New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani has said Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu could be arrested if he comes to the city to attend the UN General Assembly session in September. Mamdani said his office was still considering the matter.
Speaking on The New York Times podcast “The Interview,” Mamdani — New York City’s first Muslim and South Asian-origin mayor — said his administration’s legal department was actively discussing Netanyahu’s possible arrest, a step he had promised during his election campaign. “I believe Prime Minister Netanyahu’s place is in The Hague. He is a war criminal. The International Criminal Court has brought charges against him,” Mamdani said. “And you will see that many people agree with this simply because of what has happened over the past few years as a result of his actions.”
Asked whether the law allowed him to do such a thing, Mamdani said: “This is under discussion with our legal department. But what we have seen at the national level is a tendency to sometimes make one’s own law and cross the limits of the law. We have no interest in anything like that.”
The International Criminal Court (ICC) issued arrest warrants against Netanyahu and another Israeli leader in 2024, accusing them of war crimes in Gaza. Current US President Donald Trump and former President Joe Biden have condemned the ICC warrants. Mamdani is a strong critic of the Israeli government and has repeatedly condemned Israel’s war in Gaza as ethnic cleansing, a charge Israel denies. On Saturday, the US ambassador to the UN, Mike Waltz, dismissed Mamdani’s comments as “pure political theatre,” saying the United States is not a member of the ICC. Speaking to WABC radio host Sid Rosenberg earlier in the week, Netanyahu said he was not at all worried about the New York mayor’s remarks over a possible arrest. Israel’s ambassador to the UN, Danny Danon, also said on social media on Saturday: “Netanyahu will come to New York, proudly address the UN General Assembly, and stand before the world to present Israel’s truth and its unshakeable right to protect its citizens.”
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