/// by ELIANA JONSHON AGO 24 2026 -------------------- https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!87sk!,w_1456,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F0f13585c-621d-43aa-af51-fe4506967c37_736x514.jpeg Zohran Mamdani (Spencer Platt/Getty Images), Iman Abdul and Instagram post (@StopAntisemitism 😵, Ross Barkan (via Wikimedia Commons) In 2018, when Zohran Mamdani was running the failed State Senate campaign of the now-disgraced journalist Ross Barkan, he hired a campaign staffer who was later arrested for making a ‘terroristic threat’ against Jewish students, the Free Beacon’s Jon Levine reports. The staffer, Iman Abdul, was arrested in August 2025 after posting a Google Maps screenshot of the location of Leon M. Goldstein High School for the Sciences in Manhattan Beach. “If anyone needs a public school in NYC to attack for whatever reason … Lexus driving Israhell [sic] loving Zionisits [sic] all attend here,” she wrote in a caption to the now-deleted post. The public school is in a Brooklyn neighborhood with a large Jewish population. The school is 63 percent students of color, and 66 percent of the student body are “economically disadvantaged,” according to city records. There are also multiple Jewish schools in the area that serve high school students. Abdul, who went on to work as a youth organizer for Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, was promptly arrested by the NYPD and charged with making a “terroristic threat,” acting in a manner injurious to a child, aggravated harassment, and making a threat of mass harm. She pleaded guilty earlier this month to aggravated harassment as a hate crime but avoided jail time. Abdul was a paid canvasser for Barkan’s unsuccessful 2018 campaign for New York State Senate in Brooklyn—earning $540 between July and August of that year from Team Barkan, state campaign finance records show. Staff decisions were handled by Barkan’s campaign manager at the time—Mamdani. He “assembled Barkan’s field program from the ground up,” Michael Lange, a progressive chronicler and political operative, reported on his Substack, The Narrative Wars, in October 2024. “Mamdani’s decision to bring on Abdul tracks his history of elevating figures sympathetic to radical Islam. Mamdani’s chief counsel, Ramzi Kassem, represented al Qaeda members,” Levine writes. “Mamdani has also elevated Tamika Mallory, a disgraced former Women’s March founder and Nation of Islam apologist who has accused Jews of being responsible for slavery. Catherine Almonte Da Costa, Mamdani’s original director of appointments, was chased out of office after the Judge Street Journal surfaced old X posts of Da Costa complaining about ‘money hungry Jews.’” READ MORE: Mamdani Hired Staffer for His Friend’s Campaign Who Was Later Arrested for ‘Terroristic Threat’ Against Teenage ‘Lexus-Driving, Israel-Loving Zionists’ []{} Additional reading: Are the leaders of the Democratic Socialists of America “genuinely tapped into New Yorkers’ economic anxieties and connected to the working class?” No, as is made clear in a New York Times piece on DSA leader Gustavo Gordillo, who told the Times that he rents an apartment in Crown Heights only to “stop responding” after the New York Times reported that he lives in a rowhouse in a different Brooklyn neighborhood that his father purchased and that is undergoing $1 million in renovations. Another prominent New York City socialist, the left-wing wunderkind and Mamdani confidante Morris Katz, “allegedly stiffed his Brooklyn landlord for months — racking up $14,000 in unpaid rent — and left the Williamsburg pad stuffed with trash when his lease was up,” the New York Post reported. Maybe that’s what Mamdani means by “sewer socialism.” Florida Democrats elected a socialist, Angie Nixon, as their Senate nominee, and party leaders in the state aren’t handling it well: Florida Democratic Party chair Nikki Fried and Nixon “had a heated conversation Friday that included a yelling match about the impact of socialism and the challenges of campaigning in a red state like Florida,” Axios reported. The Council on American-Islamic Relations is quietly funding left-wing Democrat Abdul El-Sayed’s Senate bid in Michigan. Its political action arm gave $175,000 in July to the primary super PAC backing El-Sayed, Fighting for Michigan PAC. El-Sayed said his primary opponent, Haley Stevens, was backed by “foreign” forces after AIPAC spent to boost her campaign. The El-Sayed campaign did not respond to a request for comment about whether he is a tool of those same forces given that CAIR Action is supporting his candidacy. The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) still includes at least 120 names linked to Hamas and other terror factions on its widely cited list of “journalists” killed in Gaza, according to an independent audit of the organization’s database. Check out our full Monday lineup below. The New York Times Is Weaponizing Islamophobia Trump Admin Moves To Make Academic Freedom a Condition of Accreditation and Federal Aid Mamdani Hired Staffer for His Friend’s Campaign Who Was Later Arrested for ‘Terroristic Threat’ Against Teenage ‘Lexus-Driving, Israel-Loving Zionists’ Iowa Minister Running for Congress Said Sex Changes for Children Are ‘Medically Necessary,’ Backed Puberty Blockers and Gender Surgery for Minors El-Sayed Campaign Gets a $175,000 Boost From CAIR, Whose Leader Was ‘Happy’ About Oct. 7, After Alleging Primary Opponent’s AIPAC Support Constituted ‘Foreign’ Intervention in Election EXCLUSIVE: Committee to Protect Journalists Still Has Dozens of Violent Militants on Its List of ‘Journalists’ Slain in Gaza, 120 Names Have Terror Ties A Democrat’s Road to Disillusionment A Place for Healing Amid the Holocaust Marital Misconceptions REVIEW: ‘The Name of the Rose’ The Defense Never Rests Thanks for reading the Washington Free Beacon! 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