Mohsen Mahdawi has America eating out of the palm of his hand. The media is salivating for his byline. The camera can’t keep away from his face. Politicians are pretending to be pop stars, shouting into microphones to praise his release on bail.

This is despite the fact that the one available court document shows him being questioned by the FBI for allegedly saying he liked to “kill Jews.” And despite him repeatedly lying about multiple elements of his backstory since 2015, nobody seems to be questioning his version.

Well, we have caught him lying again.

The NYT and the Mohsen Mahdawi back peddle

This latest lie comes in a New York Times ‘guest essay’, penned by Mohsen, that was posted just yesterday.

The difference is – as Mohsen scrambles and back peddles to try to get himself out of trouble because of his collapsing pyramid of lies – he is only digging a deeper hole for himself. In fact – we are now in a position where we can PROVE Mohsen has been lying about his childhood trauma – and all of the material needed to do so – is Mohsen in his own words.

Mohsen’s story begins to collapse

On Friday, the New York Times published a guest essay from Mohsen and the only thing the Grey Lady confirmed with this story was their willingness to publish utter nonsense.

Mohsen’s entire story hinges on two key events: the death of his best friend and the death of his uncle Thayer. These are the two traumatic events that Mohsen has repeated constantly for years – and used to gain credibility and legitimacy as he worked his way into Vermont hearts.

As anyone who reads this research would know, I had shown a major problem with one of those events. Mohsen Mahdawi had said he was ten years old when his best friend was killed – and yet NO CHILDREN were killed in his camp at that time. This made Mohsen’s statement impossible.

Yet Mohsen repeated the 10-year-old line every time he touched on the subject — and this fiction went unchallenged and unchecked all the way through until the end of 2023.

In December 2023 – Mohsen appeared on 60 Minutes – and as part of his fictional but well-worn story – once again claimed he was 10 when the tragedy happened. The trouble was – that it appeared the 60 Minutes fact-checkers had stumbled on the detail that no children died in his camp at that time. Realising that the only child who had died had been killed in 2002 (although not from being shot, as Mohsen had claimed) the narrator of the interview placed the year as 2002.

And Sixty Minutes went out with that glaring error. The narrator says the event happened in 2002 – and 20 seconds later – Mohsen said he was ten years old when it did. Only one of those can be accurate.

Mohsen wakes up

It is likely that Mohsen watched himself on the clip and realised there was a problem. Because three months later he delivered a lecture to a class in Santa Barbara, California and during the speech he acknowledges there had been a mix-up with the dates, and moves the goalposts – now claiming the tragedy happened when he was 12.

One could try to excuse this mix up as confusion from childhood trauma. I would argue that NOBODY would ever forget how old one was when witnessing one’s best friend being murdered and then burying them ‘with your bare hands’ – but whatever the reason, he just changed his age from 10 to 12. 

But we are not finished with this story.

Nailing the dates

After his arrest I published the results of my research – exposing all of these lies (and more) in full detail. My post on X went viral and was no doubt seen by Mohsen and his defenders. At this point it is likely he would then have been aware of the precise dates of the single 2002 killing (of a child) he needed to associate himself with. Which leads us to his release and the NYT article. Now knowing that the 2002 death occurred in June 2002 – Mohsen would have known he would have to have been 11 at the time. And sure enough, in the NYT guest essay he penned Friday, May 2, 2025, Mohsen changes his age once again:

And that would be that. Mohsen had made up a story – and been able to rescue himself by altering his age (twice) until it fit with the timeline of the killing of that child. Understandable, if not for the clear facts and Mohsen’s own words — about his uncle — in the New York Times itself.

Mohsen’s uncle and a web of Mohsen’s own making

Mohsen’s uncle provides the second of the major stories Mohsen relies upon. When trying to explain how Mohsen turned from a life of a terrorist (because so many of his family members are terrorists) he describes in the New York Times a conversation he had with his uncle – in which his uncle told him his only escape was to turn to education. 

This conversation is another pillar in the Mohsen backstory. One he repeats at every opportunity.

And here is where it gets very sticky for Mohsen. Mohsen’s uncle was (a terrorist) shot on Mohsen’s 11th birthday – on September 12, 2001. This date has been confirmed via the B’tselem database.

Catching himself with his own lies

We know Mohsen’s uncle died in September 2001 – and as he tells the story Mohsen added another detail that fully exposes himself as the liar he is. He states that when he sat with is uncle – he did so by the grave of his best friend. Don’t believe me? Let the previous NYT article on Mohsen lay it out for you:

Mohsen’s uncle died on Mohsen’s 11th birthday. So Mohsen must have been 10 when that conversation happened. And 10 when his best friend died. Yet we know that was impossible as no child had been killed at the time. 

So if Mohsen was 11, as he claims today, when his best friend was murdered by snipers (another thing that never happened in his camp) — how did he sit at the grave with his uncle and have a conversation?

Busted.

 No child died the way Mohsen claims his best friend did. No child died when he was 10 or 11. His uncle died smack in the middle of his story — making his most recent NYT revisionist version another impossible tale. One the NYT should have picked up on – because the lies in the latest article are exposed by the article they published just a few weeks before. 

 The lies in print

And yet it’s in print for everyone in America to read over their morning coffee. The New York Times should, at the very least, be doing some fact checking. Laying off the majority of the newsroom staff is not an excuse for shoddy journalism. And don’t even get me started on letting Mohsen quote already-debunked Hamas casualty counts and the Lancet’s article’s libel about fictitious deaths.

There are many allegations and statements out there about him, but we know for sure that Mohsen Mahdawi fabricates and lies about his background, almost at will — something, perhaps, people should bear in mind when considering his denial of ever saying anything about “kill[ing] Jews” in 2015.

Help me fight back against the antisemitism and the lies

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