New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani on Saturday said that his administration is reviewing whether it has the legal authority to arrest Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu if he visits the city for the UN General Assembly in September, according to The New York Times, Anadolu reports.
“I believe that Prime Minister Netanyahu belongs in The Hague,” Mamdani said on The New York Times’ The Interview podcast with Lulu Garcia-Navarro. “He’s a war criminal who has been charged by the International Criminal Court.”
Mamdani said he was in “an active conversation” with the New York City Law Department over whether he has the authority to direct the New York Police Department to detain a foreign leader.
“Whatever the law allows me to do in New York City, that’s what we will do, but we won’t be writing our own laws to that end,” he said.
Mamdani had previously said during his mayoral campaign that he would seek to enforce the International Criminal Court’s arrest warrant for Netanyahu if the Israeli leader visited New York.
Netanyahu dismissed the prospect in a recent interview with radio host Sid Rosenberg, accusing Mamdani of supporting Hamas.
“I think he should look at who he’s condemning, who he’s praising,” Netanyahu said. “He’s condemning Israel, the one democracy that stands shoulder to shoulder with American values.”
Mamdani has repeatedly condemned Israel’s military campaign in Gaza while also denouncing Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023, attack on Israel.
In the interview, Mamdani also criticized US policy toward Gaza, saying it is “hard to find a more bankrupt policy approach than what our country has done to Gaza and to Palestine.”
He also expressed support for the possibility of Democratic Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez running for president in 2028, defended New York Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch’s leadership, criticized President Donald Trump’s immigration policies while backing cooperation on serious criminal cases, and said affordability remains the defining challenge facing New Yorkers.
