The mayor of New York, Zohran Mamdani, is once again fueling the political and legal conflict around Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. In an interview with New York Timesthe mayor said that his administration is evaluating whether there are legal grounds for ordering the arrest of the Israeli leader if he travels to New York, as planned, to participate in the United Nations General Assembly scheduled for September.
The attack: “The Israeli prime minister is a war criminal”
Mamdani explained that he has begun “an active dialogue” with the city’s legal department to understand whether the mayor has the authority to order the New York Police Department (NYPD) to arrest a foreign head of government. While he acknowledged he does not know whether such power exists, he reiterated that the administration will act within the bounds of the law.
“I believe that Prime Minister Netanyahu should be tried in The Hague,” the mayor said, adding that the Israeli leader is “a war criminal indicted by the International Criminal Court.” According to Mamdani, this position is shared by many people in light of the consequences of the conflict in the Gaza Strip.
The declarations arrive a few weeks before the annual meeting of the UN General Assembly, which attracts heads of state and government from all over the world to New York. Netanyahu’s possible presence could therefore also turn into a delicate diplomatic and legal case.
Because Netanyahu’s arrest is very unlikely
This is not the first time Mamdani has addressed the topic. Already during the electoral campaign for the municipal elections he had claimed that, if he had been elected, he would have considered the possibility of having Netanyahu arrested if he entered the city. Today, as mayor, he confirms that line, while specifying that every decision must be compatible with the US regulatory framework.
At the center of the matter is the arrest warrant issued by the International Criminal Court against the Israeli prime minister for alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity linked to the conflict in the Gaza Strip. Israel contests the jurisdiction of the Court and firmly rejects the accusations, just as it has repeatedly criticized the mandate issued by the international body. But it is not alone: its jurisdiction is not even recognized by the USA, a country of which Mamdani is part.
It therefore remains to be clarified what the margin of action of local authorities in the United States would be towards a foreign head of government on an official visit to participate in the work of the United Nations. Precisely for this reason, Mamdani explained that he asked the City’s lawyers for an opinion, underlining that “we will do everything that the law allows me to do in New York, but we will not write new laws for this purpose”. In fact, however, the words of the New York mayor sound more like a provocation than a real declaration of intent, intended more to create consensus in the “pro-pal” world than to have real effects. With all due respect to the International Criminal Court.