Darializa Avila Chevalier, a democratic socialist who won her New York City primary, was a member of an organization that called for the destruction of Western civilization. Image via X.

Another democratic socialist, pro-Palestine, pro-Iran candidate has won in New York City. Unlike Mamdani, she is more candid. Her organization openly states that it seeks the destruction of Western civilization.

Darializa Avila Chevalier, 32, defeated five-term incumbent Adriano Espaillat, 71, chairman of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus, in the Democratic primary for NY-13 on June 23. A Columbia University alumna, Muslim, and current PhD candidate at CUNY, Avila Chevalier is a member of the NYC Democratic Socialists of America, endorsed by UAW Region 9A and Mayor Zohran Mamdani, and advances to the November general election in what is a safe Democratic seat.

Avila Chevalier was an active member of CUAD (Columbia University Apartheid Divest) from its founding in 2016, helping design the organization’s logo and promote its BDS campaign alongside Mahmoud Khalil. CUAD is a coalition of more than 100 student organizations that has described itself as “Westerners fighting for the total eradication of Western civilization,” a statement that neither CUAD nor its member organizations have publicly retracted.

In December 2023, CUAD submitted a divestment proposal signed by 89 student groups, demanding that Columbia University withdraw financial support from Israel and divest from companies it claimed were complicit in Israeli “genocide,” “war crimes,” and “apartheid,” including Boeing, Lockheed Martin, Amazon, Google, Microsoft, and Barclays. The proposal was broad enough to encompass BlackRock, whose exchange-traded funds hold shares in nearly every publicly traded company.

CUAD also called on Columbia to close its Tel Aviv satellite campus and end its dual-degree program with Tel Aviv University. Columbia’s Advisory Committee on Socially Responsible Investing rejected the proposal.

In April 2024, CUAD established an activist encampment on Columbia University’s campus, occupying part of the university grounds for several weeks. The protests ultimately led to approximately 109 arrests when the NYPD cleared the campus.

In October 2024, CUAD retracted an earlier apology for a member’s statement that “Zionists don’t deserve to live,” declaring instead that the group supports “liberation by any means necessary, including armed resistance” and that “violence is the only path forward.”

Mohsen Mahdawi co-founded Columbia’s Palestinian Student Union with Khalil and was an active participant in CUAD’s protests before stepping back in early 2024. Both are Palestinian permanent residents arrested by ICE under a provision of the Immigration and Nationality Act invoked by Secretary of State Marco Rubio, allowing deportation of non-citizens whose presence poses “adverse foreign policy consequences” to the United States.

An immigration judge additionally ruled Khalil deportable on the grounds that he omitted organizational affiliations from his green card application. Both face deportation orders and are currently appealing in federal court.

In 2014, while a student at Columbia University, Avila Chevalier publicly supported Rasmea Odeh, posting “Help Rasmea come home!” on Facebook and helping raise money for her bail during her U.S. immigration fraud trial in Detroit. According to Canary Mission, she promoted Odeh’s cause through social media and activist networks.

Odeh was a member of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) and was convicted by an Israeli court in 1970 for her role in a 1969 Jerusalem supermarket bombing that killed two Hebrew University students, Leon Kanner and Edward Joffe. She served ten years in prison before being released in a prisoner exchange. In 2014, a U.S. federal jury convicted Odeh of immigration fraud for concealing her conviction when applying for U.S. citizenship. She was deported to Jordan in 2017.

Prior to the primary, CNN’s KFile uncovered more than 3,600 posts and reposts from a since-deleted Twitter account active between 2018 and 2022, in which Avila Chevalier called for abolishing police, prisons, and borders; advocated nationalizing utilities, hospitals, and pharmaceutical companies; called for seizing all private property from landlords; and reposted content questioning Israel’s right to exist. She acknowledged the posts but said they no longer reflect her views. Her own website, however, refers to ICE arrests as “kidnapping.”

Avila Chevalier also attended a pro-Palestinian rally in Times Square on October 8, 2023 — the day after Hamas killed approximately 1,200 Israelis. The rally was widely condemned by elected officials. Fellow Mamdani-endorsed candidate Brad Lander resigned his DSA membership over the organization’s promotion of the event. Avila Chevalier said she went to protest what she called an anticipated “outsized reaction” to the attack.

The Broadway Democrats, a left-wing Manhattan political club that endorsed Mamdani, declined to endorse Avila Chevalier, stating that at their endorsement meeting she “point-blank refused” to condemn Hamas or the October 7 attacks, “turning the question into yet another attack on Israel.”

On March 6, 2026, Avila Chevalier attended Friday prayers at the Al-Khoei Islamic Center in Queens, where she told congregants that Espaillat was “bought by the Israeli lobby to stay silent.” During that same service, the imam prayed for the Mahdi to kill the infidels by his sword. The Al-Khoei Foundation has maintained financial ties with the Alavi Foundation, which U.S. federal courts and prosecutors have identified as a front for the Iranian government and its state-owned Bank Melli. Mayor Mamdani also attended Friday prayers at the same mosque.

Mamdani and Avila Chevalier appear to be the tip of the spear, the beginning of a new wave of ultra-liberal, socialist, and Islamist-aligned politicians in New York. On the same night she defeated Espaillat, two other Mamdani-endorsed candidates won their primaries.

Claire Valdez won in NY-7. A DSA member, she has called for abolishing ICE and ending all U.S. military aid to Israel. Brad Lander won in NY-10, defeating a two-term incumbent, and has said he hopes to partner in Congress with Rashida Tlaib and Ilhan Omar. All three districts are safe Democratic seats, making it likely that all three will win in November.

The DSA also picked up at least six seats in the New York state legislature while fielding its largest-ever slate of candidates. Avila Chevalier’s win is not a single protest vote in a single district. It is part of a coordinated, expanding movement that now controls New York City’s mayoralty, is entering Congress in force, and is remaking the Democratic Party from within.

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