Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s insistence that his wife “is a private person” and therefore immune from criticism over her online enthusiasm for Hamas’s atrocities on October 7 is an insult to New Yorkers. Of course Rama Duwaji is a public figure, and in many ways carries herself with grace. She is Gotham’s First Lady and lives at Gracie Mansion. She has been fêted in the press, and advised Hizzoner’s campaign. She boasts two million Instagram followers. Ms. Duwaji also, it has come to light, has a long history of publicly endorsing Hamas and publicly celebrating October 7. The digital paper trail, uncovered by Jewish Insider and then the Free Press, is just plain rank. One post that she endorses calls verified accounts of Hamas raping Israeli women a “mass hoax” and “fabricated.” Other posts that earn a “like” include Hamas’s footage from October 7 and celebrations of the “resistance” that involved mass murder.The ex-chief prosecutor of the Israel Defense Forces, Sharon Zagagi-Pinhas, tells the New York Post that “the sexual violence of October 7 was not a rumor, a narrative, or a hoax. It was real, as explicitly and unequivocally established in official reports issued by the United Nations. Women were raped, mutilated, and murdered during the Hamas massacre.” Hostages — male and female — who returned from Gaza have reported horrifying sexual abuse. The First Lady’s hatred is not partisan. She also liked posts calling President Biden “butcher Biden” and asserting that “his legacy is genocide.” She liked a post calling on the International Criminal Court to issue an arrest warrant for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. The kangaroo court complied. Her husband supports arresting Mr. Netanyahu. Ms. Duwaji also liked a post comparing an Israeli prison to a “concentration camp.”Mr. Mamdani’s office declares in a statement that he “has been clear and consistent: Hamas is a terrorist organization, October 7 was a horrific war crime, and he has condemned that violence unequivocally.” Whether that accurately describes his stance is one matter. New Yorkers also deserve to know where their First Lady stands in respect of a massacre of Jews such as took place on October 7, 2023. Her digital footprint suggests she supported it. Ms. Duwaji has so far declined to comment on her social media endorsements, which predated her husband’s mayoral run. Mr. Mamdani insists that “my wife is the love of my life, and she’s also a private person who has held no formal position on my campaign or in my City Hall.” Does anyone believe that the positions of, say, Michelle Obama or Melania Trump would not be so scrutinized? A profile last month warned “don’t call her the mayor’s plus one.”That piece, in the Cut, called Ms. Duwaji, who was born at Houston, grew up at Dubai, and identifies as Syrian, “the de facto adviser to the most headline-grabbing political candidate of 2025, strategizing over morning chai and shaping the look and feel of the campaign.” She was, per New York, “a folk hero to unbothered women,” whatever that means. The Times minimizes her apparent support for Hamas by labeling it as “the Palestinian cause.” What a default for, in the Times, a newspaper that did much to bring to light on how the rampage of rape against Jewish women was unleashed on October 7. That the mayor and his wife are set against Israel is not in and of itself a surprise. Hizzoner’s attempt to cordon off Ms. Duwaji’s record now that he is in office underscores how the extent of that hostility was underplayed — and underinvestigated — in advance of the election. One could go all the way back to Peter Stuyvesant — who wanted to expel the Jews of New York — without finding in a first lady such expressions of hostility as what has been endorsed by Ms. Duwaji on the internet. The mayor’s director of the Office to Combat Antisemitism, Phylisa Wisdom — a taxpayer-funded position — has been silent on Ms. Duwaji. The truth is that our First Lady’s views on Hamas are anything but a private matter.
