NEW YORK CITY — In February 2024, a few months after The New York Times published an investigation into the sexual violence that occurred on October 7, 2023, Rama Duwaji, the wife of Mayor Zohran Mamdani, liked an Instagram post referring to the “mass rape” hoax that was “fabricated” by the paper.
That was just one of more than 70 Instagram posts uncovered by The Free Press in which the First Lady of New York City cosigned extreme positions against Israel. A sampling of the posts say Israel is waging a “vile land grab,” and the protesters who took over a Columbia University building in April 2024 were “on the right side of progress.” Another post liked by Duwaji, who identifies as Syrian but was born in Houston, Texas, calls for the International Criminal Court to issue an arrest warrant for Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu—which Mamdani has said he would honor if the Israeli leader steps foot in New York City on his watch. One post she liked referred to then-President Joe Biden as “Butcher Biden,” and said, “Your legacy is genocide, Joe.”
