When 'Islamophobia' Becomes a License to Lie

David Harsanyi
Thu, 12 Mar 2026 15:00:00 -0700
Opinion

It was recently reported that the wife of New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani, Rama Duwaji, had liked Instagram posts celebrating the mass murder of over 1,200 innocent Israeli civilians on Oct. 7, 2023, and other similarly themed posts, including one calling the rape of women on that day a "hoax."

Duwaji liked her posts before Israel had retaliated against Hamas. Not a single Israeli soldier was on Gazan soil when the future New York mayor's wife was celebrating the "collective liberation" of "Palestine" and liking posts calling for the Jews to be displaced from the "river to the sea."

Mamdani contends his wife is a "private" person, and her bloodlust doesn't reflect his own positions. A trove of evidence strongly suggests otherwise, I'm afraid.
Updated: Fri Mar 13, 2026

It was recently reported that the wife of New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani, Rama Duwaji, had liked Instagram posts celebrating the mass murder of over 1,200 innocent Israeli civilians on Oct. 7, 2023, and other similarly themed posts, including one calling the rape of women on that day a "hoax."

Duwaji liked her posts before Israel had retaliated against Hamas. Not a single Israeli soldier was on Gazan soil when the future New York mayor's wife was celebrating the "collective liberation" of "Palestine" and liking posts calling for the Jews to be displaced from the "river to the sea."

Mamdani contends his wife is a "private" person, and her bloodlust doesn't reflect his own positions. A trove of evidence strongly suggests otherwise, I'm afraid.

Even so, the mayor is the rising star in media and Democratic Party political circles. His wife was the focus of scores of glowing puff pieces during and after his campaign. One recent New York Times feature, headlined "The Complicated Politics of Rama Duwaji's Style," celebrated the New York first lady's ascent into the "spotlight."

If you pose for magazine photos, give interviews and offer political opinions on social media, your positions are fair game for the public to scrutinize. You are not a "private person."

Nor are Duwaji's politics "complicated," a well-worn left-wing media euphemism for extremist views that are allegedly too nuanced for the proles to understand without layers of "context" from journalists.

When the mayor stood up for his wife, The New York Times reported that "Mamdani Defends Wife Amid Criticism of Her Support for the Palestinian Cause." This is either a lie by omission or the editors believe that "Palestinian cause" entails hunting down terrified, unarmed young women and then murdering them. Considering its coverage over the years, it might well be both.

The Duwaji story isn't Watergate, but it's a good example of establishment media doing everything in their power not to appear "Islamophobic," including smothering the truth.

The late Christopher Hitchens once argued that the "stupid neologism" of "Islamophobia" was aimed "to promote criticism of Islam to the gallery of special offenses associated with racism." And for years, merely pointing out factual, inconvenient truths about some Muslims or Islamic governments and leaders has been cynically cast as "Islamophobia."

Journalism's core mission is to report and synthesize events to tell people the truth in clear language. Does anyone believe this New York Times headline reporting on two alleged Islamic State group-inspired terrorists throwing homemade bombs at peaceful protests accomplishes that job? "Smoking Jars of Metal and Fuses Thrown at Protest Near Mayor's House."

The subhead, no less vague, informs readers that "six people were arrested after anti-Islamic protesters led by the right-wing activist Jake Lang clashed with counter protesters near Gracie Mansion."

Those "smoking jars of metal and fuses," more familiarly known as improvised explosive devices or "bombs," were constructed and allegedly thrown by two budding Islamic terrorists.

The New York Times is hardly alone in obfuscating the event. An unsuspecting left-wing CNN reader could easily have walked away with the impression that wide-eyed innocent children had merely stumbled upon the scene of the anti-Muslim protest, provoking them to assemble nail bombs and throw them.

"Two Pennsylvania teenagers crossed into New York City Saturday morning for what could've been a normal day enjoying the city during abnormally warm weather," CNN's since-rewritten story began. This isn't merely bias. It's anti-journalism — reporting that literally leads the reader away from the truth.

It's also unsurprising. Recall that many outlets could barely get themselves to offer the unvarnished truth about the head Islamic State group warlord, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi.

After the death of Hezbollah terrorist leader Hassan Nasrallah, The New York Times heralded him as a "revolutionary religious leader" and "powerful orator, beloved by Shi'ite Muslims" who helped "provide social services for Lebanon."

Perhaps the pinnacle of this demented genre appeared in The Economist this week in the guise of an obituary of the late supreme leader of Iran, Ali Khamenei. The magazine chose to tell us that Khamenei believed that he had "divine right on his side" and had "countless reasons to hate the West," especially the United States, the tip of a "phalanx of morally corrupt countries."

This is a stylistic choice no editor would ever make to the obituary of a fascist — or even a Republican.

Islamists are often given a special dispensation from Western moral standards by the media. People, of course, should be judged as individuals. But "Islamophobia" attempts to transform criticism of a political philosophy into an act of racism. It has long been meant to chill speech.

These days, it has been internalized so deeply by the Left that it is used to destroy truth, as well.