After Trump's intervention, the communist mayor Zohran Mamdani backtracked and admitted that he does not have the authority to arrest Benjamin Netanyahu in New York.
The pro-Palestinian politician said in a video posted on X that his administration cannot legally detain Netanyahu if he visits the Big Apple. "It is clear that we do not have the independent legal authority to enforce this arrest warrant," Mamdani acknowledged, labeling the Israeli leader a "war criminal" who is "not welcome."
A few days ago, Mamdani had stated to the The New York Times that he was in "active discussions" with his legal department to find out if the city had the legal authority to arrest Netanyahu should he travel to New York for the UN assembly in September. The communist had already promised during his campaign that he would order the police to enforce an arrest warrant from the International Criminal Court against the right-wing leader.
On July 20, Mamdani reaffirmed his statements, telling reporters that Netanyahu "is the architect of the genocide of Palestinians in Gaza." The president Donald Trump responded on his social media asserting that his Israeli counterpart "will not be arrested, in any way or form, while he is in the United States of America".
For his part, the US ambassador to the UN, Mike Waltz, outlined four reasons why Mamdani could not carry out such an action. The first is that neither the US nor Israel are signatories to the Rome Statute; the second is that the UN Headquarters Agreement grants diplomatic protections to visiting heads of government; state immunity also applies; and finally, because the mayor's proposal amounts to "pure political theater."
Several former prosecutors stated that if Mamdani attempted to arrest Netanyahu on New York soil based on the ICC warrant he would be violating federal law and could expose those involved to federal conspiracy charges. The New York City police commissioner herself, Jessica Tisch, said she would never allow such an arrest. The state governor, Kathy Hochul, an ally of Mamdani, made a similar statement last year.
Even Mamdani's allies in New York politics dismissed the communist mayor's hunch.
