Mamdani met with radical anti-Israel sheikh multiple times after he praised Hamas attack for inspiring great change
Mayor Zohran Mamdani has reportedly forged a bond with a radical anti-Israel sheikh, meeting with him multiple times in the Big Apple – despite the Muslim cleric publicly lauding Hamas’ horrific Oct.7 attack on Israel for inspiring “great change” for the world.Mamdani, a staunch critic of Israel, has met with Sheikh Fradhel Al-Sahlani, imam of the Al-Khoei Islamic Center in Queens — who also has a disturbing record of denying the Holocaust — at least three times since January 2025, according to the Washington Free Beacon. The meetups — the mayor’s latest in February when he celebrated Ramadan at the cleric’s Jamaica mosque — came after Al-Sahlani praised Hamas for making a “big difference” for Muslims just weeks following the Oct.
7, 2023, massacre. “One movement can make a great change,” the sheikh, an Iraqi native, hailed in a Nov.3, 2023, sermon, in which he justified the terror group’s heinous attack on the Jewish state as a fight against “injustice.” “What we are witnessing is the one movement, Hamas, has made a big difference not only for the Arab Muslim world, but the whole world.
According to anybody who has a sense, who has a spirit of freedom of the people, whoever has that, will learn that Palestinians are the ones who suffer injustice.”He went on to slam Congress for approving a $14.3 billion aid package backing Israel’s campaign against Hamas, accusing the Jewish state of committing a “genocide” and “war crimes” in Gaza.Al-Sahlani later argued that real, lasting change would only come once more Muslims are elected to political office. “When we have been dealt an injustice, we’re giving permission to fight back,” he said, fuming that Arabs and Palestinians have lived in an “open prison” in Israel for over 70 years. “Now we have to stand with those who have suffered injustice.We cannot make that change unless we’re involved heavily in the political system in the United States, then mayb...