NEWS ALERT: Mamdani backs Palestinian activist in legislative race where battle with ‘Israeli lobby’ a key issue

3

From the New York Daily News: Fresh off of his mayoral election victory, democratic socialist Zohran Mamdani is already weighing in on local legislative races, throwing his weight behind a left-wing Queens Assembly candidate whose political adviser believes it’s time “to draw the fire of the Israeli lobby,” the Daily News has learned.

Mamdani’s support for Palestinian-American activist Aber Kawas — conveyed during a closed-door Democratic Socialists of America meeting last Wednesday — marks the first time the incoming mayor has put his thumb on the scale in a local race since his own Nov. 4 election win.

In backing Kawas, Mamdani, an assemblyman representing Astoria, puts himself on a collision course with the incumbent in the Assembly district in question, Assemblywoman Jessica Gonzalez-Rojas, who is vacating her seat to run for a state Senate spot in next summer’s primary elections.

Gonzalez-Rojas, a DSA member whose district spans Jackson Heights, has endorsed her chief of staff, Brian Romero, to succeed her.

Mamdani chose to endorse the Muslim woman, Aber Kawas, instead of fellow Democrat Socialist Brian Romero, who is an openly gay man.

A Palestinian-American from Brooklyn, New York, Kawas only moved to the district she is running to represent last year. Reportedly, she just recently returned to New York after earning a master’s degree in “Islamic Liberation Theology” from a university in South Africa.

Joe Stanton, a political adviser to Kawas, declared at a recent meeting, “We have to actually run a Palestinian Arab in this race because we need to draw the fire of the Israeli lobby, and we have to beat them.”

“We did it with Zohran, and people have started realizing that they don’t run things,” Stanton added.

While speaking on a panel in 2017, Awas brazenly blamed the 9/11 terror attack on the “systems of capitalism, racism, white supremacy and islamophobia”, saying they “have all been used to colonize lands and take resources from other people.”

“The idea that we have to apologize for a terror attack that a couple people did and then there is no apologies or reparations for genocide and slavery is something that I find reprehensible,” she brazenly claimed.

WATCH THIS:

The Asian American Writers Workshop website includes a profile on Aber Kawas which reads as follows:

Aber Kawas has been organizing with the Arab and Muslim communities in New York City since 2010. Formerly the advocacy director at the Arab American Association of NY (AAANY), Aber has also worked with several other organizations such as the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) NY and the Urban Justice Center around issues such as immigration, police surveillance, racial profiling. She is currently the New York City Advocacy Specialist with the Campaign to Take on Hate under the National Network of Arab American communities. She is a 2018 Muslim Communities Fellow.

READ MORE from the New York Daily News.

Follow us on X (Formerly Twitter.)
The DML News App: www.X.com/DMLNewsApp

The Dennis Michael Lynch Podcast archive is available below, with the most recent on top. Never miss an episode. Subscribe to the show by downloading The DML News App or go to Apple Podcasts.

RELATED ARTICLESMORE FROM AUTHOR

CLICK HERE FOR COMMENTS SECTION