New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani built his 2025 campaign around a carefully crafted image as a pragmatic progressive—publicly denouncing Hamas’ October 7, 2023, massacre that claimed nearly 1,200 lives while bridging his far-left base with mainstream Democrats.
Yet a fresh investigative report from Jewish Insider, spotlighting the Instagram activity of his wife Rama Duwaji in the attack’s immediate aftermath, has thrust questions about personal sympathies and political consistency into the spotlight.
Mamdani continues to face a complex set of challenges. These include his wife’s social media posts that frame the October 7, 2023, massacre as “resistance” against “apartheid,” scrutiny over their family connections, and his foreign policy positions, such as his condemnation of recent U.S.-Israeli strikes on Iran. Additionally, he is dealing with growing governance issues. Together, these factors are testing the limits he once aimed to uphold.
According to the report, Duwaji—a Syrian-American illustrator who married Mamdani in early 2025—liked several Instagram posts in the immediate aftermath of the October 7 attacks. These included content from The Slow Factory on the day of the assault, featuring images of a bulldozer breaching the Gaza security barrier and people on a captured Israeli Defense Forces vehicle, overlaid with text such as “Breaking the walls of apartheid and military occupation” and “Resisting apartheid since 1948.”
The report also states that Duwaji liked two posts from The People’s Forum—an organization linked by Jewish Insider to a network of nonprofits associated with Neville “Roy” Singham, who has been accused of promoting pro-China, pro-Russia, and pro-Iran narratives—promoting an October 8, 2023, Times Square rally held one day after the attacks.
At the time, Mamdani, then a state assemblymember, publicly criticized the Times Square rally for downplaying or “making light” of the Hamas massacre.
This is not the first instance of scrutiny regarding Duwaji’s online activity. The Jerusalem Post previously reported that she posted a tribute to Palestinian influencer Saleh al-Jafarawi—described as having known ties to Hamas—following his death in Gaza in October 2025, writing “Beloved Jafarawi” with broken-heart emojis on her Instagram story.
Mamdani’s administration has faced other challenges since he took office in January 2026, including scrutiny over his mother Mira Nair’s mention in recently released Epstein-related documents (detailing her attendance at a 2009 event at Ghislaine Maxwell’s townhouse tied to a film premiere), sanitation issues after a major snowstorm, and concerns over his proposed $127 billion budget reliant on potential tax increases.
Most recently, Mamdani’s foreign policy, particularly on Iran, has also drawn sharp scrutiny. When the United States and Israel struck Iran in late February in Operation Epic Fury, Mamdani published an official statement stating, “Today’s military strikes on Iran – carried out by the United States and Israel – mark a catastrophic escalation in an illegal war of aggression. Bombing cities. Killing civilians. Opening a new theater of war. Americans do not want this. They do not want another war in pursuit of regime change.”
After the post, however, Mamdani dodged questions about whether Iran is better off without the former Supreme Leader Khamenei.
