BY JACK DELANEY | jdelaney@queensledger.com
Aber Kawas always knew that the system needed changing.
Kawas, 34, is running for state Senate in western Queens’ District 12, which includes parts of Astoria, Sunnyside, Woodside, Ridgewood, Maspeth, Long Island City, Elmhurst, Glendale, and Jackson Heights. But while this is her first campaign, the roots of her platform run deep.
The daughter of Palestinian immigrants who emigrated from Jordan, Kawas grew up in Bensonhurst amid the post-9/11 wave of institutionalized Islamophobia. Her father was deported when she was 16, spurring an early interest in organizing. Later, while attending City College, fellow students would jokingly open Know Your Rights workshops by welcoming “the informant in the room.” There was more than a seed of truth to that, as it turned out: When it was revealed in 2011 that the NYPD had surveilled Muslim students since at least 2002, Kawas found her college crush on the list of spies. “It was a really bizarre, hard time for us,” she recalled.
That revelation fueled Kawas’ passion for civil rights and advocacy work. After joining a student campaign to oust then-NYPD Commissioner Raymond Kelly, she interned at the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) in a tumultuous and hopeful moment that also saw the rise of the Occupy Wall Street movement and organizing by Black and Latino New Yorkers against the practice of stop-and-frisk.
But Kawas’ arc towards electoral politics came gradually. “I used to look at elected officials and think, they get bogged down with the minutiae of it all,” she explained at a recent roundtable. Yet in 2016, while working for the Arab American Association of New York, Kawas started volunteering for a City Council candidate whose office in Bay Ridge was just across the street from hers: Father Khader El-Yateem, a progressive Lutheran pastor of Palestinian heritage who was running to become the city’s first Arab American council member.
Though El-Yateem’s bid was ultimately unsuccessful, it was a formative experience for Kawas and many others. “For the first time in their history,” she wrote shortly after his defeat, “the [Arab American] community rose up in the thousands to participate in a strategic electoral process that would have spoken for the silenced.” Inspired, Kawas met with another of El-Yateem’s canvassers — ever heard of Zohran Mamdani? — and began collaborating with him on drafting the text of the “Not On Our Dime” bill, a state-level proposal that would have restricted tax perks for New York nonprofits that send money to Israeli settlers.
Now, following a four-year study abroad program in South Africa during which she maintained legal residence in New York City, Kawas is looking to support her erstwhile co-writer again — this time from Albany, where she hopes to secure the funds needed for policies like abolishing bus fares and establishing universal healthcare.
“New York State is such a stagnant entity,” said Kawas. “It’s really hard to make changes: when people propose bills, it takes years to pass, and even when they pass it takes years to implement them. I just think it really needs to be shaken up.”
Kawas, a member of the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) who moved to western Queens in 2024, initially filed to run for Assembly District 34 last year, picking up the group’s coveted endorsement. But Brian Romero, also a DSA member, pledged to continue campaigning for the same seat anyway with the surprise backing of Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, teeing up what would have been a messy friendly-fire contest.
So when longtime state Senator Mike Giannaris announced his retirement after 15 years, leaving District 12 vacant, Kawas shifted plans. For all the twists and turns of the race, however, the basic arithmetic hasn’t changed: Kawas will now face another democratic socialist in second-term Assemblymember Steven Raga, a former director of Woodside on the Move who touts a similarly progressive platform.
For her part, Kawas maintains that her decision was influenced by her respect for Giannaris, who she said encouraged her to run: “It’s a very western Queens thing, right? The community here is great because they care so much,” she noted. “It’s hard to run here, but it’s also great because you do feel like everyone is very connected. Whoever does come in, the relationships will be intact, and people are really invested in making sure that the community continues to thrive and grow.”
As the June 23 primary approaches, Kawas is pounding the pavement — even courting soccer fans with a recent Astoria watch party for the game between Manchester City and Arsenal — as she pitches voters on lowering utility bills, shielding families from ICE, and expanding mental health response teams.
In a head-to-head duel between progressives, Kawas has also garnered endorsements from socialist rising stars like Councilmembers Tiffany Cabán and Chi Ossé, plus those of advocacy groups ranging from Churches United for Fair Housing to Jewish Voices for Peace — and, of course, the blessing of now-Mayor Mamdani.
“We need to bring in a movement of people who are going to be part of the force that is sweeping the entire nation,” said Kawas. “People who who want more from their government, who want dignified lives — lives that they can afford, where they can see a future ahead of them.”
