Employees of New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s Department of Health have created a “working group” that accuses Israel of committing genocide, The Post has learned.
The “Global Oppression and Public Health Working Group” held its first meeting Tuesday afternoon — the middle of the workday — with members gathering at the department’s headquarters in Long Island City, as well as remotely.
“We really developed in response to the ongoing genocide in Palestine,” one presenter said near the beginning of the meeting, according to video obtained by The Post.
“And the working group aims to address the growing interests among the health department staff to learn about current and ongoing global oppression in its many forms and how it influences the advancement of health equity,” the presenter said.
No mention of Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023, attack on Israel that provoked the Jewish state’s retaliatory response and the brutal war in Gaza that followed was made during the more than one-hour presentation, according to a transcript of the meeting and a source who attended.
The flyer for the event was circulated near the elevator banks in the DOH building, a department employee said.
“This is a meeting using New York City Department of Health resources that promote libel against the Jewish people,” fumed Yael Halaas, president of the American Jewish Medical Association.
The one-sided politicization of the agency was “causing a rift among employees and sapping morale,” a Jewish DOH worker said.
“We just want to do our jobs to help New Yorkers and set the tone for public health,” the disgusted whistleblower said.
“The presentation talks about the suffering of Palestinians. Why? They never mention Hamas,” said the employee, who requested anonymity.
The staffer also claimed that their woke colleagues never mention antisemitism when it comes to confronting oppression because they do not consider white Jews as victims.
Sarah Mckenney, a director of operations for the rapid response team at the DOH, was one of the organizers, and introduced the speakers.
Weeam Hammoudeh, a professor at Hunter College and committee member for the Palestine Global Mental Health Network, was one of the presenters — and accused Israel of treating Palestinians as second-class citizens during the meeting.
“So Palestinian citizens of Israel are citizens but they’re not considered nationals of the state so they’re more restricted in terms of the areas that they can live in and then some like jobs and other opportunities also require military service, and that creates another set of sort of disparities in outcomes,” she said.
She talked about the history of Israel and the “forced displacements and dispossession” of Palestinians and living in the “occupied territories.”
The Post reached out to the DOH and to the mayor’s office for comment.
Mamdani is a longtime Israel basher. He supports the boycott, divestment and sanctions movement against the Jewish state and has himself accused Israel of commiting genocide in Gaza.
