Mamdani-backed NY Senate candidate Aber Kawas was recruited by DSA, blames US for 9/11

Kawas was backed by New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani—who was also a member of the DSA—back in November. According to an interview with Kawas and a report from The Indypendent, Kawas was “recruited by New York City DSA to run for an open state assembly seat in Western Queens.” However, after State Sen. Michael Gianaris confirmed that he would not be seeking re-election, Kawas pivoted to the Senate election in the 12th District.

The 12th Senate District in the state includes the Queens neighborhoods of Astoria, Long Island City, Sunnyside, Woodside and Maspeth.

In the interview, Kawas revealed that she was “recruited” by DSA in order to run for office. “A lot of the context of why I was recruited and the timing of it related to when Zohran won the mayoral primary,” she said. Kawas had hesitated when she was approached to run for office, according to the outlet.

Kawas worked with Mamdani on his mayoral campaign and said that her agenda is an extension of Mamdani’s “affordability” agenda, which she said meant taxing the rich. “It’s really important for us on the left to achieve that agenda. Especially taxing the rich, to have more resources to fund more social services that make people’s lives more affordable,” Kawas said.

Kawas, who once described the 9/11 terror attacks as something that a “couple people did,” was backed by Mamdani during a closed-door DSA meeting in November when she was running for the Assembly.

Kawas has also suggested that America’s “system of capitalism, racism, white supremacy, and Islamophobia” was to blame for the 9/11 terror attacks.

Kawas states on her state Senate campaign website, “I'm the daughter of Palestinian refugees, born and raised in a working class family in New York City. When I was young, my father was detained by ICE and deported from the U.S. by the same cruel immigration system that is harming the people of Queens today. While he was in detention, my family struggled to make ends meet. These experiences shaped how I see the world, and made me the organizer I am today — determined to build power for poor and working people, so that everyone can live a life with equal dignity.”