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FOX DIGITAL REVIEW: New York City socialist mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani’s growing circle of influence is littered with activists who have espoused anti-Israel views and socialist principles as he attempts to dispel the narrative that he is too “radical” to run the nation’s largest city.
Mamdani, who has been a fierce critic of President Trump’s immigration policies, employs the help of several advisers as part of his “brain trust”, New York Times reported, which includes New York Immigration Coalition president Murad Awawdeh, an activist for a group with a long history of seeking to end “state support for detention, deportation, and mass incarceration.”
According to Awadeh, illegal immigrants having access to taxpayer-funded healthcare is a right they “deserve.”
“SEEKING ASYLUM AT THE BORDER IS A LEGAL RIGHT,” Awawdeh posted on X in 2022. “ASYLUM SEEKERS ARE FLEEING FOR THEIR LIVES FROM VIOLENCE, PERSECUTION, & IMPACTS OF CLIMATE CHANGE. THE U.S. HAS A LEGAL OBLIGATION TO PROVIDE REFUGE.”
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NYIC has close ties to and has taken money from the Vera Institute for Justice, a group that received a significant amount of support in the form of contracts from the Biden administration to assist illegal immigrants in avoiding deportations. Additionally, NYIC has taken in $175,000 from the sprawling George Soros nonprofit network.
Soros is also tied to another key Mamdani advisor, Patrick Gaspard, who has served in several high-profile political positions, including advising former President Barack Obama’s historic 2008 campaign, serving as the Democratic National Committee’s executive director, and was tapped as the Center for American Progress (CAP) president in 2021.
Gaspard, who Fox News Digital previously reported made millions of dollars serving as president of Soros’s Open Society Foundations between 2017 and 2020, has been a staunch defender of Soros, saying earlier this year that he was “inspired by the selection of my friend George Soros, who is one of our leading defenders of inclusive and accountable democracy and vibrant civil society,” after then-President Joe Biden announced he would receive the Presidential Medal of Freedom.
“His accomplishments, in the face of distortions and threats from extremists, will be lauded well into the future,” he continued. In a long 2023 X thread, Gaspard also attempted to deflect blame away from Soros amid reports that Soros and his network were pouring millions of dollars into the campaign coffers of radical DAs and far-left groups that emphasized social justice programs and gave lenient sentences to violent criminals.
Mamdani has rejected the “communist” label bestowed on him by critics, including laughing off the accusation when confronted by Fox News Digital earlier this year, while at the same time being advised by an activist who doesn’t appear to shy away from communists.
Housing advocate Cea Weaver, part of Mamdani’s reported “brain trust,” is a member of the Democratic Socialists of America and advises the mayoral hopeful on housing issues, including Mamdani’s plan to “freeze” the rent, which has gotten strong pushback from many New Yorkers in the industry.
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Weaver is also the former coalitions director of Housing Justice for All, a group that counts dozens of radical far-left groups as coalition members, including the Communist Party of the United States of America and the New York Young Communist League.
“Elect more Communists,” Weaver posted on social media in 2017, New York Post reported. “Seize private property,” Weaver posted in 2018.
Mamdani has faced heated criticism for his long history of anti-Israel statements and positions dating back to his days writing for his college newspaper and his circle of advisers includes several people who have exhibited the same criticisms.
Activist Faiza Ali, another member of Mamdani’s reported inner circle, formerly worked for the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), a group whose executive director, Nihad Awad, stated after Hamas’ October 7 attacks that he was happy to see Gazans “breaking the siege” against the “occupying power” of Israel.
Awad later said those comments were taken out of context.
In addition to her ties to CAIR, a group that GOP Sen. Tom Cotton recently said should lose its nonprofit status due to alleged terror ties, Ali is an acquaintance of and has been photographed with Linda Sarsour, who the two are associated with through the Muslim Democratic Club of New York.
Sarsour, a prominent anti-Israel activist who has long been labeled antisemitic, has faced criticism for lauding Farrakhan, objecting to the Jewish right to return to Israel, and even calling for “jihad” against President Trump in 2017. She later claimed she was calling only for nonviolent dissent.
Maya Handa, a campaign manager reportedly part of the “growing circle” around Mamdani, was formerly a top adviser to former Dem. Rep. Jamaal Bowman who has a long history of anti-Israel controversy including last year when he defended the phrase “from the river to to the sea”, a saying widely interpreted as a call for the elimination of Israel.
Mamdani senior adviser Morris Katz, described by the New York Times as being one of two people in Mamdani’s “inner circle” and an “emissary” to the Jewish community to counteract skeptical pro-Israel voters, has been critical of Israel on social media.
Katz has previously said the existential threat to Israel’s existence is “not the Palestinians who’re being oppressed and denied basic human rights” but rather Benjamin Netanyahu.
Katz also amplified a quote from Mamdani saying that Democrats supporting a ceasefire and an arms embargo are “rightfully outraged over Israel’s killing of over 40,000 Palestinians.”
Fox News Digital reached out to the Mamdani campaign for comment.
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