Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani is reportedly supporting a candidate for state Assembly linked to the Council on American-Islamic Relations — and who once described 9/11 as a terror attack that a “couple of people did.”
Mamdani’s backing of Aber Kawas, a longtime Palestinian-American activist, was relayed by a member of his mayoral transition team during a closed-door Democratic Socialists of America meeting in Manhattan last week, according to a Daily News report.
“[Mamdani] told me that while he has tremendous respect for everyone in this race, he has said that he will support Aber in whatever she pursues,” top political adviser to the Mamdani transition Sam McCann said during the meeting, according to the News.
McCann did not return requests for comment from The Post on Tuesday, and neither did Mamdani’s spokesperson.
Kawas, an organizer in New York City’s Arab and Muslim communities since 2010, is trying to garner support from the NYC DSA for her run in the 34th Assembly District in Queens.
Assemblywoman Jessica Gonzalez-Rojas is vacating the seat to challenge Queens state Sen. Jessica Ramos, and has endorsed her chief of staff Brian Romero in the Democratic primary.
Kawas has been listed as a speaker for CAIR, a controversial Muslim charity accused of Hamas links.
She also has a history of incendiary comments, which resurfaced on X after news of Mamdani’s reported support for her campaign came to light.
“The system of capitalism and racism and white supremacy et cetera – and Islamophobia – have all been used to colonize lands, to take resources from other people and so this is a long trajectory and were just seeing the manifestations of that continuation with 9/11,” she said in one unearthed clip, posted by social media sleuth Drew Pavlou.
“The idea we have to apologize for a terror attack that a couple of people did and then there is no apology or reparations for genocides and for slavery, et cetera – is something I find reprehensible,” she continued.
Attempts to reach Kawas for comment were unsuccessful.
