New York City
Pro-Palestine Protester Explains To Grieving Family That Now Is Actually A Great Time For This
By BSN Staff, . BSN Network. Satire.
NEW YORK, NY, October 7, 2025 -- On the third anniversary of the Hamas terror attacks that killed approximately 1,200 people in Israel, New York City observed its now-established tradition of commemorating an atrocity while simultaneously providing a full-service backdrop for people who felt the occasion was missing something, specifically them.
The day opened with candlelight vigils, survivor testimony and the kind of silence that a major American city produces when it is trying very hard. It closed with police barricades, bullhorns and at least one man in midtown who had been explaining his position for so long that a nearby pretzel vendor began nodding along out of professional courtesy.
"This is exactly the right moment to have this conversation," said Dylan Marsh, 26, a graduate student in comparative literature who arrived at the edge of a memorial gathering carrying a sign he had laminated, suggesting prior confidence that the sign would be needed again. "Silence is complicity. Grief cannot be used as a shield. The international community has a responsibility."
Marsh was standing approximately forty feet from a woman named Elaine Roth, 61, of Forest Hills, Queens, who had driven in to stand quietly near a photograph of her cousin's college roommate, who was killed at the Nova music festival in 2023. Roth did not respond to requests for comment because she was not aware she was being interviewed, and also because she was crying.
The NYPD deployed roughly 900 officers across multiple Manhattan locations, a figure that represents the city's sincere commitment to making sure that people exercising their constitutional right to scream at each other do so in an orderly fashion, in designated areas, with adequate advance notice filed in triplicate.
At a vigil in Times Square, survivors and family members of hostages still held in Gaza spoke about waiting. One woman said she has not changed anything in her son's bedroom since October 7, 2023, which a protester two blocks north would later describe, in a post, as "settler colonial grief performance," before adding several fire emojis and then, in a subsequent post, a correction clarifying that he had meant to say "powerful." He did not specify which word he had meant to replace.
City officials, for their part, issued statements carefully calibrated to be quoted by everyone and to satisfy no one, a skill New York politicians have been developing since roughly 1953.
Mayor Eric Adams, currently occupied with matters that do not directly involve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, did not attend any of the major events. His office released a statement describing the anniversary as a time for "reflection, solidarity, and continued dialogue toward a peaceful future," which a spokesperson confirmed was the same statement issued last year, with the word "second" replaced by "third."
By early evening, the two groups had achieved a kind of accidental coexistence on parallel blocks of the same avenue, separated by metal barriers, police horses and roughly 2,700 years of historical grievance.
A man named Greg, who declined to give his last name and was eating a halal cart chicken platter on the median, said he had watched both groups for about forty minutes and had some thoughts.
"I feel like everyone's right about something," Greg said, chewing. "Also everyone's wrong about something. I've been standing here long enough that I think I've now been in both protests. I don't know. My feet hurt."
Greg was asked if he planned to return next year.
"Probably," he said. "The chicken here is fantastic."
The fourth anniversary is already on the calendar.
The story we are making fun of: https://www.amny.com/politics/2026-anniversary-of-israels-oct-7-terror-attacks/