New York City first lady Rama Duwaji called Palestinian painter Sliman Mansour her inspiration after he branded Anne Frank’s diary a hoax, shared Hitler’s art, and hailed Hamas founders.
In an April 2024 video, Duwaji animated a portrait of Mansour and cast him as the model for her own work. The Syrian illustrator and animator, based in Brooklyn and married to Mayor Zohran Mamdani, spoke directly to camera while a banner reading “Artists Against Apartheid: Palestine Will Be Free” hung behind her.
Washington Free Beacon reported the first lady’s tribute and the long public record Mansour left behind before his death in August. That record includes praise for Hamas founders, a claim that Anne Frank’s diary was invented, a shared Hitler painting, and posts timed to the Oct. 7 attack and later killings of terror leaders.
Duwaji did not treat Mansour as a distant historical figure. She called him central to her art.
"Hi, I'm Rama, a Syrian illustrator and animator based in Brooklyn, and today I'm going to be animating a portrait of Sliman Mansour, who is a painter and sculptor that's inspired the work that I do. Sliman is an artist of the Intifada."
She added that his paintings captured “the Palestinian experience under occupation” and said she had “always really inspired by the emotion behind his portraits.” She also told viewers he had been “jailed twice since the start of his career” and had inspired many artists after him, “including myself.”
Mansour’s own posts and interviews supply the rest of the picture.
In November 2017, Mansour labeled Hamas founders Ahmed Yassin and Abdul Aziz Al-Rantasi “great heroes.” Both men directed terror attacks against civilians. Israeli airstrikes killed them in 2004.
Hours after the Oct. 7 attack that killed more than 1,200 Israelis, Mansour posted an image of his painting “Rising,” which shows a fighter with a gun. Comments under the post called the timing “beautiful.”
On Oct. 17 he shared an image of Ghassan Kanafani, founder of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, a longtime U.S.-designated terrorist organization. Mansour added his own line: “The struggle has no end.”
In 2021, a reinterpretation of Mansour’s work appeared as the backdrop at a Gaza press conference held by Yahya Sinwar. Sinwar used the stage to restate Hamas ideology and thank Iran for money, weapons, and support. Mansour later told Al Jazeera he was pleased.
"They didn't put the face of a politician, but rather the face of a young resistance fighter who has become the future in the eyes of Palestinians, the resistance fighter who carries Jerusalem on his back."
He said using icons that way was “legitimate” and “didn’t bother him at all.”
An NPR interview after his death recorded Mansour saying he “participated in the first intifada,” throwing stones “and whatever.” In 2025 he stated Palestinians had a right to “armed resistance.” The second intifada left more than a thousand Israelis dead, mostly civilians.
In February 2016 Mansour posted that Anne Frank’s diary was fake.
"The diaries 'I am Frank' that they made the world famous finally turned out to be the invention of an American Jewish writer."
He liked a top comment that attacked “the Jewish mind” for “setting up, cheating, making profits” and called the diary “a forgery, a fantasy, and a deception” aimed at “material, more money, and control.”
In September 2015 he shared a painting by Adolf Hitler and later called the Nazi dictator a “technically proficient artist.” He liked a comment that read, “May God have mercy on you... oh Muhammad Hitler... you were a natural Muslim Daesh.”
In November 2016 he accused Hillary Clinton of donating money to ISIS. On July 31, 2024, the day Israel killed Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh in Iran, Mansour posted his painting “Abu Jihad.” After Hassan Nasrallah’s death he posted “The Martyr.” He also met the widow and daughter of Walid Daqqa, who had been sentenced to life for killing an Israeli soldier and died in Israeli prison in April 2024.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan singled Mansour out for praise when the artist received the Necip Fazıl Award in Istanbul in March 2025. The award is named for a figure who produced a Turkish translation of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion. Mansour’s work has also appeared at the Tehran Museum of Contemporary Art. Yasser Arafat earlier honored him. In 1980 the Palestine Martyrs Works Society published one of his pieces; that group oversaw payments to families of Palestinians killed while committing terrorist attacks. In 1981 he was arrested for taking photographs in a military area.
The Free Beacon account places Duwaji’s Mansour tribute alongside other choices. She liked posts that framed the Oct. 7 attack as legitimate resistance and a post that called reports of Hamas sexual violence a “mass rape hoax.” She previously used the N-word and publicly apologized. She was photographed at Gracie Mansion serving food to Mahmoud Khalil, an organizer of anti-Israel protests at Columbia University.
Earlier Free Beacon reporting noted her work for an olive oil company that promotes Palestinian terrorism and whose farmers have bragged that olive groves are watered in “martyrs’ blood.” She also served as artist in residence at a luxury Islamic women’s retreat in Portugal that has called for the destruction of Israel and for Jewish “oppressors” to be “cleansed.”
Mamdani has described his wife as a “private person.” The video, the studio banner, the liked posts, and the guest list are public.
Mansour’s career mixed gallery recognition with open celebration of people and groups that murder civilians. Duwaji chose that career as the one that “inspired the work that I do” and labeled him an “artist of the Intifada” while holding the title of first lady of New York City.
Voters can decide whether that choice reflects private taste or public values. The posts, the praise for Yassin and Al-Rantasi, the Anne Frank claim, and the Hitler painting are not ambiguous.
A first lady who elevates a man who erased Holocaust testimony and lionized the founders of a terror movement tells New York exactly whose stories she wants remembered.
