New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani acknowledged on Tuesday that he lacks the authority to follow through on his threat to arrest Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu during his visit to the city for the UN General Assembly in September.
Still, in a video posted to social media, Mamdani continued to attack Netanyahu as a “war criminal", claimed he is the “architect of a horrific genocide against the Palestinian people" and urged the federal government to act to arrest him by joining the International Criminal Court (ICC) which issued an arrest warrant against Netanyahu.
“There is a reason the International Criminal Court issued a warrant for [Netanyahu’s] arrest. As human beings, we have spent generations building a shared understanding that there are crimes so grave they offend all of humanity. Anyone, with their eyes, with their heart, with their conscience, should recognize the devastation he has wrought and understand that he belongs before a court of law," Mamdani charged in the video.
“As I've said, I agree with the ICC that Benjamin Netanyahu should be arrested and tried for his crimes, as I do for anyone else charged by the ICC. My administration has reviewed every avenue available, under applicable law, to determine whether New York City could execute the International Criminal Court's arrest warrant if Benjamin Netanyahu came here. It is clear that we do not have the independent legal authority to enforce this warrant," he admitted.
The Mayor continued, “The federal government, however, does. And I call on them to join the ICC and execute this warrant. And I want to be equally clear: Benjamin Netanyahu is not welcome in New York City, nor is any other war criminal. While we cannot end the genocide on our own, we can decide whether our silence will become another weapon, and we can examine every tool we have to defend the humanity and dignity of all people."
Mamdani recently told The New York Times in an interview that he is exploring options to take Netanyahu into custody over the ICC warrant linked to the war against Hamas in Gaza.
The Prime Minister's Office issued a scathing response to the mayor's comments: "The ICC is a kangaroo court that has no jurisdiction over Americans or Israelis. Its bogus arrest warrant against Prime Minister Netanyahu was issued by a disgraced former ICC Prosecutor, Karim Khan, a few days before allegations of sexual misconduct against him became public. It was a clear attempt by Khan to divert public attention and seek protection from scrutiny."
"Under Prime Minister Netanyahu's leadership, Israel has taken unprecedented wartime measures to minimize harm to civilians while confronting Hamas, a genocidal terrorist organization that uses Palestinians as human shields and deliberately targets innocent Israeli civilians," the office clarified.
"Instead of backing Khan's criminal behaviour, Mr. Mamdani should focus on fixing the damage his policies have caused New York. Like Karim Khan, Mamdani appears interested in diverting public attention from his follies and attacking the leader of the Jewish state and the only democracy in the Middle East," the statement concluded.
President Donald Trump weighed in on the issue on Monday via Truth Social, writing that Netanyahu “will not be arrested, in any way, shape or form, while in the United States of America."
According to Trump, Netanyahu is "fighting against the Islamic Republic of Iran, which recently killed 52,000 innocent protestors, and has spent the last 47 years killing American Soldiers, and others."
He further insisted that "the only ones that should be arrested are the people that led Iran into this unprecedented SPIRAL OF DEATH AND DESTRUCTION, something that should have been dealt with years ago, by previous Presidents!"