ZOHPAMINE

We've seen our city come together many a time, and we know that we will also continue to do so, all while understanding the fact that this is a city of eight and a half million people, and if we didn't have eight and a half million opinions, then we wouldn't be in New York City. And when it comes to my responsibility, I've said is not only to deliver for New Yorkers but also to be honest with New Yorkers about what I think. And I've been very clear, both as a candidate as well as the mayor of our city, of my firm belief that we have to extend human rights to all people and that that has to include Palestinians. And that as Americans we have a special responsibility given our federal government's complicity in funding so much of the weaponry that has been used over these last three years. And we also know that when we are commemorating the anniversary, three years of horrific war crimes, three years since Hamas killed more than 1,100 Israelis and abducted hundreds more. Three years of an anniversary that has brought unthinkable devastation to so many. That also the Israeli government used and continues to use that day, those war crimes, as a justification for an ongoing genocide against Palestinians. And that this is something that has shattered the lives of so many New Yorkers. Whether in those who I was standing alongside at the vigil, recounting their own family members who were killed; or reading the testimonies of Palestinians whose family members had been killed; or the Palestinian New Yorkers that I met soon after that vigil, who shared with me, for example, a Palestinian Christian nurse here in New York City sharing with me that she lost 17 of her family members when the Israeli military bombed a church. It has devastated people's lives across our city.