Mamdani-backed NY State Senate candidate Aber Kawas previously claimed America’s ‘capitalism,’ ‘racism’ to blame for 9/11

Aber Kawas, a Palestinian activist and democratic socialist, announced on Friday that she is running for the New York State Senate, abandoning her previous campaign for the State Assembly.

Kawas said she decided to run for Senate District 12 after State Senator Mike Gianaris announced he would not seek reelection. She had previously been running for Assembly District 34.

“We’re running in SD12 to build on the same movement that we already started—to make Queens more affordable. Politicians have repeatedly ignored our calls to use our tax dollars to invest in our communities instead of sending bombs overseas,” Kawas said in a thread on X. “I’m truly grateful to everyone who supported our campaign for AD34. During that time, we were able to deepen our relationships, strengthen coalitions, and develop a clear mandate for our movement.”

Her announcement renewed scrutiny of past remarks that have drawn controversy.

In 2017, Kawas suggested during a panel discussion that America was partially responsible for the 9/11 terrorist attacks. She told a panel at the time that "the system of capitalism and racism, and white supremacy, et cetera, have all, and Islamophobia, have all been used, you know, to colonize lands, right, to take resources from other people, and so this is, like, a long trajectory. And we're just seeing the manifestations of that continuation, right, with 9/11."

"Historically, right, you know, a lot of us come from lands that were colonized, lands where wars are being waged, right, and a lot of times because of US policy or the policies in Europe," Kawas continued as she criticized people who are "asking us to respond about, you know, an attack."

"The idea that we have to apologize for, like, a terror attack that, like, a couple people did, and then there is no apologies or reparations for genocides and for slavery, um, et cetera, is something that I kind of find, like, reprehensible,” she said.

Kawas also reportedly maintained a Tumblr account in which she defended Ahmed Ferhani, who was sentenced in 2011 to 10 years in prison for plotting to bomb a synagogue in Manhattan. On the account, she wrote that she “felt the deepst [sic] low” upon hearing that Ferhani had attempted suicide while in custody, referring to him as a “brother."

"But then this weekend, I felt the deepst [sic] low. I heard the news of my brother, whose case I've followed & whose family I knew—Ahmad Farfani. After being pursued for years by the NYPD and eventually caught up in an entrapment case, last weekend he attempted suicide in order to escape his circumstance," Kawas wrote. "He saw nowhere out but death. This is the state our people are in."

Kawas previously received backing in her Assembly bid from then-mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani, who endorsed her at a meeting of the Democratic Socialists of America. It was the first local political endorsement Mamdani made after winning the mayoral election.