New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani's wife, Rama Duwaji, praised Palestinian militants in a series of resurfaced messages that she shared during her teenage years and early twenties, according to a bombshell new report. New York City's first lady, who has already been facing immense backlash over her past social media activity, is once again in the spotlight.
Duwaji used her Tumblr account to praise Palestinian plane hijacker Leila Khaled and several others linked to the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, according to posts reviewed by the Washington Free Beacon. Duwaji, 28, used the since-deactivated account while she was living in the Middle East, according to the Beacon.
In the Line of Fire
The outlet said it was able to link the posts to her in part through facial recognition technology. In September 2017, she shared a photo of Leila Khaled — known for her role in plane hijackings in 1969 and 1970 — along with a caption quoting one of Khaled's most infamous lines: "If it does good for my cause, I'd be happy to accept death."
Around the same time, she also posted an image of a Bangladeshi postage stamp carrying the message, "We salute the valiant freedom fighters of Palestine," according to the report.
Earlier, in 2015, she had reposted a strongly worded message criticizing U.S. service members, arguing that American troops involved in overseas conflicts were not fighting for freedom.
The post went on to accuse the military of causing harm to civilians in developing nations in order to uphold American global influence.
Another repost from December that year blamed white people for the creation of al Qaeda, the outlet added.
"You can't blame muslims for terrorism because they didn't construct, fund nor train Al-Qaeda," the post said. "White People did that too."
Celebrated Palestine Militants Repeatedly
That same year, she also posted on Twitter, venting out her anger toward Tel Aviv, writing that it "shouldn't exist in the first place" and referring to its residents as "occupiers." The report further noted that in a 2013 tweet, when she was around 15, she used a racial slur.
The renewed scrutiny follows reports from just a week earlier, which claimed that Duwaji had once liked an Instagram post shared on the day of Hamas' October 7, 2023 attack — a post that included images from the assault on Israel.
She also reportedly liked a post on social media that claimed allegations of Hamas carrying out rapes during the attack were a "mass hoax."
Mamdani, who has been openly critical of Israel, responded by saying his wife has never held any official role in his campaign or within City Hall, and argued that her past social media activity should not be the subject of public scrutiny.
