A lawyer who defended Mahmoud Khalil and an al Qaeda terrorist is said to be incoming NYC mayor Zohran Mamdani's pick for the role of Chief Counsel, according to multiple reports, including The New York Post.
Chief Counsel is the most important advisory role in the mayoral administration. It may go to Ramzi Kassem, a law professor at City University of New York (CUNY), who is already a member of Mamdani's legal transition team.
Syrian-born Kassem has served as the lawyer for multiple problematic individuals, including a close ally of Osama Bin Laden, Ahmed al-Darbi, convicted of bombing a French oil tanker. He also represented Khalil, a prominent pro-Palestinian encampment leader, in his deportation case. While at Columbia, Kassem himself was an anti-Israel activist and lobbied the school to rename an “Israeli wrap” offered in the dining hall, arguing it was offensive to Muslims. He also spent a lot of time at Columbia writing "scathing criticisms" of Israel, a Washington Free Beacon review found. This included accusations of ethnic cleansing and genocide.
These articles date back to 1998. In one article in the Columbia Spectator in 1998, he wrote that Israel is "a clear-cut case of ethnic cleansing." In another, titled "Zionism Impedes Middle Eastern Peace," Kassem claimed European Jews came to the Middle East "with the intention of conquering the land."
In another op-ed, he said, “Some Palestinians resort to terrorism for many of the same reasons that people from various backgrounds have in the past: namely, despair and much endured suffering."
Claims Israel has no right to defend Jews from Nablus terror attacks
While at Columbia, he also co-founded Turath, an association of Muslim students, described by a fellow student as having brought “under the guidance of Mr. Kassem… speakers to this campus that support violence against American and Israeli civilians… defended the genocidal program of Hamas.”
In a Spectator piece in 2000, Kassem claimed that Israel has no right to defend Jews from terror attacks in Nablus: "The fact that Israel has no internationally recognized right to be there in the first place is conveniently omitted, and never mind that the citizens in question happen to be illegal settlers armed to the teeth by the Israeli military and heavily subsidized by their government."
He is the founder of CLEAR, a CUNY program offering free legal representation and support to Muslims in the New York City area and beyond, who are "targeted by the government."
Additionally, Kassem has downplayed the 9/11 attacks, writing in a September 2001 article that the attackers were not evil, but felt "resentment towards the United States rooted in political realities shaped by our country's policies."
"The perpetrators were probably not driven to their actions by some intrinsic evil or inherent hatred of the good United States. These acts of violence were gratuitous only in the sense that they wantonly and indiscriminately targeted innocent civilians," Kassem claimed.
Kassem also helped lead Within Our Lifetime's “Emergency Session: A Survival Guide to Arrests and Jail Support" while serving as a Senior Policy Advisor at the White House. WOL is a pro-Hamas group that has called for death to Jews.
“Kassem’s appointment to corp counsel wouldn’t sit well with the Jewish community,” Ken Frydman, a Democratic political operative, told the NY Post.