{"id":159705,"date":"2026-03-10T22:14:14","date_gmt":"2026-03-10T22:14:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/159705\/"},"modified":"2026-03-10T22:14:14","modified_gmt":"2026-03-10T22:14:14","slug":"white-house-jewish-advocates-slam-mamdani-for-hosting-accused-hamas-sympathizer-mahmoud-khalil-at-gracie-mansion","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/159705\/","title":{"rendered":"White House, Jewish advocates slam Mamdani for hosting accused Hamas sympathizer Mahmoud Khalil at Gracie Mansion"},"content":{"rendered":"

President Trump and Jewish advocates slammed Mayor Zohran Mamdani Tuesday for hosting anti-Israel activist<\/a> and accused Hamas sympathizer Mahmoud Khalil at Gracie Mansion for Ramadan.<\/p>\n

\u201cNo one should be feting the anti-American, pro-terrorist activities of Mahmoud Khalil, who made his name as a ringleader of violent anti-American and anti-Semitic university protests that harmed American foreign policy interests,\u201d White House spokesperson Anna Kelly told The Post in a statement.<\/p>\n

Follow live updates on Mayor Zohran Mamdani\u2019s socialist agenda and the latest in NYC politics<\/a><\/p>\n

At a their White House meeting last month<\/a>, Mamdani gave Trump and his chief of staff, Susie Wiles, a list of four students detained by ICE in New York \u2014 including Khalil \u2014 asking for his help dismissing those cases.<\/p>\n

But the White House salvo Tuesday indicates Trump won\u2019t support the former Columbia University grad student, who dined with Mamdani and his wife, Rama Duwaji, at the mayoral residence on the Upper East Side Monday night \u2014 sparking outrage from pro-Israel advocates and conservatives.<\/p>\n

NYC Mayor Zohran Mamdani invited anti-Israel activist Mahmoud Khalil and his family to Gracie Mansion dinner for Ramadan. Instagram \/ nycmayor<\/p>\n

\u201cThe mayor of New York City openly promoting someone who went out of his way to harass Jewish students at Columbia on a government social media account is a clear sign of disrespect to the Jewish community, said Moshe Spern, president of the United Jewish Teachers. <\/p>\n

\u201cThis is beginning to feel purposeful and an unfortunate signal that Jewish safety in this city isn\u2019t a priority at all,\u201d Spern, a city public high school teacher, said.<\/p>\n

Khalil, a Syrian-born activist and former Columbia University grad student, was arrested by ICE early last year, and faced deportation after the Trump administration accused him of committing fraud on his green card application. James Keivom<\/p>\n

Menachem Rosensaft, author\u00a0of the\u00a0post-Holocaust poetry book\u00a0\u201cBurning Psalms: Confronting Adonai after Auschwitz<\/a>,\u201d lamented that Gracie Mansion was \u201cbeing used to promote exclusively a radical anti-Israel, anti Zionist agenda\u201d \u2014 and urged Mamdani to invite\u00a0survivors of the Oct. 7, 2023, terrorist attack.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Mamdani \u201chas to recognize that by effectively honoring Khalil, he is giving fuel to Khalil\u2019s supporters and followers who\u00a0have at times been violent and explicitly antisemitic and engaged in some of the more extreme demonstrations at Columbia in the past,\u201d\u00a0Rosensaft said.<\/p>\n

Lishi Baker, a Jewish Columbia University senior who previously headed the pro-Israel group Aryeh on campus, said it was beyond the pale for Mamdani to host Khalil.<\/p>\n

\u201c[Mamdani] is glorifying and lifting up this pro-Hamas, anti-American protester for a meal at Gracie Mansion,\u201d Baker said.<\/p>\n

Baker, whose major is Middle East studies, said Mamdani has not made any attempt to speak to pro-Israel Jewish students.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe claims to be the mayor for everyone. He\u2019s certainly not the mayor for everyone.\u201d\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

Others said the get-together should come as no surprise since Mamdani made his own Israel-bashing positions known during last year\u2019s campaign.<\/p>\n

President Trump and Jewish advocates slammed Mayor Zohran Mamdani Khalil at Gracie Mansion for Ramadan. Luiz C. Ribeiro for NY Post<\/p>\n

\u201cMamdani is a true believer \u2026 He supports terrorism through his actions and who he invites over for dinner,\u201d charged former Brooklyn Assemblyman Dov Hikind, founder of Americans Against Antisemitism.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt gets worse and worse,\u201d Hikind said. \u201cWe\u2019re stuck with this guy for the next four years.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Khalil, a Syrian-born activist who participated in anti-Israel campus protests, made disturbing comments about the Oct. 7, 2023, slaughter of Israelis by Hamas, calling it an unavoidable moment justified by the terror group\u2019s \u201cstruggle.\u201d<\/p>\n

He was arrested by ICE early last year, and faces deportation after the Trump administration accused him of committing fraud on his green card application. The White House, which claims Khalil is a Hamas supporter, is attempting to use a rarely deployed statute that allows for non-citizens to be deported if their beliefs could pose a threat to US foreign policy interests.<\/p>\n

But Khalil has become a darling of the political left, which claims Trump is seeking to deport him for exercising his First Amendment right to speak his mind.<\/p>\n

\u201cLast night, as we marked the one year anniversary of his detention, Rama and I were honored to welcome Mahmoud, Noor [his wife], and their son Deen to Gracie Mansion to break our fast together,\u201d Mamdani wrote in a Monday social media post.<\/p>\n

The mayor included a photo of the celebration, showing Duwaji holding a plate of food while standing next to a seated Khalil, who was enjoying his meal with a giant smile.<\/p>\n

Last week, it was revealed that Duwaji liked a celebratory Instagram post on the day of Hamas\u2019 Oct. 7, 2023, attack that shared images from the murderous assault on Israel.<\/p>\n

The Jewish civil rights group\u00a0 StopAntisemitism wrote Monday night<\/a>:\u00a0 \u201cNYC Mayor Zohran Mamdani breaking bread with one of the city\u2019s most vile antisemites, Mahmoud Khalil.<\/p>\n

\u201cBy the way, he should already have been deported back to Syria.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Anti-Defamation League also ripped Mamdani for welcoming Khalil as an \u201chonored guest\u201d at the mayor\u2019s official residence.<\/p>\n

\u201cWelcoming someone known for justifying the October 7 Hamas terror attacks as an honored guest at Gracie Mansion \u2014 while some in the Mayor\u2019s inner circle have amplified antisemitic content and posts dismissing the atrocities of that day \u2014 sends a deeply troubling message,\u201d an ADL spokesperson said.<\/p>\n

\u201cGracie Mansion belongs to all New Yorkers. Public office must never be used to legitimize hate, and New York\u2019s Jewish community deserves a mayor who makes that clear in both words and actions.\u201d<\/p>\n

Trump did agree to release<\/a> another Columbia University student detained by ICE, Elaina Aghayeva, following Mamdani\u2019s appeal.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"President Trump and Jewish advocates slammed Mayor Zohran Mamdani Tuesday for hosting anti-Israel activist and accused Hamas sympathizer…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":159706,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[8409,36594,57,9,24,55,54,56,58532,58,82],"class_list":["post-159705","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-york-city","tag-gracie-mansion","tag-mahmoud-khalil","tag-metro","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-new-york-city-headlines","tag-new-york-city-news","tag-ny","tag-ramadan","tag-us-news","tag-zohran-mamdani"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/159705","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=159705"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/159705\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/159706"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=159705"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=159705"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=159705"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}