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Rama Duwaji, wife to New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani, apologized for old social media posts that included racial slurs and celebrations of Palestinian terrorists in an interview published Wednesday.
Duwaji, a Texas-born Syrian-American, expressed her regret for language she used in old social media messages during an interview with online publication Hyperallergic, her first public interview since her husband became mayor in January.
“When a tabloid recently published old tweets I wrote as a teenager, I felt a lot of shame being confronted with language I used that is so harmful to others; being 15 doesn’t excuse it,” she told the outlet.
In March, the Washington Free Beacon published an expose revealing a number of Duwaji’s old posts on X, formerly Twitter, and the blogging website Tumblr.
New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani and his wife Rama Duwaji wave after his ceremonial inauguration as mayor at New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani and his wife Rama Duwaji wave after his ceremonial inauguration as mayor at City Hall on Jan. 1 in New York. Duwaji has come under scrutiny over her past social media posts criticizing Israel. (David Dee Delgado/Getty Images)
The posts included celebrations of U.S.-designated terrorist groups and individuals who had committed acts of terror. In March 2015, when Duwaji was 17, an X account the Washington Free Beacon connected to Duwaji reposted a photo of Shadia Abu Ghazaleh with a caption that extolled her as a resistance fighter.
Ghazaleh was a member of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), a U.S. and globally-designated terrorist group. Revered as a martyr in Palestine, many pro-Palestinians laud her for participating in a bombing of an Israeli bus. Ghazaleh died in 1968 when a bomb she had planned to use on a building in Tel Aviv exploded in her home.
Another Duwaji post the Free Beacon unearthed showed her allegedly using a racial slur.
And another post appeared to show her using a derogatory word for gay people.
According to the Beacon’s investigation, she allegedly reposted another user saying that the Israeli city Tel Aviv “shouldn’t even exist in the first place.”
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“I’ve read and seen a lot of what others have had to say in response, and I understand the hurt I caused and am truly sorry,” Duwaji told Hyperallergic. “My focus isn’t on being a public figure, but continuing my work with care and responsibility, and allowing my art to speak for itself.”
Zohran Mamdani, mayor of New York, and his wife Rama Duwaji during a news conference at Gracie Mansion in New York on Monday, Jan. 12, 2026. (John Lamparski/Bloomberg)
The X account associated with Duwaji was deleted shortly after the Beacon published their investigation. Her Wednesday apology appears to be her first public acknowledgement of the posts.
An artist by trade, Duwaji has been an outspoke critic of Israel during her husband’s political career. In February, just one month after Mamdani’s inauguration, Duwaji came under fire for contributing an illustration to an essay about a Gaza refugee camp written by an author who celebrated the October 7 attacks by Hamas.
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Susan Abulhawa, the author of the essay attached to Duwaji’s illustration, called Hamas’ October 7 terrorist attack at a music festival in Israel that killed more than 1,200 people “a spectacular moment that shocked the world.” She has also referred to Israelis as “rootless, soulless ghouls” and “Jewish supremacist demons” in social media posts that are still active.
Memorials at the site of the Oct. 7 Hamas terror attack on the Supernova music festival near Kibbutz Re’im, Israel, on Monday, May 27, 2024. (Kobi Wolf/Bloomberg)
Mamdani condemned the comments and claimed Duwaji contributed the illustration through a third party service.
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“I think that that rhetoric is patently unacceptable. I think it’s reprehensible,” he said in March. “And as is common for freelance illustrators, the First Lady was commissioned to illustrate an excerpt of a book by a third party. She has never engaged with or met with the author, nor had she seen the tweets that you’re referring to.”
Fox News Digital contacted a representative of Mayor Mamdani for comment but did not immediately receive a response.