David Vance SubstackRead More
Did you see that New York City Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani has just anointed Aber Kawas as his successor for the 36th Assembly District seat he’s vacating? Here she is – just your typical New Yorker.
Let’s consider the qualities of the sort of person Mamdani is placing into such a position of power.
Aber Kawas is a Palestinian-American “organiser” She relocated to New York City just last year, fresh from earning a master’s in “Islamic Liberation Theology” at a South African university. Yes, you heard me right.
And what is this theology exactly? Well, it’s a field blending Shia revolutionary thought with anti-imperialist dogma, inspired by Iranian cleric Ali Shariati’s calls for armed jihad against oppressors.
This is what evidently appeals to Mamdani! I wonder why Kawas was so attracted to this jihad ideology?
A “hardcore Palestinian activist,” Kawas has agitated in Arab-Muslim communities. She has served as advocacy director for the Arab American Association of New York since at least 2010. She also co-founded initiatives like Film Workers for Palestine, which demands an end to “genocide” in Gaza while boycotting Israeli-linked media.
Her work in Brooklyn’s Bay Ridge—home to the largest Palestinian enclave in the U.S.—has fuelled protests, including those glorifying intifada-style resistance.
The one group that Kawas seems almost entirely disinterested in is Americans. I suppose that’s a value she shares with Ugandan migrant Mamdani and yet thanks to mass migration, these people can now get into power and then use that to advance their own agenda. In the case of Mamdani and Kawas it is a pro Palestinian agenda and it is now burrowing deeply into the Big Apple.
