New York City remains the focal point for the growth of the far left, as evidenced by Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani’s endorsement of a new immigrant woman who claimed that 9/11 was a result of America’s “system of capitalism,” “racism,” “white supremacy,” and “Islamophobia.”
On Wednesday, at a Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) meeting just a couple of days before he met with President Donald Trump at the White House, Mamdani endorsed Palestinian activist Aber Kawas, who holds a master’s degree in “Islamic Liberation Theology.” She had only moved to the district she seeks to represent a year ago.
In 2017, she told a panel that “the system of capitalism and racism, and white supremacy, et cetera, have all, and Islamophobia, have all been used, you know, to colonize lands, right, to take resources from other people, and so this is, like, a long trajectory. And we’re just seeing the manifestations of that continuation, right, with 9/11.”
“Historically, right, you know, a lot of us come from lands that were colonized, lands where wars are being waged, right, and a lot of times because of U.S. policy or the policies in Europe,” Kawas said.
It’s not clear why, if she believes that about the United States, she decided to move here.
“The idea that we have to apologize for, like, a terror attack that, like, a couple people did, and then there is no apologies or reparations for genocides and for slavery, um, et cetera, is something that I kind of find, like, reprehensible,” she said, failing to note that empires throughtout time in the Middle East have conquered one another.
Kawas also used a Tumblr account – a product of capitalism, by the way – in which she supported terrorist Ahmed Ferhani, who received a 10-year prison sentence in 2011 for making threats to bomb a synagogue in Manhattan.
Calling him a “brother,” she wrote: “But then this weekend, I felt the deepst [sic] low. I heard the news of my brother, whose case I’ve followed & whose family I knew—Ahmad Farfani. After being pursued for years by the NYPD and eventually caught up in an entrapment case, last weekend he attempted suicide in order to escape his circumstance. He saw nowhere out but death. This is the state our people are in.”
Trump on Friday met the man who once called himself “Donald Trump’s worst nightmare,” but he found a very different tone inside the Oval Office.
Trump and Mamdani were warm and complimentary, focusing on shared goals instead of the sharp public clashes that defined their rise.
Trump, who had previously labeled Mamdani a “100% Communist Lunatic” and a “total nut job,” said he was surprised by the mayor-elect, The Associated Press reported.
“I think he is going to surprise some conservative people, actually,” Trump said as Mamdani stood beside him.
The meeting offered political opportunity for both men.
For Mamdani, it was a chance to directly engage with the most powerful figure in American politics and elevate his profile beyond New York.
For Trump, it was a major platform to discuss affordability at a time when he is under growing pressure to show progress on cost-of-living issues.
Until now, the two men built their bases by attacking one another, and it is unclear how supporters on either side will react to their calm exchange.
“We’re going to be helping him, to make everybody’s dream come true, having a strong and very safe New York,” Trump said.
“What I really appreciate about the president is that the meeting that we had focused not on places of disagreement, which there are many, and also focused on the shared purpose that we have in serving New Yorkers,” Mamdani said.
“Some of his ideas are really the same ideas that I have,” Trump said about Mamdani’s approach to inflation.
