New York City's first lady, Rama Duwaji, used a now-inactive Tumblr account to praise Palestinian plane hijacker Leila Khaled and attack American service members, according to resurfaced social media posts reviewed by the Washington Free Beacon. The 28-year-old wife of Mayor Zohran Mamdani reportedly maintained the account while living in the Middle East, filling it with content that reads less like youthful indiscretion and more like a sustained ideological worldview.
The posts span years. In September 2017, Duwaji posted a photo of Khaled, who took part in plane hijackings in 1969 and 1970, alongside a caption quoting a line attributed to the militant:
"If it does good for my cause, I'd be happy to accept death."
She shared an image of a Bangladeshi postage stamp bearing the words "We salute the valiant freedom fighters of Palestine." Two years before the Khaled post, she reposted a tirade aimed at American troops, calling those in uniform people who were "fighting in imperialist wars" who "are not brave nor are they fighting for anyone's freedom," and accusing them of "mercilessly slaughtering 3rd world civilians" in the service of "American hegemony."
A December 2015 repost blamed white people for the existence of al Qaeda:
"You can't blame muslims for terrorism because they didn't construct, fund nor train Al-Qaeda. White People did that too."
The Post, which reported on the story, was unable to independently verify the account or posts.
What makes this story significant is not any single post. It is the consistency. Across platforms and across years, Duwaji's social media footprint tells a remarkably coherent story.
On Twitter, she reportedly wrote that Tel Aviv "shouldn't exist in the first place," calling its residents "occupiers." She used the N-word in a 2013 tweet when she was reportedly 15. She reportedly liked a celebratory Instagram post on the day of Hamas's Oct. 7, 2023, attack on Israel. She also liked a post dismissing Hamas' documented sexual violence against Israelis as a "mass hoax."
This is not a single screenshot taken out of context. This is a trail stretching from adolescence into adulthood, from Tumblr to Twitter to Instagram, touching terrorism, antisemitism, racial slurs, and conspiracy theories about wartime atrocities. Each post might invite a charitable explanation on its own. Together, they tell a story that charity cannot cover.
According to the New York Post, Mayor Mamdani, described as a staunch critic of Israel, claimed his wife "has held no formal position on my campaign or in my City Hall" and argued she shouldn't face scrutiny over her social media activity. City Hall did not immediately respond to the Post's request for comment.
The "she holds no formal position" defense is a familiar move. It treats proximity to power as irrelevant so long as the org chart provides cover. Rama Duwaji is not some distant acquaintance. She is the mayor's wife. She is, by every public convention, the first lady of New York City. The idea that the social media history of the person sharing a home, a life, and a political identity with the mayor is somehow off-limits to public interest is not a serious argument. It is a shield.
And the shield reveals more than it protects. Mamdani did not condemn the content of the posts. He did not distance himself from praising plane hijackers or dismissing sexual violence as a hoax. He objected to the scrutiny itself. That is a telling priority.
Consider for a moment how this story would unfold if the political affiliations were reversed. If the wife of a conservative mayor had surfaced social media posts praising militants, using racial slurs, and dismissing documented atrocities as fabricated, the cycle would already be well underway:
The progressive left built those rules. They established the principle that social media histories are fair game, that old posts reflect character, and that silence in the face of extremism is complicity. They applied those standards enthusiastically to Supreme Court nominees, school board candidates, and college students applying for internships.
Now those same standards arrive at the doorstep of a progressive mayor's household, and the response is that his wife "shouldn't face scrutiny." The rules, it turns out, were never meant to be universal. They were weapons, not principles.
Mamdani's mayoralty already sits at the ideological frontier of urban progressive politics. His elevation to power in New York City represented a victory for the activist left. The resurfaced posts from his wife do not create a new problem so much as they illuminate an existing one: the normalization of radical anti-Western, anti-Israel ideology within the progressive political ecosystem.
Praising Leila Khaled is not edgy commentary. Khaled hijacked a civilian aircraft. The Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine is designated a terrorist organization. Dismissing the documented sexual violence committed during the Oct. 7 attack as a "mass hoax" is not skepticism. It is a denial in the service of ideology.
These are not fringe positions accidentally wandering into mainstream politics. They are the positions of a political movement that has spent years insisting such views are legitimate discourse. Mamdani's response confirms it. He does not see a problem with the content. He sees a problem with the coverage.
New York City's first lady posted praise for a plane hijacker and called American troops imperial mercenaries. The mayor's office wants you to know she holds no formal title. As if that were the question anyone was asking.
