Mayoral candidate said he’d try to honor ICC warrant for Israeli prime minister’s arrest over war crimes
If he wins his fall election, Zohran Mamdani would order New York’s police department to arrest Benjamin Netanyahu in the event that the Israeli prime minister ever traveled there, the city’s leading mayoral candidate said in a recent interview.
Mamdani – the Democratic nominee in the 4 November election – alleged to the New York Times on Thursday that Netanyahu was a war criminal who was committing genocide with Israel’s military campaign in Gaza, according to a report published by the outlet on Friday. He said he would honor an international criminal court (ICC) arrest warrant issued in November 2024 for Netanyahu’s arrest over alleged Gaza war crimes by having the Israeli leader taken into custody at the airport if he ever steps foot in New York and Mamdani is the mayor.
“This is something that I intend to fulfill,” Mamdani remarked, reiterating a pledge he had made earlier in the mayoral race, as the Times put it. “It is my desire to ensure that this be a city that stands up for international law.”
In New York, the city’s police commissioner serves as the pleasure of its mayor. But the Times’ report cited legal experts who judged that having Netanyahu arrested “would be a practical impossibility” for Mamdani and could bring him into direct conflict with the federal government.
