{"id":554386,"date":"2026-07-22T17:35:11","date_gmt":"2026-07-22T17:35:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/554386\/"},"modified":"2026-07-22T17:35:11","modified_gmt":"2026-07-22T17:35:11","slug":"mamdani-says-he-cant-arrest-netanyahu-as-mayor-and-urges-us-to-enforce-icc-warrant-zohran-mamdani","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/554386\/","title":{"rendered":"Mamdani says he can\u2019t arrest Netanyahu as mayor and urges US to enforce ICC warrant | Zohran Mamdani"},"content":{"rendered":"

Zohran Mamdani<\/a>, the New York City<\/a> mayor, doubled down on his support for the international criminal court (ICC) on Wednesday and called on<\/a> federal authorities to execute the court\u2019s warrant for Benjamin Netanyahu<\/a>\u2019s arrest should he visit the city in the fall.<\/p>\n

\u201cI call on the federal government to join the international criminal court and to execute both this warrant as well as any warrant the international criminal court holds,\u201d Mamdani told reporters at a press conference on Wednesday.<\/p>\n

Those remarks came less than 24 hours after Mamdani called the Israeli prime minister a \u201cwar criminal\u201d who is \u201cnot welcome in New York City\u201d in a video statement<\/a> posted on social media. In the statement, the mayor acknowledged he has no legal authority to direct New York police to arrest Netanyahu should he attend the United Nations general assembly in September.<\/p>\n

Mamdani had previously said he was \u201cin conversation<\/a>\u201d with city lawyers to determine whether his administration could arrest Netanyahu, as he had pledged<\/a> to do during his mayoral campaign last year.<\/p>\n

On Wednesday, Mamdani rejected arguments from critics that Israel\u2019s war<\/a> crimes in Gaza have nothing to do with New York City. Israel\u2019s actions in Gaza, he said, have \u201coffended the conscience, the morals, the mere humanity of so many New Yorkers\u201d.<\/p>\n

Mamdani\u2019s statements about Netanyahu were remarkable for a US municipal leader and a signal of how support for Palestinian rights remains a signature policy for him.<\/p>\n

His insistence that the US government arrest Netanyahu has been met with condemnation and ridicule from pro-Israel officials. Pro-Palestinian advocates\u2019 reactions were more mixed \u2013 some praised the mayor\u2019s Tuesday statement for its \u201cmoral clarity<\/a>\u201d while others expressed disappointment that he walked back on his promise to seek the Israeli leader\u2019s arrest.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think the mayor should stay in his lane,\u201d Jonathan Harounoff, Israel\u2019s former international spokesperson at the United Nations, told NY1<\/a>, accusing him of \u201cpolitical theater\u201d.<\/p>\n

John Fetterman of Pennsylvania, one of the most staunchly pro-Israel<\/a> Democrats in the Senate, called Mamdani a \u201cclown\u201d who should \u201csit down\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cAmerica\u2019s not even part of that corrupt court,\u201d Fetterman said<\/a> in an interview with Fox News over the weekend. \u201cThat\u2019s really not your purview.\u201d<\/p>\n

Simcha Eichenstein, a pro-Israel New York state assemblymember, had previously called<\/a> on the state attorney general to review whether Mamdani\u2019s comments about Netanyahu violated state law.<\/p>\n

The ICC issued arrest warrants against Netanyahu and former Israeli defense minister Yoav Gallant in 2024, accusing them of war crimes and crimes against humanity, including \u201cstarvation as a method of warfare, and \u2026 murder, persecution, and other inhumane acts\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cI believe Prime Minister Netanyahu belongs in The Hague,\u201d Mamdani told<\/a> the New York Times last week, referring to the city in the Netherlands that is home to the court.<\/p>\n

Neither the US nor Israel are members of the ICC, which the US government has long opposed and which Marco Rubio, the secretary of state, this month threatened to \u201cdismantle<\/a>\u201d by pressuring other nations to abandon it.<\/p>\n

Mamdani said he concluded his administration has no authority to execute the ICC arrest warrant, but shifted the burden on the Trump administration<\/a> to do so.<\/p>\n

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\u201cIt is clear that we do not have the independent legal authority to enforce this warrant,\u201d he said in Tuesday\u2019s statement. \u201cThe federal government, however, does \u2013 and I call on them to join the ICC and execute this warrant.\u201d<\/p>\n

Donald Trump has already said<\/a> he will do no such thing.<\/p>\n

Netanyahu \u201cwill not be arrested\u201d on US soil, the president said<\/a> in a social media post earlier this week, adding that the Israeli prime minister is \u201cfighting against the Islamic Republic of Iran\u201d and \u201cthe only ones that should be arrested are the people that led Iran into this unprecedented spiral of death and destruction\u201d.<\/p>\n

Netanyahu had said in the past he was \u201cnot concerned<\/a>\u201d with Mamdani\u2019s threat, and his office said in a statement<\/a> last week that the mayor \u201cappears interested in diverting public attention from his follies and attacking the leader of the Jewish state and the only democracy in the Middle East\u201d. It called the ICC a \u201ckangaroo court\u201d.<\/p>\n

Supporters of the court have also praised Mamdani\u2019s efforts to stand up for the tribunal\u2019s mission.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy mayor is doing what any NYC mayor would do if Vladimir Putin or any other indicted war criminal planned to visit NYC,\u201d echoed<\/a> Adil Haque, another legal scholar. \u201cHe is exploring every legal avenue and exhausting all legal options. If his hands are tied, he will use his voice.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Zohran Mamdani, the New York City mayor, doubled down on his support for the international criminal court (ICC)…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":554387,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[85,46,43],"class_list":["post-554386","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-israel","tag-il","tag-israel","tag-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/554386","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=554386"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/554386\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/554387"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=554386"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=554386"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=554386"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}