New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani responded to a question today after a published report examining his wife, first lady Rama Duwaji’s, past social media activity.<\/p>\n
The report published Friday in the Jewish Insider details how Duwaji liked a post on Instagram back on Oct. 7 2023 — the day after the Hamas terror attack and hostage taking in Israel. The post characterized the day\u2019s events as \u201cbreaking the walls of apartheid\u201d and described Gaza\u2019s population as “isolated and segregated, intentionally kept in poverty,” according to the report.<\/p>\n
Duwaji liked the post almost a year and a half before she married Mamdani, that described Hamas\u2019 actions as \u201cresistance.\u201d against Israel saying in a caption \u201cif and when the occupation forces retaliate against this resistance, this is the population who will be punished.\u201d<\/p>\n
Roughly 35,000 other accounts also hit the like button on that same post.<\/p>\n
Duwaji — on that same day and the day after — also liked posts that included the phrase \u201cfrom the river to the sea,\u201d a slogan widely used in pro-Palestinian activism that critics, including many Jewish organizations, say calls for the elimination of Israel.\u00a0<\/p>\n
During an unrelated news conference in The Bronx Friday, the question posed to Mamdani was not about the first lady\u2019s pro-Palestinian views which she regularly expresses in her artwork and posts on her Instagram account, but rather if it was anybody’s business and whether it is fair to ask Mamdani about it. <\/p>\n
“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. I however was elected to represent all 8 1\/2 million people in the city and I believe that’s my responsibility because of that role to answer any questions about my thoughts and my policies and my decisions,” Mamdani said during the unrelated press conference.<\/p>\n
Mamdani has made no secret of his criticism of Israel. His views have caused suspicion in the Jewish community.\u00a0<\/p>\n
However, he\u2019s the second politician this week who has been asked to comment on the social media activity of their wife.<\/p>\n
Democratic Congressman Dan Goldman earlier this week distanced himself from posts his wife Corinne Goldman reportedly\u00a0liked on X. One likened an image of a person with a “Jews for Palestine” to\u00a0 “Chickens for KFC.”<\/p>\n
Mrs. Goldman’s reported likes are no longer visible because she has since made her account private but Congressman Goldman told the New York Times this week: \u201cLike most married couples, my wife and I do not always share the same views, and any tweets she has liked as a private citizen do not speak for me. As an elected official and public figure, my record, votes and public statements are the only reflection of my beliefs.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani responded to a question today after a published report examining his wife,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":155780,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[9,24,11,10,64456,87,82],"class_list":["post-155779","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-york","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-new-york-headlines","tag-new-york-news","tag-palestinian-israeli-relations","tag-politics","tag-zohran-mamdani"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/155779","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=155779"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/155779\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/155780"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=155779"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=155779"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=155779"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}