Mayor may still seek Netanyahu arrest at NYC UN summit
New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani says his administration is still discussing whether he can order the arrest of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu if Netanyahu visits for the United Nations General Assembly in September, while stressing he will not rewrite city laws to make it happen.
Key Takeaways
- The mayor told The New York Times he is in “active conversation” with the city’s Law Department about arrest authority.
- He called Netanyahu a “war criminal” charged by the International Criminal Court and said he “belongs in The Hague.”
- Mamdani said he will do “whatever the law allows” but “won’t be writing our own laws to that end.”
- Israel’s UN ambassador Danny Danon said Netanyahu will still address the UNGA in New York in September.
The comments, reported Saturday from a New York Times interview with Lulu Garcia-Navarro, revive a campaign pledge that once sounded like pure bizarre news—a city hall vow to detain a visiting head of government.
They matter because Netanyahu is expected in New York for UNGA, and any arrest talk immediately raises hard questions about what municipal power can actually do.
What did the mayor say about arresting Netanyahu?
Mamdani said he still believes Netanyahu should face accountability if he comes to New York. “I believe that Prime Minister Netanyahu belongs in The Hague,” he told the Times show The Interview.
“He’s a war criminal who has been charged by the International Criminal Court,” he added, arguing many people share that view because of Netanyahu’s record in Gaza.
During last year’s mayoral race, Mamdani said he would order the NYPD to honor an ICC warrant. He is now clearer that he will not invent new city statutes to force an arrest.
Is a New York City arrest actually on the table?
Not as a done deal. The mayor said he is unsure whether he has legal authority to order police to detain a foreign leader and is consulting the Law Department.
“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, according to coverage of the interview by The Times of Israel and The New York Times.
That framing softens the campaign-trail absolutism without abandoning the idea that an arrest could happen if existing law somehow permits it.
How have Netanyahu and Israeli officials responded?
Netanyahu dismissed the threat on Sid Rosenberg’s radio show, accusing Mamdani of condemning Israel while championing Hamas and saying he thinks the mayor “secretly” hates America.
Danny Danon, Israel’s ambassador to the United Nations, insisted Netanyahu will still come, address the General Assembly “with pride,” and speak for Israel’s right to defend its citizens. Danon also said that if anyone should be arrested, it is Mayor Mamdani.
For now, the story sits in the gap between political rhetoric and hard law: a mayor keeping an ICC-based arrest conversation alive, Israeli officials vowing the UN visit will proceed, and city lawyers still deciding what—if anything—City Hall can actually do.