A weeks-long political firestorm over a potential visit by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to New York City took a new turn this week, after Mayor Zohran Mamdani acknowledged he lacks the independent legal authority to carry out his earlier campaign pledge to arrest Netanyahu if he steps foot in the five boroughs.
Mamdani, who built a portion of his mayoral campaign around sharp criticism of Israel’s military campaign in Gaza and repeatedly labeled Netanyahu a war criminal, first signaled he was moving forward with exploring arrest options in an interview with The New York Times over the weekend. In that conversation, he claimed his administration was holding “active conversations” with local law enforcement to assess how to enforce the 2024 International Criminal Court (ICC) arrest warrant issued for Netanyahu over alleged war crimes in the Gaza Strip.
But just two days later, Mamdani released a video statement posted to social media walking back that plan, confirming a full legal review of all available pathways found the city government holds no independent power to execute the international warrant. “We do not have the independent legal authority to enforce this,” Mamdani said in the video, adding that “the federal government, however, does.” He went on to call on Washington to join the ICC and move forward with executing the warrant, adding that Netanyahu remains “not welcome” in New York City, where the Israeli prime minister is scheduled to attend the United Nations General Assembly this September.
The ICC, a permanent international court based in The Hague that prosecutes individuals accused of genocide, crimes against humanity, and war crimes, issued the arrest warrant for Netanyahu in 2024 alongside a warrant for a senior Hamas commander. Legally, any nation that is a member of the ICC is required to detain and transfer any individual subject to an ICC warrant if they enter their territory — but the United States has never joined the court, creating a major legal barrier to enforcement at any level of U.S. government.
Former President Donald Trump, who has long positioned himself as a staunch ally of Netanyahu, quickly weighed in on the controversy earlier this week. In a post to his Truth Social platform on Monday, Trump stated that Netanyahu would not be “arrested, in any way, shape or form” while he is in the U.S. He defended the Israeli prime Minister by arguing that he is fighting the Islamic Republic of Iran, which Trump falsely claimed recently killed 52,000 innocent protestors and has killed thousands of American troops over the past 47 years.
The dispute comes as polling shows a clear shift in Democratic Party voter attitudes toward U.S. policy on Israel. A recent survey finds that 58% of Democratic voters now believe the U.S. is overly supportive of Israel, up from just 45% in 2024, a change that has helped push progressive elected officials like Mamdani to take more public critical stances on the Israeli government’s actions in Gaza.
Israeli officials have pushed back harshly against Mamdani’s comments. Danny Danon, Israel’s ambassador to the United Nations, accused the New York mayor of advancing partisan political messaging aligned with Hamas. “You were elected to serve New Yorkers, not Hamas’ propaganda,” Danon said in response to Mamdani’s initial interview comments.