Mamdani's Health Department Deploys Visuals From Lebanese Organization Tied to Alleged Foreign Influence
NYC Health Department used materials from Visualizing Palestine, an organization that appears to operate as a Lebanese entity with ties to alleged terror-affiliated groups
Employees of New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani's Department of Health held their first meeting of the "Global Oppression and Public Health Working Group" on February 3rd, according to reporting by the New York Post.
Further investigation by Jewish Onliner identified that the meeting featured visual materials produced by Visualizing Palestine, an organization that Jewish Onliner previously documented as operating as a Lebanese entity with ties to alleged terror-affiliated groups.
The organization's materials were deployed during an official government meeting held during working hours, underscoring concerns about foreign-funded narratives gaining influence in American public health institutions.
Government Resources Used to Promote Foreign Narratives
The meeting, held at the DOH headquarters in Long Island City during working hours and attended by staff both in-person and remotely, featured a presentation including graphics titled “Six Wars Old: Sixteen Years of Childhood in Gaza,” credited to Visualizing Palestine.
According to a video reviewed by the New York Post, organizers stated the working group “developed in response to the ongoing genocide in Palestine,” framing the organization’s stated mission around foreign policy rather than public health priorities affecting New Yorkers.
The initiative, which received circulation among DOH staff through flyers posted near department elevators, reflects a troubling pattern of government agencies promoting materials from organizations with questionable operational transparency and foreign financial connections.
Weeam Hammoudeh, a professor at Hunter College and committee member for the Palestine Global Mental Health Network, served as one of the presenters at the meeting. During her remarks, Hammoudeh accused Israel of treating Palestinians as second-class citizens.
Further research by Jewish Onliner identified that Hammoudeh is also listed as an Assistant Professor at Birzeit University's Institute of Community and Public Health, a West Bank-based institution that multiple outlets have documented maintains longstanding ties to Hamas and other terrorist groups.
The 1.6 billion dollar agency, which employs over 7,000 people and serves more than 8 million New Yorkers, appeared to diverge sharply from its core mission of protecting public health and preventing disease.
Investigation Reveals Alleged Foreign Connections
Jewish Onliner's investigative reporting into Visualizing Palestine's operations documented that the organization, despite maintaining American 501(c)(3) tax-exempt nonprofit status, operates with significant ties to Lebanon, Jordan, and other Middle Eastern actors.
The parent organization, Visualizing Impact, maintains staff in Beirut, Amman, Ramallah, and Dubai, with staff listings describing the organization’s primary base as Beirut.
Tax filings from the George Soros Open Society Foundations, which donated over $200,000 to the organization between 2015 and 2018, explicitly listed a Beirut address for Visualizing Palestine’s parent entity.
Following Jewish Onliner’s original report just over a year ago, the organization appears to have removed its staff directory from its website, an apparent effort to obscure its international operational structure.
Ties to Alleged Terror-Affiliated Groups
Visualizing Palestine maintains documented collaborations with organizations designated as terrorist entities by multiple governments. The group has collaborated with Al Haq, an organization Israel designated as a terror group and was sanctioned by the U.S. Department of State.
Findings from NGO Monitor documented that Visualizing Palestine previously collaborated with Samidoun, which the U.S. Treasury Department designated as a terror organization in October 2024.
Additionally, Visualizing Palestine has collaborated with Al Mezan, which has alleged ties to Hamas and the PFLP terror group, and was also sanctioned by the U.S.
Ryan Mauro, an investigative researcher for the Capital Research Center, characterized Visualizing Palestine as “a hostile, deliberately deceptive, foreign influence operation targeting Americans to benefit anti-American terrorist groups,” calling it “a non-violent attack on the U.S.” that may violate FARA regulations.
Visualizing Palestine’s Promotion of Mamdani
Visualizing Palestine has actively promoted Mayor Mamdani’s anti-Israel political agenda since his candidacy. In September 2025, the organization amplified Mamdani’s campaign pledge to divest New York City pension funds from Israeli bonds. The organization promoted its own materials highlighting similar divestment efforts by activists in other states.
Following Mamdani’s inauguration as mayor in January 2026, Visualizing Palestine celebrated his reversal of measures restricting anti-Israel boycott campaigns within city government. The organization directed its audience to its interactive platforms showcasing the role of boycott, divestment, and sanctions (BDS) campaigns.
Problematic Content and Documented Factual Distortions
Jewish Onliner’s reporting has identified numerous instances where Visualizing Palestine’s infographics present demonstrably false or distorted information while maintaining the appearance of objective data visualization.
The organization has made claims that Palestine existed as a sovereign state in 1882 when it was part of the British Mandate, asserted that Palestinians carry Israeli-made identification documents when they actually carry Palestinian Authority-issued IDs and passports, and alleged that Israel denies cancer care, despite Israeli hospitals providing medical services annually to thousands of Palestinians, including specialty care.
Pattern of Systemic Influence in American Education
The NYC Department of Health’s use of Visualizing Palestine materials follows a concerning pattern documented by Jewish Onliner: the organization’s systematic efforts to infiltrate American educational institutions. New York University’s Hagop Kevorkian Center is offering graduate-level academic credit for a spring 2026 workshop led by Visualizing Palestine, making it the “Practitioner-In-Residence” and teaching PhD consortium students across New York City universities.
The course, titled “Data Storytelling in Practice,” promises to teach students Visualizing Palestine’s “approach to data literacy when researching and visualizing topics such as settler-colonialism, military occupation, and genocide.”
Students enrolling in the workshop must take it for academic credit, meaning American graduate students are receiving instruction from an apparent foreign-linked organization as part of their doctoral education.
The DOH’s use of Visualizing Palestine materials reflects a growing concern about foreign-linked organizations gaining influence in American institutions. The newly inaugurated Trump administration has prioritized investigating foreign interference in American policy and public opinion. Recent revelations of foreign interference in K-12 education from China and Qatar have amplified these concerns.
The propaganda poster on apartheid...that's not apartheid. Example of apartheid is when under Islamic rule Jews and non Muslims had dhimmi status, are taxed differently, or when in Syria non Muslims and Druze are not free to celebrate their faith or participate in elections.
The poster on apartheid is a set of lies and twisted narratives to obscure the real agenda - which is to restore their Caliphate. It is to reclaim pan Islamic imperialism in Levant.
Isn’t a Lebanese organization foreign influence itself, by definition, everywhere but Lebanon?