Mamdani’s Sick, Sly Slap in the Face to 9/11 Families

On Friday, New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani signed a proclamation commemorating the 25th anniversary of the 9/11 terrorist attack. He then quickly ensured the pen used to sign the proclamation was given to a man who represented an Al-Qaeda terrorist and a Gitmo detainee described as the “20th hijacker.”

Mamdani may as well have driven the pen into the heart of those whose loved ones were pulverized on that terrible morning.

Did Mamdani know what he was doing? Does his wife get a thrill up her leg from Hamas?

The Symbolic Gesture

During the ceremony, Mamdani signed two executive orders: One commemorating the 9/11 attack, the other detailing new moves to protect against further attacks.

He then reached to give the pen to Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch, ordering her to pass it on, not to a family member who lost someone on 9/11, not to a first responder who served that day.

No, Mamdani wanted the symbolic gift in the mitts of his controversial chief counsel, Ramzi Kassem. Tisch stiffly does what she is told, hands the pen to the smirking Kassem, who then made a quick exit.

Why would Mamdani want to give Kassem the pen? (Because Osama bin Laden isn’t around for Mamdani to give him the key to the city, one is tempted to say.)

To hear the mayor’s office tell it, Kassem was simply on hand because, as Mamdani’s chief counsel, he and his staff drafted the two executive orders. But that doesn’t explain why Kassem got the pen keepsake.

Kassem represented al-Qaeda terrorist Ahmed al-Darbi, who was convicted for the 2002 bombing of a French oil tanker and is the brother-in-law of Khalid al-Mihdhar, one of the hijackers who exploded American Airlines Flight 77 into the Pentagon. Kassem and his team represented about a dozen other suspected Islamic terrorists at Gitmo and around the world, including Mohammed al-Qahtani, the so-called “20th hijacker.”

With that resume, you publicly give Kassem the souvenir for one of two reasons:

A. You are an astonishingly insensitive moron oblivious to what you are doing.

B. You want to show the world that Islamists run New York City on the 25th anniversary of 9/11.

Mamdani is no moron.

Families and Local Politicians React

“It shows exactly where his loyalties truly lie,” Republican City Council Member Joann Ariola told the New York Post. “The families who lost loved ones on 9/11 have every right to be outraged. On the 25th anniversary, City Hall should be honoring their sacrifice with dignity, not forcing those families to endure yet another insult.”

She called Mamdani’s move “breathtakingly tone-deaf and disrespectful.”

However, according to several local leaders, the mayor was striking exactly the tone he wanted to strike.

Former Democrat operative David Sivella suggested Mamdani was signaling fellow Islamists that any expressions of sincerity about the attack that killed thousands were nothing more than pretense.

“Was it deliberate on your part to give your Muslim base a hint that this is all [nonsense] to pacify other New Yorkers?” Sivella asked.

Michael Alcazar, a retired NYPD detective and John Jay College of Criminal Justice adjunct professor, dismissed claims Kassem was simply on hand because of his current gig as chief counsel.

“It was calculated,” he told the Post. “It happened during a ceremony meant to be about the victims, and no one else. 9/11 families didn’t come to City Hall to watch Mamdani spotlight someone whose work intersects with the very ideology that took their loved ones.”

New York City Council Member Vicki Paladino noted how Kassem got involved in representing terrorists.

“Ramzi Kassem said he was inspired by 9/11—not to join the fight against terrorism, but to defend the terrorists themselves,” Paladino said.”

His participation in anything related to 9/11 is an insult to every New Yorker who survived that day, and indeed all Americans,” she added. “But I suspect that’s the point.”

Dennis Warchola’s brother Michael, a firefighter killed in the North Tower, was outraged. “It’s b——,” he said.

Kassem did not return the Post’s request for comment.

A Cold Shoulder on Friday?

Mamdani will face cold shoulders and hard stares at Friday’s commemorations of the 9/11 anniversary, according to the Post.

The 9/11 families were already stewing over his 2023 tweet minimizing the attack. Mamdani, then a state legislator, had posted, “Nearly 3,000 New Yorkers died on 9/11; 22 years later, the deaths haven’t stopped. We mourn our neighbors who died that day. The hundreds of thousands who died in the wars that followed. The unknown millions injured & displaced. In their memory, we work toward a better world.”

Mamdani also defends anti-Semetic, anti-American influencer Hasan Piker who has declared that “America deserved 9/11.”

More than 100,000 people have signed a Change.org petition urging Mamdani to stay away. On Tuesday, several family members spoke out at a press conference asking the mayor not to show up.

Mamdani is rebuffing those calls.

Relatives of those killed on 9/11 tell the New York Post they plan on turning away from Mamdani, rather than confronting him.

This includes petition organizer Giovanni Galante, whose wife, Grace, was murdered in the attack.

“No one’s going to be there saying, ‘You can’t come in.’ No one’s going to be arguing with him,” he told the Post Thursday. “I know he likes to come in your face and try to say hello and shake your hand, but I would definitely ignore him.”

The last word goes to Mamdani’s predecessor, former NYC Mayor Rudy Giuliani, who guided the city through the aftermath of the attack. “Having lost friends there and being very close to many of the families,” he told the Post. “It offends me that he’s coming.”

We publish a variety of perspectives. Nothing written here is to be construed as representing the views of the Daily Signal.