Since campaigning for New York City mayor, Zohran Mamdani has pledged to arrest Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for his alleged war crimes if he ever shows up in the city. But on Tuesday, Mamdani conceded that he can’t—not without the federal government’s help.
“My Administration has reviewed every avenue available under applicable law to determine whether New York City could execute the International Criminal Court’s arrest warrant if Benjamin Netanyahu came here,” Mamdani said in a video posted on social media Tuesday evening. “It is clear that we do not have the independent legal authority to enforce this warrant.”
“The federal government, however, does—and I call on them to join the ICC and execute this warrant,” he added, though President Donald Trump has emphatically rejected the notion.
x.com/NYCMayor/status/2079718073058091261
The admission comes just days after Mamdani told the New York Times that he was in “active conversation” with New York City’s legal department to assess whether he has authority to order the city police to detain foreign leaders like Netanyahu. The Israeli Prime Minister could come to the city in September to attend the United Nations General Assembly.
The Hague-based ICC has had outstanding warrants of arrest for Netanyahu and Israel’s former defense minister over alleged crimes against humanity and war crimes, which they deny, related to the conflict in the Gaza Strip.
Speaking to journalist Mehdi Hasan in late 2024, weeks after he announced his campaign for city mayor, Mamdani said that the Israeli Prime Minister was not welcome in New York City, and that the city would arrest him because its “values are in line with international law.” In October 2025, Mamdani told Fox News that he would “exhaust every legal option” available to him but that he would not make any new laws to facilitate the Israeli leader’s arrest.
Netanyahu, however, remains a close ally of U.S. President Trump despite recent disagreements over ongoing conflict in the Middle East. On Monday, Trump weighed in on his social media platform Truth Social: “Benjamin Netanyahu will not be arrested, in any way, shape, or form, while in the United States of America. He 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.”
Whether New York City can actually arrest Netanyahu has long been in doubt. Both the U.S. and Israel are not signatories of the Rome Statute that recognizes the ICC’s authority, and the Trump Administration has recently launched a campaign to “dismantle” it.
The court, however, asserts jurisdiction over Palestinian territories including Gaza, the West Bank, and East Jerusalem. It also recognizes the state of Palestine as a party subject to the Rome Statute.
Legal experts have been skeptical of Mamdani’s legal authority, and Netanyahu’s arrest in New York, if it happened, could face legal challenges. Some have pointed to the federal American Servicemembers Protection Act of 2002, which bars local law enforcement agencies from cooperating with the ICC process. Simcha Eichenstein, a New York state assemblymember, has even called the attention of New York Attorney General Letitia James to look into whether Mamdani has violated local law just by threatening to arrest the Israeli leader.
U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Mike Waltz also argued in a post on social media that Mamdani’s threat to arrest Netanyahu during the September U.N. General Assembly would not work because the U.N. Headquarters Agreement grants diplomatic protections to visiting heads of governments.
Danny Danon, the Israeli Ambassador to the U.N., said on social media that “if anyone should be arrested, it's [New York City Mayor] Mamdani,” accusing the mayor of antisemitism as well as sympathizing with Hamas terrorists and Iran’s Ayatollah regime.
And Netanyahu himself has also slammed the New York City mayor’s overtures. While attacking the ICC’s credibility on Sunday, the Prime Minister’s office said that Mamdani should instead “focus on fixing the damage his policies have caused New York.”
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