New York City first lady Rama Duwaji has produced artwork for an olive oil brand that puts a celebrated plane attacker on its bottles and pumps anti-Israel slogans across its social feeds.
The Washington Free Beacon reported that Duwaji, a Brooklyn-based Syrian illustrator married to Mayor Zohran Mamdani, has created illustrations for Olive Odyssey since at least October 2025, including work tied to product pages that sell bottles for close to $100.
One offering, the Nazareth Picholine Cold Pressed Floral Harvest 2025, carries a hand-drawn portrait of Khalil Abu Osba, whom the company markets as a “Palestinian resistance fighter.” Family accounts credit him with shooting a British plane out of the sky, drawing a death sentence, escaping Acre prison, and becoming a lasting symbol the brand wants on grocery-shelf oil.
Olive Odyssey lists a U.S. address in Casper, Wyoming. Founder Aya Gazawi Faour, described as an Israeli citizen who lives in Haifa while calling the city part of “Palestine,” is credited with the bottle sketch and with approaching the family to commemorate Abu Osba on the label.
The company site introduces Duwaji in plain terms: “Rama Duwaji is a Syrian illustrator and animator based in Brooklyn. Her work explores sisterhood, closeness, and the subtle dynamics that shape our communities.” That soft bio sits beside product art and posts that treat armed attacks and rejectionist icons as heritage branding.
Lubna Abu-Osba, described as the granddaughter, celebrated the oil-label tribute in an Instagram reel the Free Beacon highlighted.
"She did a drawing of my grandfather, and she put it on a bottle of olive oil. And I could not be more honored that she did that, and that his legacy after 75 years is still in Palestine,"
An August 2019 post from Lubna laid out the family story the brand is selling:
"My grandfather, Khalil Ahmed Abu-Osba, he fought in the resistance and shot a British plane out of the sky with his rifle, he was sentenced to death, and imprisoned in Acre, he escaped with 3 other freedom fighters. He tried with all courage and might to #freepalestine. He was a #palestinianhero and looked d*** good doing it! #Inspiration,"
She added elsewhere, “He brings tears to my eyes!” The Free Beacon noted the accompanying image showed the grandfather brandishing a pistol. Independent confirmation of the plane incident beyond family and Arabic blog claims was not presented in the reporting.
Mayor Mamdani has faced repeated blowback over Israel rhetoric, including when his Oct. 7 anniversary comments drew fury for turning a day of mourning into another round of attacks on the Jewish state.
Olive Odyssey’s feeds do not hide the politics. A January 2026 company video featured farmer Basheer Al-Sous tying olives to blood sacrifice.
"The Palestinian person and the olive tree are one,"
He continued:
"Our fathers and grandfathers watered the tree and the land with their sweat, effort, and hard work, and the martyrs watered it with their blood."
A September 2025 TikTok from @olive.odyssey called for “strategic disruptions” in support of Gaza and shared the song “Libre Palestina,” including the line that the martyr’s blood is fragrant with cardamom and woe upon the oppressor. Another TikTok attacked the Jewish National Fund’s pine trees as “soldiers of the occupation” and a “silent colonizer.” An Instagram post framed foraging for za’atar as an “act of resistance.” A company blog post condemned “Israeli salad” as “food appropriation.”
In September 2024, an Olive Odyssey Instagram post referred to Israel as “the zionist state” and included the Arabic slogan “from the river to the sea.” Company accounts also displayed imagery of Israel as a skull with dead Palestinians in its teeth, the Free Beacon reported.
Those themes track a wider pattern around the mayor’s household, including coverage of how Israeli leaders across the spectrum condemned Mamdani’s “war criminal” attack on Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
In July 2024, Olive Odyssey marked the anniversary of Ghassan Kanafani’s death with a post that read:
"Ghassan Kanafani was a threat to the settler state cause he was shaping the minds and souls of countless palestinians in palestine but also around the world,"
The Free Beacon described Kanafani as a founder, political bureau member, and spokesman for the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, a group long designated a terrorist organization in the United States. The outlet recited the group’s record as reported: a 1968 El-Al hijacking; the September 1970 destruction of three jets and the taking of 40 hostages; and a cited role around the 1972 Lod Airport massacre that killed 26 people, including 17 Christian pilgrims from Puerto Rico. Kanafani was killed by Mossad in July 1972. The company post paired its praise with official PFLP poster imagery featuring skulls.
Kanafani’s own words, as quoted in the Free Beacon’s account of a 1971 interview, rejected “bourgeois moralism and obedience to international law” and compared talk of peace to “a conversation between the sword and the neck.”
Black September’s 1972 Munich Olympics attack on Israeli athletes appears in the same historical frame the outlet used to show what “resistance” branding actually recalls.
Duwaji’s Olive Odyssey work lands beside other choices already in the public record. The Free Beacon noted a prior report on old social media in which she honored female terrorists Leila Khaled and Shadia Abu Ghazaleh, posts later deleted. It also pointed to her role as artist-in-residence at a luxury Islamic women’s retreat that called for the abolition of Israel, celebrated Kanafani, and appears to partner with Olive Odyssey, the same retreat orbit detailed when the first lady joined that luxury Islamic retreat whose organizers pushed to abolish Israel.
Security friction has followed the household too. The NYPD refused to send officers with the mayor’s wife on travel to Syria and Lebanon, another sign that the family’s foreign ties are not abstract branding exercises.
Mamdani, for his part, recently rolled out a $30 million city program to combat antisemitism. That rollout now sits next to his wife’s paid creative work for a brand that sells “from the river to the sea,” lionizes a PFLP spokesman, and puts a celebrated plane attacker on cold-pressed oil aimed at American buyers.
Olive Odyssey markets itself as a path for Palestinian farmers to reach customers. The posts, the bottle portrait, the Kanafani tribute, the martyr lyrics, and the skull imagery show what else the brand moves with the oil. Duwaji’s illustrations help dress that project for a premium audience while her husband governs the largest Jewish city in the United States and touts an antisemitism initiative.
City Hall can fund task forces and press releases. Voters can still see whose faces end up on the bottle.
