New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani posted a video to social media on Tuesday conceding that he has no authority to arrest Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu — a promise he made to the far left and terrorist sympathizers to gain their support.
Mamdani promised during his mayoral campaign to order the New York Police Department (NYPD) to arrest Netanyahu if he ever visited New York, even though legal experts pointed out he would have no authority to do so. After claiming last week that he was actively consulting with city lawyers to find a way he could legally arrest Netanyahu, Mamdami finally conceded the point on Tuesday.
“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. It is clear that we do not have the independent legal authority to enforce this warrant,” Mamdani said in the video.
Mamdani insisted that Netanyahu is a “war criminal” and “the architect of a horrific genocide against the Palestinian people” in his video. He made absolutely no reference whatsoever to the Hamas atrocities against Israeli civilians on October 7, 2023 – the act of inhuman evil that launched the very war he blamed Netanyahu for prosecuting too aggressively.
Mamdani spoke at length about his charges against Netanyahu, including “the killing of more than 73,000 people” and “the maiming of tens of thousands of children,” again without mentioning the Hamas atrocities or the tendency of Hamas and other terrorist groups to hide their weapons and command centers beneath civilian structures.
“There is a reason the International Criminal Court issued a warrant for his arrest,” Mamdani said. “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.”
After admitting that his hollow boasts of arresting Netanyahu to unilaterally enforce the ICC’s will on American soil had come to nothing, Mamdani demanded the U.S. federal government “join the ICC and execute this warrant.”
Mamdani added that even though he cannot arrest Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister “is not welcome in New York City, nor is any other war criminal at large” — a sentiment that might shut down U.N. headquarters in New York if he meant it seriously.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu holds a news conference, in Jerusalem, Monday June 15, 2026. (Ronen Zvulun, Pool Photo via AP)
As Mamdani obliquely conceded with his choice of words, the United States is not a signatory to the Rome Statute, the 1998 agreement that established the International Criminal Court. Neither is Israel, although it was involved in the negotiations that led to the Rome Statute. Neither are the Palestinians, as only nation-states can sign the treaty, and there is no “State of Palestine.”
The Palestinians sought to get the ICC involved against Israel by invoking its status as a “non-member observer state” at the United Nations, which it was granted by a U.N. resolution in 2012, and arguing that Israel committed actions that would justify ICC action on “Palestinian soil.”
The ICC largely rejected this argument, but proceeded with cases against both the Israelis and Hamas, anyway. In November 2024, the ICC issued arrest warrants for Netanyahu and then-Defense Minister Yoav Gallant for “the war crime of starvation as a method of warfare” and “the crimes against humanity of murder, persecution, and other inhuman acts.”
ICC Chief Prosecutor Karim Khan ostensibly pursued arrest warrants against Hamas leaders Yahya Sinwar and Ismail Haniyeh as well, but with considerably less vigor, and dropped all charges against them when they were killed during the Gaza War.
Sinwar’s successor Khalil al-Hayya, named as the new political leader of Hamas this week, was also a mastermind of the October 7 atrocities and numerous other crimes against humanity, but the ICC has shown little interest in prosecuting him.
The ICC has also failed to bring charges against any Hamas leaders for their own copious murders of Palestinian civilians, but a Gaza resident formally demanded such an investigation with a filing to the ICC in May.
Karim Khan was suspended from his position as ICC prosecutor in June after a two-year investigation of sexual harassment allegations against him. The ICC said his ultimate fate would be decided in a secret vote of member states that has yet to be scheduled. Netanyahu suggested in an August 2024 interview with Breitbart News that Khan cooked up the charges against him and Gallant to distract from the sexual assault charges.
Democrat Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN) introduced a resolution last week urging the United States to join the ICC and accept its jurisdiction. Meanwhile, the Trump State Department announced sanctions against ICC employees for abusing their offices to launch political prosecutions against the U.S. and Israel.
“The United States has been clear and steadfast in our opposition to the ICC’s politicization, abuse of power, disregard for our national sovereignty, and illegitimate judicial overreach,” Secretary of State Marco Rubio said last Wednesday.
“The Court is a national security threat that has been an instrument for lawfare against the United States and our close ally Israel,” he added.
Russia and China are also not signatories to the Rome Statute and do not recognize the authority of the ICC, an issue that has come up several times since the ICC issued a warrant for the arrest of Russian President Vladimir Putin in March 2023 for crimes against humanity in Ukraine.
Putin’s travel plans over the ensuing years occasionally generated controversy, as he intended to visit countries that did sign the ICC treaty and would theoretically be obliged to arrest him. Mamdani has claimed he would also have tried to arrest Putin if he visited New York.
In 2023, Putin unleashed political chaos in South Africa by planning to attend a summit of the BRICS economic bloc in August of that year. South Africa is a signatory of the Rome Statute, and President Cyril Ramaphosa desperately sought a way to avoid arresting Putin during his visit. Putin eventually ended the diplomatic crisis by choosing not to attend the summit.
In September 2024, Putin received a red-carpet welcome in Mongolia, even though Mongolia is a member of the ICC. The Ukrainian government openly pleaded with the Mongolian government to honor its treaty obligations and execute the arrest warrant, but they refused.
Israel’s ambassador to the United Nations, Danny Danon, wrote his own social media post on Tuesday to excoriate Mamdani for threatening to arrest Netanyahu.
“Zohran Mamdani, ENOUGH. Enough with the blood libels. Enough with the attacks on Jewish organizations. Enough with the outreach to the Iranian regime. You were elected to serve New Yorkers, not Hamas’ propaganda. Do your job!” Danon wrote.