New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani acknowledged overnight Tuesday that he does not have the authority to enforce the arrest warrant against Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
“We examined every possible avenue,” he said in a video he published. “We do not have the authority to do it — but the federal government does.”
Watch the video with Mamdani's full statement:
At the start of his remarks, Mamdani said: “Benjamin Netanyahu is a war criminal, the architect of a horrific genocide against the Palestinian people. He is responsible for the killing of more than 73,000, for maiming of tens of thousands of children, as those who survive undergo amputations without anesthesia. For the targeting of neonatal hospitals and maternity care centers, denying newborns even the chance to live.”
Mamdani continues that Netanyahu is responsible "For countless people he starved as he blocked food and humanitarian aid from reaching them. For the gunning down of hundreds of aid workers and journalists. And just last month, the U.N. confirmed that Palestinian children continue to be deliberately targeted and killed by Israeli armed forces, more than eight months after the so-called ceasefire. The list goes on and on. And as we, as Americans, pay for the bombs that do the killing. There is a reason the International Criminal Court issued a warrant for his 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, their heart, with their conscience, should recognize the devastation he has wrought and understand that he belongs before a court of law.”
The mayor said that he agrees with the International Criminal Court, but added the caveat that “my administration has reviewed every avenue available under applicable law to determine whether New York City can 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.”
But, he added, 'the federal government does.
Mamdani notes that the federal government has the authority to arrest Netanyahu and calls on the Trump administration to do so
(Photo: From X)
Mamdani called on the Trump administration to enforce the warrant and sought to make clear that Netanyahu "is not welcome in New York City."
Israeli Ambassador to the U.N. Danny Danon said in response: “Zohran Mamdani, enough. Enough with the blood libels. Enough with the attacks on Jewish organizations. Enough with courting the Iranian regime. You were elected to serve the residents of New York, not Hamas propaganda. Do your job.”
Israel’s ambassador in Washington, Yechiel Leiter, also attacked Mamdani. “This is what antisemites do. When, for example, they accuse Jews of theft, they do not really mean that the Jews stole. They just want to see the Jew empty his pockets to show there is nothing in them. Just to embarrass them, to humiliate them," he said. "That is what communists did throughout the 20th century. Whenever they fail to deliver what they promised, you know, total equality, that everything will be free, that everyone will be on the same level, and when they fail, they need to find a scapegoat. And the scapegoat was always the Jew.”
The U.S. president, for his part, made clear on Monday that Netanyahu would not be arrested “in any way, shape or form” during his upcoming visit to the United States. Trump directly addressed Mamdani’s threats, writing on his Truth Social platform that 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. The only ones that should be arrested are the people that led Iran into this unprecedented spiral of death and destruction.”
In an interview with The New York Times, Mamdani said he was interested in bringing about Netanyahu’s arrest if the prime minister arrives in the city as expected for the U.N. General Assembly in September. He had said it was unclear whether he has the legal authority to order the New York Police Department, which he oversees, to detain a foreign leader such as Netanyahu. He noted then that he was in “active dialogue” with the city’s legal department on the matter.