Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s wife Rama Duwaji is heading to Syria and Lebanon next month – and she’s bringing along cops assigned to the First Couple’s taxpayer-funded NYPD detail, The Post has learned.
Duwaji will be jetting to the Middle East for a trip beginning Sept. 20 to the countries on the State Department’s “Do Not Travel” list for Americans because of dangerous conditions, a source said.
The source familiar with the security detail said the first lady, who’s been described by the mayor as a “private person,” requested NYPD security – after traveling overseas last month without police protection.
Duwaji, a 29-year-old Syrian-American artist, has ties to the region and refers to herself as a “Syrian Illustrator” on her website. Her parents are Syrian Muslims originally from Damascus.
Mamdani’s office confirmed the trip and that an NYPD security detail will accompany the mayor’s wife.
“Upon the strong recommendation of the NYPD, the First Lady’s security detail will be joining her when she travels to visit family in Syria and Lebanon,” said mayoral spokesperson Dora Pekec.
The mayor’s office offered no further comment on the trip’s details or whether the purpose was solely to visit family.
The source with knowledge of the trip told The Post, “It’s not official business. It’s not doing anything for the city.”
One pro-Israel Jewish advocate opposed sending members of the NYPD to Syria and Lebanon, arguing the officers, not the Israel-bashing Duwaji, will be targets.
“We’re putting the police officers in danger. They will be viewed as the bad guys. These are war zones,” said Dov Hikind, founder of Americans Against Antisemitism and a former Brooklyn Assemblyman.
“Duwaji doesn’t need security. She will get a hero’s welcome and be protected by Hezbollah, Hamas and the Houthis,” Hikind said, referring to Islamic terrorists and militants.
“Duwaji will be fine.”
The first lady in 2019 had attended a residency at the Haven for Artists in Beirut, Lebanon, which describes itself as a cultural feminist organization at “the intersection of art and activism.”
Last month, Duwaji co-hosted a pro-Palestinian all-female spiritual retreat on the French island of Corsica.The event was organized by Women Sanctuary, a Muslim-and-women-focused travel group run by Parisian designer Rym Nur.
Duwaji also ditched America’s 250th anniversary celebrations to jet off to the Women Sanctuary’s earlier retreat on the Spanish island of Mallorca, where she was the “artist-in-residence” at a sold-out “Plants Of The Quran” workshop.
The mayor’s office said at the time that Duwaji was not accompanied on that trip by NYPD cops.
Like her husband, Duwaji is known for her pro-Palestnian, anti-Israel views.
She reportedly curated Spotify playlists with songs that have foulmouthed anti-Israel lyrics, following the Oct. 7, 2023 Hamas terror attacks against the Jewish state.
Duwaji was also caught liking celebratory Instagram posts in the aftermath of Hamas’s sneak assault on Israel, and a post claiming the rapes carried out by the terror group against Israeli hostages and victims were a “mass hoax.”
Duwaji, who was profiled in a New York magazine piece weeks before Mamdani took office, was also exposed for old inflammatory social media posts. For example, in 2015, she claimed Tel Aviv “shouldn’t exist in the first place” while calling its residents “occupiers,” and two years earlier, as a teen, she used the n-word in another post.
She apologized in April for the “hurt” caused by alarming social media posts – though she did not directly express regret for the Israel-bashing content.
Mamdani has stood up for his wife, claiming she is a “private person” who should not face a glaring spotlight over her social media activity.
She was also deeply involved in a Democratic socialist activist campaign pushing political candidates critical of Israel and backing a controversial bill targeting pro-Israel charities.
Duwaji created artwork for the New York City chapter of the Democratic Socialists of America as the lefty group unleashed a public campaign called “PalestineOnTheBallot.com.”
The effort promoted candidates running in Democratic Party primaries who snubbed funding from the American Israel Public Affairs Committee and vowed to support the Not on Our Dime Act — a bill that would punish or dissolve registered charities found to support “Israeli settler violence.”
