The Arab American Association of New York organized a pro-Hamas demonstration soon after Oct. 7. Will it receive more taxpayer money under Mayor Mamdani?
A nonprofit group linked to anti-Semitic activist Linda Sarsour, an ally of New York City mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani (D.), received $4.1 million in city and state funds over a period of seven years, public records show.
The Arab American Association of New York (AAANY), which Sarsour led from 2005 to 2017, received more than $3.3 million from New York City and $854,000 from New York state between Sarsour’s last year atop the organization and 2024. The state-level funding came primarily from the New York State Department of State, with $20,000 disbursed from the Office of Children and Family Services. Its city-level funding is much murkier: One $60,000 payment came from the Department of Small Business Services, but the rest of the funding was not attributed to any particular agency, watchdog group OpenTheBooks found.
The revelations of the AAANY’s public funding come after a week in which Sarsour made news for her comments about Mamdani’s campaign, raising questions about whether the mayor-elect will offer Sarsour’s former organization more municipal funds. Mamdani did not respond to a Washington Free Beacon inquiry about whether he will do so as mayor, and New York governor Kathy Hochul (D.) did not answer a request for comment on whether she will continue to grant state money to AAANY going forward.
Anti-Semitism watchdog group Canary Mission released a video showing Sarsour bragging at a September Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) conference that a CAIR-backed PAC was Mamdani’s largest financial backer, news the Free Beacon reported in June. CAIR’s executive director, Nihad Awad, gained attention in late 2023 after saying he was “happy to see” Hamas’s Oct. 7 attack against Israel.
Capitalizing on Mamdani’s mayoral victory, Sarsour said on Thursday she will fight to remove pro-Israel Democrats from power.
“You do the right thing, you keep your job,” she said at a conference in Puerto Rico. “You don’t do the right thing, you don’t keep your job. There are some people that will do the right thing for the wrong reasons, but we don’t care why you do the right thing as long as you do the right thing. If you do it because you think you’re getting primaried, that’s okay with us. People are saying ‘free Palestine’ because now they’re getting primaried. Free Palestine.”
Though Sarsour no longer leads the AAANY, Marwa Janini, who now heads the organization, is no less radical. Janini, a former Students for Justice in Palestine activist, signed a petition in 2021 advocating for global boycotts of Israel.
The AAANY states its mission is “to support and empower the Arab Immigrant and Arab American community by helping them adjust to their new home and become active members of society.” Under Janini’s leadership, though, the AAANY lobbied for Mamdani’s “Not on Our Dime” legislation, which would have prohibited New York-based nonprofits from “engaging in unauthorized support for Israeli settlement activity.” Mamdani has not clarified whether “unauthorized support” includes humanitarian aid for Israelis in the West Bank.
The AAANY also backed a “Flood Brooklyn for Palestine” protest days after Oct. 7. The demonstration quickly devolved into a riot, with activists shutting down roads, setting fires in the street, and yelling and throwing eggs at police officers. The New York Police Department confirmed that about two dozen of the approximately 5,000 protesters were taken into custody.
An organizer shouted that those at the riot were “not like other groups simply calling for a ceasefire,” the New York Post reported, but were calling for “an end to the occupation.”
Sarsour and Mamdani have reportedly known each other for many years, first meeting while working on Khader El-Yateem’s unsuccessful 2017 city council race. Sarsour made a maximum donation to Mamdani’s mayoral campaign and has referred to him as her “favorite guy.” She has vowed to hold him accountable as mayor, though, saying she won’t let him “do whatever the hell he wants when he gets to City Hall.”
Sarsour has a long track record of radical anti-Israel activism and anti-Semitism. She has compared Zionism to “white supremacy in America” and cast doubt on Israel’s right to exist. She shot to national prominence through her role as lead organizer of the 2017 Women’s March, where her support for notorious anti-Semite Louis Farrakhan and convicted terrorist Rasmea Odeh caused controversy. She has also led calls for a global boycott of the Jewish state and claimed, “One cannot be a feminist and a Zionist at the same time.”
Sarsour’s radicalism ultimately led the founder of the Women’s March to call for her resignation for allowing “anti-Semitism, anti-LBGTQIA sentiment and hateful, racist rhetoric to become a part of the platform.”
Read the full article here
