NYC Mayor Mamdani’s Protest Call Conflicts With Federal Policy * The Gateway Pundit * by Antonio Graceffo

After publicly acknowledging that he has no authority to carry out his promise to arrest Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani is now urging New Yorkers to protest Netanyahu ahead of his expected visit to the city in September for the UN General Assembly.

Mamdani made the comment during a City Hall press conference on July 22, telling reporters, “If anyone feels a level of frustration or opposition, protest is something that we will always respect.” A spokesperson for Mamdani declined to say whether the mayor himself plans to protest Netanyahu’s arrival.

The remarks followed a video Mamdani released the night before in which he admitted that he did not have the authority to arrest Netanyahu. During his 2025 mayoral campaign, however, Mamdani had pledged to order the NYPD to enforce the International Criminal Court arrest warrant himself. In the recording, he called Netanyahu “the architect of a horrific genocide” and a “war criminal,” and urged the federal government to enforce the ICC warrant against him. The video has been viewed nearly 90 million times.

One day before the video was released, President Donald Trump wrote on Truth Social that Netanyahu “will not be arrested, in any way, shape, or form, while in the United States of America.”

Irrespective of critics claiming the opposite, U.S. support for Israel, including protection for visiting Israeli leaders, reflects a longstanding bipartisan feature of American foreign policy that predates and extends beyond any single administration. It has been sustained across both Republican and Democratic presidencies since Israel’s founding.

Furthermore, foreign policy authority, including how the federal government treats a visiting head of state, rests constitutionally with the president and the executive branch, not with city government.

Mamdani’s continued calls regarding Netanyahu have prompted criticism from Jewish organizations and from far-right U.S. politicians. The UJA-Federation of New York said in a statement, “New Yorkers elected a mayor to lead this city, not to make Israel the centerpiece of your political grandstanding,” accusing Mamdani of antisemitism.

The comments reflect a consistent pattern in Mamdani’s public record that goes beyond criticism of specific Israeli government policies to questioning the legitimacy of the Israeli state itself. As a state assemblyman in May 2021, Mamdani led a rally where participants chanted “BDS, BDS” and criticized officials’ “incomprehensible fealty to the Israeli state.”

At an October 8, 2023, Times Square rally, two days after the Hamas attack on Israel, local members of the Democratic Socialists of America, Mamdani’s own party, celebrated Hamas. Mamdani condemned the rally two days later, telling Politico that his support for Palestinian liberation “should never be confused for a celebration of the loss of civilian life.” He has also declined to affirm Israel’s right to exist as a Jewish state, called Israel an “apartheid state,” and declined to condemn the slogan “globalize the intifada.”

In April 2024, Mamdani wrote on social media that Columbia University students arrested at the campus “Gaza Solidarity Encampment” were arrested “for the crime of peacefully protesting against genocide.” The encampment, which Columbia’s president cited in calling in the NYPD to clear it, has been extensively documented as including antisemitic conduct.

The Anti-Defamation League recorded chants including “we don’t want no Zionists here,” and protesters telling Jewish students to “go back to Poland.” The Times of Israel reported that protesters blocked campus access to those they perceived as “Zionists,” violating the rights of Jewish students. The publication also reported that Jewish students faced near-daily chants of “Globalize the Intifada” and, on one occasion, students chanting in support of “10,000 October 7ths.”

Twenty-one members of Congress, led by Reps. Josh Gottheimer and Dan Goldman, wrote that the “from the river to the sea” chants used at the encampment constituted a call to eliminate Israel and all Jews within its borders. They also argued that Columbia’s shift to hybrid classes tacitly acknowledged a hostile environment for Jewish students and appeared to violate Title VI of the Civil Rights Act.

Mahmoud Khalil, a Syrian-born Palestinian and lead organizer with Columbia University Apartheid Divest, became a lawful permanent resident in November 2024 through marriage to a U.S. citizen. In March 2025, Secretary of State Marco Rubio determined that Khalil’s activities, including organizing Columbia’s protest encampment, carried “potentially serious adverse foreign policy consequences” for the United States under the Immigration and Nationality Act. ICE arrested him at his Columbia-owned apartment on that basis.

Mamdani, then a mayoral candidate, called the arrest “a blatant assault on the First Amendment and a sign of advancing authoritarianism under Trump,” and later that month tried to push past security to confront then-border czar Tom Homan at the New York State Capitol in Albany, shouting “Do you believe in the First Amendment?” and “How many more New Yorkers will you detain?” Homan did not respond beyond what Mamdani later described as a “smirk.” Mamdani separately hosted Khalil for an iftar dinner.

Mamdani was introduced at a Staten Island mosque event by organizer Abdullah Akl, who has a documented record of chanting “Strike, strike Tel Aviv, Abu Obeida, our beloved” in 2024 and calling for Palestine “from the river to sea” at a December 2023 convention.

Pro-Palestinian demonstrators gathered outside Young Israel of Kew Gardens Hills, a Queens synagogue, on the night of January 8, 2026, chanting “Say it loud, say it clear, we support Hamas here” during a protest of a synagogue event promoting real estate investment in Israel and the West Bank.

By noon the next day, as the video spread widely, Gov. Kathy Hochul, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, and several other city and state officials had already condemned the chants, while Mamdani’s office remained silent. He issued a statement Friday evening calling the rhetoric “wrong and have no place in our city,” without naming Hamas, then followed up about an hour later on X, “Chants in support of a terrorist organization have no place in our city,” after facing criticism for the omission. Critics noted the roughly 24-hour delay was slower than both Hochul’s response and that of his predecessor, Eric Adams.

Under the 1947 Headquarters Agreement, the United States is obligated to ensure the functioning of the UN headquarters district and to provide accredited delegations with the privileges and immunities required under the agreement. The U.S. Mission to the United Nations says it is committed to protecting UN Headquarters, accredited missions, and the diplomatic community, coordinating with the NYPD, the State Department’s Diplomatic Security Service, the Secret Service, and the FBI.

A 1951 State Department legal memorandum addressing a similar dispute involving picketing outside the Soviet mission found that the U.S. obligation to protect foreign delegations from demonstrations was governed by Section 15 of the Headquarters Agreement. That provision entitles delegations to the same privileges and immunities the United States generally accords to diplomatic envoys.