Summary: New details about Rama Duwaji’s past social media posts and their political implications are being discussed alongside concerns about safety in New York City.
Rama Duwaji, who is married to Mayor Zohran Mamdani, has come under intense scrutiny for past social media activity that critics say celebrates extremist figures. The reports focus on posts from her late teens and early 20s while she lived abroad and used accounts under different usernames. These revelations have fueled sharp critiques from opponents who argue the mayor and his circle misunderstand the threats facing the city.
Local critics point to a pattern of likes and reposts that they describe as sympathies for violent actors, arguing this reflects poor judgment and dangerous associations. The timing of some posts aligns with Duwaji’s years living in the Middle East and her university transfer from a Qatar campus to Richmond. For opponents, those details underscore how personal history can matter when a spouse holds public influence.
There are also immediate security concerns being raised after an explosive device was recently found or detonated outside Gracie Mansion, which opponents linked to politically motivated violence. Those critics insist the city’s leadership should name the threat plainly and act decisively. They argue the mayor’s apparent reluctance or inability to confront radical ideologies has left New Yorkers worried about safety and stability.
Many on the right consider celebration of violent actors indistinguishable from tolerating terrorism, and they have framed Duwaji’s posts that way. Her defenders say the posts reflect youthful views or contexts that are no longer relevant, but critics reject that defense when it involves praise for extremist operatives. That gap in interpretation has hardened partisan lines over whether the mayor’s household can be trusted with city security responsibilities.
New York City’s first lady, Rama Duwaji, glorified terrorist violence in a wide range of posts made on social media when she was a teenager and in her early 20s, celebrating members of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) terror group and the First Intifada, a Washington Free Beacon review of her old X and Tumblr accounts found.
Duwaji, 28, posted a photo to her Tumblr account in September 2017, when she would have been 20 years old, of the infamous Palestinian terrorist Leila Khaled. Under the username “diimashq,” she echoed one of Khaled’s most famous statements.
Khaled, a longtime member of the PFLP, a U.S.-designated terrorist organization, participated in plane hijackings in 1969 and 1970. Between the two hijackings, she underwent several cosmetic surgery procedures to disguise her identity. In the 1970 hijacking, Khaled threatened to detonate a grenade unless the pilots let her into the cockpit. Today, she is revered by terrorists and their allies as the first woman to hijack a plane.
Duwaji was in her late teens and early 20s when she made the majority of the posts, and the accounts with which she made them appear to be inactive now. They came at a time when she was living in the Middle East. While she is of Syrian descent, Duwaji spent her early childhood in New Jersey. Her family moved to Dubai in 2006, and Duwaji eventually transferred from the Virginia Commonwealth University School of the Arts in Qatar to the school’s Richmond campus.
In the posts, Duwaji celebrated other members of the terrorist PFLP as well. In March 2015, when she was 17, New York City’s future first lady reposted a tweet on International Women’s Day praising the terrorist Shadia Abu Ghazaleh. It shows a photo of Ghazaleh, a leading PFLP figure who participated in the bombing of an Israeli bus and led several other terrorist attacks, posing with a rifle. She was killed in 1968 when a bomb she was building in her home— which she intended to use to blow up a building in Tel Aviv—exploded accidentally.
Those findings come from searches of long-dormant Tumblr and X profiles, and opponents emphasize the specifics: dates, usernames, and the figures celebrated. For critics, those specifics make it harder to dismiss the material as mere youthful mistake. The restoration of those old posts into the public debate has intensified calls for accountability from the mayor’s office and for clearer answers about the timeline.
Supporters of Duwaji argue context matters and that people change, especially between their teens and late 20s, but the political fallout has already landed. Opponents say that when the spouse of a top city official is tied to praise for terrorism, citizens can reasonably demand explanations. They also say those explanations should be public and swift, given the stakes for urban safety.
Again, these are not new claims but renewed attention to the same social media history, and critics remain unpersuaded by apologies framed as youthful error. The debate now combines questions about personal accountability, political competence, and how the mayor’s household choices affect public trust.
For many observers, the core issue is simple: elected leaders and their families owe plain answers when past statements intersect with real-world threats. Voters and watchdogs insist transparency, clear condemnation of violence, and firm policy responses are the minimum required to restore confidence in city leadership.
