Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s wife, Rama Duwaji, expressed regret for the “hurt” caused by her past alarming social media posts – but failed to directly apologize for the troubling content praising Palestinian terrorists and bashing Israel.
The Big Apple’s 28-year-old first lady issued the mealy-mouthed mea culpa for a flurry of “harmful” posts she made on X and Tumblr in her teens and early 20s in a sit-down with Hyperallergic, an arts news outlet.
“When a tabloid recently published old tweets I wrote as a teenager, I felt a lot of shame being confronted with language I used that is so harmful to others; being 15 doesn’t excuse it,” Duwaji told the publication.
NYC First Lady Rama Duwaji has apologized for her past social media content, without mentioning her pro-Palestinian terrorists, or anti-Israel posts. WWD via Getty Images
“I’ve read and seen a lot of what others have had to say in response, and I understand the hurt I caused and am truly sorry,” she added.
Controversial posts unearthed by the Washington Free Beacon last month — linked to her partly through facial recognition — showed her inflammatory content dated back to 2013, when she was reportedly 15.
In one 2015 post, she raged that Tel Aviv “shouldn’t exist in the first place,” calling its residents “occupiers,” and dropped the N-word in another post two years earlier.
On her now-inactive Tumblr, she hailed Palestinian plane hijacker Leila Khaled and members of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, while reposting a tirade accusing US service members of “mercilessly slaughtering 3rd world civilians” to maintain “American hegemony.”
One of Rama’s posts include a pro-Palestine animation credited to her. @NYC_DSA/TikTok
A December 2015 repost also blamed white people for the creation of al Qaeda, the outlet reported.
Before the posts were exposed, Duwaji drew backlash when it emerged she liked Instagram posts celebrating Hamas’ deadly Oct. 7, 2023, attack on Israel, including on claiming that rapes carried out by the terror group against hostages and victims were a “mass hoax.”
While Duwaji remained silent amid the uproar, her socialist husband, a vocal critic of Israel, jumped to her defense, claiming she is a “private person” who holds no formal role in his administration.
The first lady’s half-hearted apology stopped short of mentioning the exact nature of the explosive posts — focusing only on the fallout.
But she reflected on the changes that came with becoming a public figure and being thrust into the spotlight.
“This experience has absolutely changed my life,” Duwaji told the publication. “I am still figuring out how it applies to me as an artist and as a person, both thinking of the future and the past.
My focus isn’t on being a public figure, but continuing my work with care and responsibility, and allowing my art to speak for itself.”