NYC Taxpayers Forced to Bankroll Hamas-Linked Nonprofit After Terrorist Merchandise Scandal
New York City just handed $85,000 in taxpayer money to a Muslim nonprofit caught red-handed peddling Hamas propaganda and terror-glorifying merchandise—a brazen betrayal of public trust that exposes the dangerous infiltration of radical Islamic sympathies into America’s largest city government.
The Muslim American Society of Brooklyn and Staten Island scored the five-figure payday despite triggering outrage in January when vendors at its Brooklyn youth center hawked keychains, stickers, and trinkets celebrating Hamas, Hezbollah, and other designated terrorist organizations. Items featured the faces of dead terror kingpins Hassan Nasrallah and Yahya Sinwar, alongside chilling slogans like “Let’s go bomb Tel Aviv” and “Death to the IDF.”
This is your tax dollars at work under America’s first Muslim mayor.
The Council’s Capitulation
Democrat Councilwoman Kayla Santosuosso, representing Bay Ridge and southern Brooklyn, funneled $70,000 in discretionary funds to the organization. Fellow Democrat Alexa Avilés kicked in another $15,000. Both represent districts with substantial Muslim populations—a demographic reality that apparently trumps concerns about financing entities with demonstrable ties to terrorism advocacy.
The money is allegedly earmarked for “community safety, educational, youth-mentoring, cultural, and job-training programs.” One can only imagine what kind of “mentoring” occurs at a facility that hosted merchandise glorifying mass murderers.
Menin’s Toothless “Investigation”
City Council Speaker Julie Menin—the body’s first Jewish speaker—initially expressed “shock” at the terrorist swag scandal and promised to block $80,000 in pending funds while launching an investigation. That probe was apparently as rigorous as a TSA pat-down at a progressive city council meeting.
The Council’s Office of General Counsel conveniently “found no affiliation” between MAS and the vendor “Thrift For Gaza” that sold the controversial merchandise. This legal sleight-of-hand ignores the fundamental question: Why was a taxpayer-funded nonprofit hosting vendors peddling terrorist propaganda in the first place?
MAS leadership signed a letter promising “enhanced screening and prevention protocols” for future vendors—essentially a pinky-swear that they’ll try harder not to celebrate terrorists next time. The money flowed immediately after.
No apology. No condemnation of Hamas. Just a bureaucratic box-checking exercise that cleared the way for the cash transfer.
The Mamdani Connection
This funding debacle cannot be separated from the political earthquake that struck New York City in November: the election of socialist Zohran Mamdani as the city’s first Muslim mayor. The Muslim American Society’s fingerprints are all over his administration.
MAS-NY executive director Sherif Ahmed and Hannah Towfeik, political director at the organization’s youth center, served on Mamdani’s transition team—the group responsible for filling key City Hall positions. This is textbook political payback, with taxpayer funds serving as the currency.
The nonprofit’s New York leadership roster includes Abdullah Akl, a notorious pro-Hamas activist who grew up attending the very Brooklyn youth center that hosted the terrorist merchandise sale. Akl also organizes for Within Our Lifetime, a radical anti-Israel group that regularly calls for the elimination of the Jewish state.
This isn’t six degrees of separation from terrorism advocacy. This is one degree.
Follow The Money Trail
The $85,000 represents just the latest installment in a multi-year taxpayer subsidy scheme. Under former Council Speaker Adrienne Adams, MAS received $265,000 over three years—money that flowed with minimal scrutiny until the terrorist trinket scandal forced uncomfortable questions into the open.
Councilwoman Santosuosso’s ties to organizations serving Muslim constituencies run deep. She previously worked as deputy director of the Arab American Association of New York, which itself secured $124,500 in Council funds this fiscal year, including $5,000 from Santosuosso’s own discretionary pot.
The pattern is unmistakable: elected officials funneling public money to organizations within their political and ethnic networks, regardless of those groups’ associations with extremist ideology.
The Republican Response
Councilwoman Inna Vernikov, a staunch Zionist representing parts of Brooklyn, delivered the only principled response to this outrage.
“Funding nonprofits that appear to flat out support designated terrorist organizations and spread radical, Jew-hating propaganda is far beyond the pale and potentially illegal,” Vernikov stated. “These members must explain to the public why their taxpayer dollars should be given to America-hating jihadis, rather than so many other groups who have a legitimate purpose and actual needs.”
Her objection cuts to the heart of the matter: In a city with countless worthy organizations serving legitimate community needs, why is taxpayer money flowing to an entity that hosted a celebration of terrorism?
The answer lies in the toxic intersection of identity politics, political patronage, and the normalization of anti-Israel sentiment on the American left.
What The Merchandise Revealed
The January 18 event at MAS’s Brooklyn youth center wasn’t some rogue operation. It was called “Thrift4Sudan”—ostensibly a fundraiser for humanitarian relief. But the merchandise told the real story.
Vendors openly sold items featuring the logos of Hamas, Hezbollah, and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine—all designated terrorist organizations under U.S. law. Other products glorified recently killed terrorist leaders, turning mass murderers into martyrs and heroes.
This wasn’t a momentary lapse in judgment. This was an open celebration of groups responsible for the deaths of thousands of civilians, including hundreds of Americans.
The fact that such an event could occur at a facility receiving hundreds of thousands in taxpayer funding reveals either stunning incompetence or willful blindness by city oversight mechanisms.
The Larger Pattern
New York City’s capitulation to MAS represents a microcosm of a broader national crisis: the gradual acceptance of radical Islamic advocacy within mainstream Democratic politics.
From Congress members who minimize Hamas atrocities to city councils funding organizations with terror ties, the left has abandoned any pretense of moral clarity when it comes to Islamic extremism. The fear of being labeled “Islamophobic” has paralyzed rational policy-making.
Conservative principles demand something different: Equal treatment under the law, zero tolerance for terrorism advocacy, and absolute accountability for how taxpayer dollars are spent.
Any organization that hosts events celebrating designated terrorist groups should be immediately disqualified from public funding. Full stop. No investigations. No second chances. No bureaucratic mumbo-jumbo about “vendor relationships.”
The Way Forward
New Yorkers deserve answers to straightforward questions:
Why did Council leadership restore funding after such a superficial investigation? What specific “enhanced protocols” did MAS implement, and who is monitoring compliance? Have federal authorities examined whether this funding violates laws prohibiting material support for terrorism?
Republicans and principled Democrats must demand a complete audit of all discretionary funding to organizations with leadership ties to anti-Israel activism. Sunshine remains the best disinfectant for political corruption.
Mayor Mamdani’s administration must also face scrutiny over its deep entanglement with MAS leadership. The American people have a right to know whether foreign policy toward Israel and counterterrorism is being shaped by individuals with demonstrated sympathies toward terrorist organizations.
The stakes extend far beyond one nonprofit’s funding. This episode reveals how rapidly American cities can slide toward normalizing extremism when political correctness trumps common sense and ethnic bloc voting overpowers principle.
New York City once stood as a symbol of American resolve after the September 11 attacks. Today, it hands taxpayer money to organizations celebrating the ideological descendants of those who perpetrated that atrocity.
That transformation should alarm every American who values both fiscal responsibility and national security.
The question now is whether elected officials possess the courage to reverse course—or whether political expedience will continue funding America’s enemies with American dollars.
