Jon Levine writes for the Washington Free Beacon about the latest questionable action from New York City’s mayor.
Mayor Zohran Mamdani (D., N.Y.) broke bread Sunday night with an anti-Israel radical who said “we couldn’t avoid” Oct. 7, whose group called for “death to America,” and whom the Trump administration has long attempted to deport.
Mahmoud Khalil, a leader of the pro-terrorist protests at Columbia University after Oct. 7, 2023, smiled alongside the mayor and his wife, Rama Duwaji, at dinner at Gracie Mansion, a photo Mamdani shared on X shows.
“Last night, as we marked the one year anniversary of his detention, Rama and I were honored to welcome Mahmoud, Noor, and their son Deen to Gracie Mansion to break our fast together,” Mamdani wrote Monday evening. “Mahmoud is a New Yorker, and he belongs in New York City.”
Khalil, a Syrian native and Algerian national, first came to prominence as a leader in the Columbia University Apartheid Divest (CUAD) movement, a coalition of student groups that Columbia does not recognize as a legitimate organization. During the months after Oct. 7, Khalil took part in illegal protests where agitators disseminated Hamas propaganda, participated in an occupation of Barnard College’s library, and served as a negotiator on behalf of the Columbia encampment. He told reporters he and his movement would push Columbia to divest itself from Israel “by any means necessary,” and his organization said immediately after Oct. 7 that it supports “liberation by any means necessary, including armed resistance.”
CUAD posted the Islamic Republic’s refrain of “marg bar amrika,” which translates to “death to America,” after the beginning of Operation Epic Fury, and described the October 2024 Iranian ballistic missile fire targeting Israeli civilians as “a significant leap in the resistance.”
Representatives for Khalil and Mamdani did not respond to requests for comment.
