A day before taking office, New York's incoming mayor, Zoharan Mamdani, is already provoking controversy with a new appointment.
Mamdani announced that he has appointed attorney Ramzi Kassem as New York's legal counsel. Kassem previously defended Ahmad al-Darbi, an al-Qaeda terrorist convicted in the bombing of a French oil tanker off the coast of Yemen.
Mamdani tweeted, "Welcome to a new era, Ramzi Kassem!" He then praised Kassem's work defending immigrants and students detained by the immigration department through a legal organization he founded.
In announcing the appointment, Mamdani added, "I will turn to Ramzi for his remarkable experience and his commitment to defending those too often abandoned by our legal system. City Hall will be stronger with him in it, and our work of building a more prosperous city for all will have a powerful advocate."
"My sincere hope is that New Yorkers who have long felt on the margins of this city, the homeless veteran straining to survive, the patient searching for the care that they need, an immigrant trying to get by will feel that they now have leaders in their corner who understand their struggles and care to fight for them. That is the city I want to build. The prosperity I intend to deliver and the leadership that has too long been lacking."
In 2025 Kassem represented Mahmoud Khalil, a Columbia University student who was detained and charged for organizing anti-Israel demonstrations on various campuses. He has since been released, but the case against him is still ongoing.
In 1999 Kassem wrote a letter opposing the labeling of a sandwich as an "Israeli sandwich," arguing that "the name offends Muslims and Arabs."
In 2000 Kassem claimed that Israel has no right to defend Jewish settlers in the city of Nablus, writing that Israel "has no internationally recognized right to be there in the first place."