‼️“It’s not your land for you to say it has the right to exist.” In this exchange, a speaker addresses disgraced New York City mayor Zohran Mamdani directly, rejecting his repeated insistence that Israel has a “right to exist” while Palestinians continue to live under occupation and attack.
The criticism comes amid backlash in pro-Palestine circles after Mamdani distanced himself from renowned Palestinian-American author Susan Abulhawa following pressure from pro-Israel groups connected to work by his wife, illustrator Rama Duwaji. Abulhawa is widely recognized as one of the most prominent Palestinian literary voices of her generation, author of the international bestseller Mornings in Jenin, translated into more than 30 languages, along with The Blue Between Sky and Water and Against the Loveless World, all exploring Palestinian displacement, resistance, and survival. Beyond her writing, she founded Playgrounds for Palestine, a nonprofit building playgrounds for Palestinian children in refugee camps and occupied areas, and has spent years advocating for Palestinian rights and dignity.
Her critics point to past statements condemning Israeli terrorist policies, including rightfully describing Israeli terrorist settlers as “parasites", language many supporters argue reflects the brutality Palestinians face under settler colonialism.
Pro-Palestine activists say Mamdani’s public condemnation of Abulhawa’s rhetoric amounted to throwing a Palestinian voice under the bus to shield himself from political pressure, fueling accusations of hypocrisy from those who say genuine solidarity cannot coexist with affirming the legitimacy of the system oppressing Palestinians.