{"id":318328,"date":"2026-08-11T02:28:08","date_gmt":"2026-08-11T02:28:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/318328\/"},"modified":"2026-08-11T02:28:08","modified_gmt":"2026-08-11T02:28:08","slug":"nyc-first-lady-rama-duwaji-traveling-to-syria-lebanon-with-nypd-detail-sources","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/318328\/","title":{"rendered":"NYC first lady Rama Duwaji traveling to Syria, Lebanon \u2014 with NYPD detail: sources"},"content":{"rendered":"

Mayor Zohran Mamdani\u2019s wife Rama Duwaji <\/a>is heading to Syria and Lebanon next month \u2013 and she\u2019s bringing along cops assigned to the First Couple\u2019s taxpayer-funded NYPD detail, The Post has learned.<\/p>\n

Duwaji will be jetting to the Middle East for a trip beginning Sept. 20 to the countries on the State Department\u2019s \u201cDo Not Travel\u201d list for Americans because of dangerous conditions, a source said.<\/p>\n

Mayor Zohran Mamdani\u2019s wife Rama Duwaji is heading to Syria and Lebanon next month \u2013 and she\u2019s bringing along cops assigned to the First Couple\u2019s taxpayer-funded NYPD detail, The Post has learned. GC Images<\/p>\n

The source familiar with the security detail said the first lady, who\u2019s been described by the mayor as a \u201cprivate person,\u201d requested NYPD security \u2013 after traveling overseas last month without police protection.<\/p>\n

Duwaji, a 29-year-old Syrian-American artist,<\/a> has ties to the region and refers to herself as a \u201cSyrian Illustrator\u201d on her website. Her parents are Syrian Muslims originally from Damascus.<\/p>\n

Mamdani\u2019s office confirmed the trip and that an NYPD security detail will accompany the mayor\u2019s wife.<\/p>\n

\u201cUpon the strong recommendation of the NYPD, the First Lady\u2019s security<\/a> detail will be joining her when she travels to visit family in Syria and Lebanon,\u201d said mayoral spokesperson Dora Pekec.<\/p>\n

The mayor\u2019s office offered no further comment on the trip\u2019s details or whether the purpose was solely to visit family.<\/p>\n

The source with knowledge of the trip told The Post, \u201cIt\u2019s not official business. It\u2019s not doing anything for the city.\u201d<\/p>\n

One pro-Israel Jewish advocate opposed sending members of the NYPD to Syria and Lebanon, arguing the officers, not the Israel-bashing Duwaji, <\/a>will be targets.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re putting the police officers in danger. They will be viewed as the bad guys. These are war zones,\u201d said Dov Hikind, founder of Americans Against Antisemitism and a former Brooklyn Assemblyman.<\/p>\n

A source familiar with the security detail said the first lady requested NYPD security after traveling overseas last month without police protection. AFP via Getty Images<\/p>\n

\u201cDuwaji doesn\u2019t need security. She will get a hero\u2019s welcome and be protected by Hezbollah, Hamas and the Houthis,\u201d Hikind said, referring to Islamic terrorists and militants.<\/p>\n

\u201cDuwaji will be fine.\u201d<\/p>\n

The first lady in 2019<\/a> had attended a residency at the Haven for Artists in Beirut, Lebanon, which describes itself as a cultural feminist organization at \u201cthe intersection of art and activism.\u201d<\/p>\n

Last month, Duwaji co-hosted<\/a> a pro-Palestinian all-female spiritual retreat on the French island of Corsica.The event was organized by Women Sanctuary, a Muslim-and-women-focused travel group run by Parisian designer Rym Nur.<\/p>\n

Duwaji also ditched America\u2019s 250th anniversary celebrations to jet off to the Women Sanctuary\u2019s earlier retreat on the Spanish island of Mallorca, where she was the \u201cartist-in-residence\u201d at a sold-out \u201cPlants Of The Quran\u201d workshop.<\/p>\n

The mayor\u2019s office said at the time that Duwaji was not accompanied on that trip by NYPD cops.<\/p>\n

Like her husband, Duwaji is known for her pro-Palestnian, anti-Israel views.<\/p>\n

She reportedly curated Spotify playlists with songs that have foulmouthed anti-Israel lyrics, following the Oct. 7, 2023\u00a0 Hamas terror attacks against the Jewish state.<\/p>\n

Duwaji was also caught liking celebratory Instagram posts in the aftermath of Hamas\u2019s sneak assault on Israel, and a post claiming the rapes carried out by the terror group against Israeli hostages and victims were a \u201cmass hoax.\u201d<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\tStart your day with all you need to know\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\tMorning Report delivers the latest news, videos, photos and more.\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\tThanks for signing up!\n\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n

Duwaji, who was profiled in a New York magazine piece weeks before Mamdani took office, was also exposed for old inflammatory social media posts. For example, in 2015, she claimed Tel Aviv \u201cshouldn\u2019t exist in the first place\u201d while calling its residents \u201coccupiers,\u201d and two years earlier, as a teen, she used the n-word in another post.<\/p>\n

Mayor Zohran Mamdani\u2019s wife, Rama Duwaji, is jetting to Syria and Lebanon with taxpayer-funded NYPD security.<\/p>\n

She apologized in April for the \u201churt\u201d caused by alarming social media posts \u2013 though she did not directly express regret for the Israel-bashing content.<\/p>\n

Mamdani has stood up for his wife, claiming she is a \u201cprivate person\u201d who should not face a glaring spotlight over her social media activity.<\/p>\n

She was also deeply involved in a Democratic socialist activist campaign pushing political candidates critical of Israel and backing a controversial bill targeting pro-Israel charities.<\/p>\n

Duwaji created artwork for the New York City chapter of the Democratic Socialists of America as the lefty group unleashed a public campaign called \u201cPalestineOnTheBallot.com<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n

The effort promoted candidates running in Democratic Party primaries who snubbed funding from the American Israel Public Affairs Committee and vowed to support the Not on Our Dime Act \u2014 a bill that would punish or dissolve registered charities found to support \u201cIsraeli settler violence.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Mayor Zohran Mamdani\u2019s wife Rama Duwaji is heading to Syria and Lebanon next month \u2013 and she\u2019s bringing…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":318329,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[33408,57,9,24,56,63,65,64,103,87,18510,4661,58],"class_list":["post-318328","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-york-city","tag-lebanon","tag-metro","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-ny","tag-nyc","tag-nyc-headlines","tag-nyc-news","tag-nypd","tag-politics","tag-rama-duwaji","tag-syria","tag-us-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/318328","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=318328"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/318328\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/318329"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=318328"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=318328"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=318328"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}