Rama Duwaji, the wife of New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani, publicly apologized Wednesday for old social media posts in which she praised Palestinian terrorists and used racial slurs, marking her first acknowledgment of the controversy since the posts surfaced in March.
“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,” Duwaji told online publication Hyperallergic.
The Washington Free Beacon exposed the posts in March, tracing them to accounts on X and the blogging platform Tumblr. One post, from 2015 when Duwaji was 17, shared a photo of Shadia Abu Ghazaleh alongside a caption praising her as a resistance fighter. Abu Ghazaleh was a member of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, a U.S.-designated terrorist organization. She died in 1968 when a bomb she intended to use on a Tel Aviv building detonated in her own home.
Additional posts showed Duwaji allegedly using a racial slur and a derogatory term for gay people. Another reposted message reportedly declared the Israeli city of Tel Aviv “shouldn’t even exist in the first place.”
The X account tied to Duwaji was deleted shortly after the Free Beacon published its investigation. Wednesday’s apology was her first public statement on the posts.
“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 said in the interview. “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.”
The controversy did not end with the initial posts. In February, just one month after Mamdani took office, Duwaji came under fire for contributing an illustration to an essay written by Susan Abulhawa, an author who described Hamas’ October 7 attack as “a spectacular moment that shocked the world.” Abulhawa has also referred to Israelis as “rootless, soulless ghouls” and “Jewish supremacist demons” in social media posts that remain active.
Mayor Mamdani said he was unaware of Abulhawa’s views and insisted Duwaji had been commissioned by a third party with no direct contact with the author. “I think that that rhetoric is patently unacceptable. I think it’s reprehensible,” he said in March.
Mamdani, a democratic socialist who took office in January, has been a prominent critic of Israel throughout his political career. His wife’s posts have drawn sustained criticism from Jewish groups and elected officials in New York.
