevention programs for around 70 city organizations and encourages residents to report hate crimes.

The lawsuit was filed a week before New York City’s mayoral race. Zohran Mamdani, a far-left, harsh critic of Israel, is the heavy favorite to win. If elected, Mamdani will become the city’s first Muslim mayor.

Mamdani, a longtime anti-Israel activist, has accused his opponents of Islamophobia during the race.

Immediately after the October 2023 attack on Israel, Mamdani focused his criticism on Israel, while his party, the New York City branch of the Democratic Socialists of America, backed the anti-Israel protest the day after the Hamas invasion.

Adams dropped out of the city’s mayoral race last month after polling poorly. Last week, Adams endorsed his former rival, ex-New York governor Andrew Cuomo, citing Mamdani’s past defense of the phrase “Globalize the intifada” and other issues. At a press conference with Cuomo, Adams warned of “Islamic extremism” in the city.

Cuomo, like Adams, is a pro-Israel centrist.

Mamdani’s anti-Israel rhetoric has sparked alarm among Jewish community leaders, who worry that the harsh statements will spur backlash against Jewish communities.