Not too many of those heroes seem to want to stand alongside Mamdani, however. More than 98,000 people — including many survivors and aggrieved family members — have signed a petition expressing “concern” that the mayor’s views and associations with terrorist sympathizers fail to show “respect for the victims, recognition of the gravity of the attacks, and a clear rejection of the ideologies that contributed to such violence.” Never mind that these are principles any respectful person, let alone the elected leader of our nation’s largest city, would honor without question. According to media reports, some family members have said they will not attend the ceremony if Mamdani is present.

The families have a point. It’s bad enough that Mamdani has repeatedly refused to condemn the incendiary phrase “globalize the intifada.” But his record on 9/11 only gets more dismal.

In October 2025, he stood with Brooklyn imam Siraj Wahhaj, whom the Justice Department named as an unindicted coconspirator in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing. He was never charged, but he served as a character witness for the convicted terrorist the Blind Sheikh. Wahhaj called him a “strong preacher of Islam.” Mamdani called Wahhaj a “pillar of the Bed-Stuy community.”

Mamdani blamed the US government for radicalizing Anwar al-Awlaki, an al Qaeda leader killed in Yemen in a strike ordered by Barack Obama, posting that FBI surveillance of al-Awlaki “eventually led him to #alqaeda.”

This year, Mamdani endorsed radical leftist congressional candidate Darializa Aria Chevalier, a fellow democratic socialist who organized with Columbia University’s Students for Justice in Palestine. She stood in front of the entrance to Hamilton Hall when pro-Palestine protestors took over the admin building. And she once gloated about using an American flag as a napkin.

Mamdani has also endorsed Aber Kawas, a democratic-socialist state senate candidate for Queens. Kawas called 9/11 a manifestation of “capitalism and racism and White supremacy.” She doesn’t think radical Muslims owe an apology for 9/11, but she does think Americans ought to issue an “apology or reparations for genocides and for slavery.”

Then there is Mamdani’s relationship with the odious podcaster Hasan Piker, an admirer of Mao Zedong and the Soviet Union who said “America deserved 9/11, dude.”

The mayor’s pick for city chief counsel, Ramzi Kassem, defended Ahmed al-Darbi, an al Qaeda operative who pleaded guilty for plotting to bomb an oil tanker. More recently, Kassem took on the case of Mahmoud Khalil, the Palestinian activist and spokesman for Columbia’s protests. In making the appointment, Mamdani praised Kassem for his “remarkable experience.”

Mamdani’s own dad, longtime Columbia professor Mahmood Mamdani, says suicide bombers should be considered “a category of soldier rather than condemned and stigmatized” as barbarians

But now, as the solemn 9/11 anniversary approaches, the real barbarism would be for Zohran Mamdani to showcase himself and his disgusting record on terrorism before the survivors and heroes of America’s greatest tragedy. If he cannot find the wisdom to stay home or skip town, he should be banned from attending.

Paul du Quenoy is president of the Palm Beach Freedom Institute.