WASHINGTON\u00a0\u2014\u00a0Israel\u2019s Benjamin Netanyahu said Sunday that New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani is \u201cfomenting hate\u201d by calling the prime minister a war criminal who should be arrested over the war in Gaza if he visits the city for the United Nations General Assembly.<\/p>\n
Netanyahu said he intends to be in New York in September to address the annual U.N. gathering of world leaders, despite the mayor\u2019s suggestion that he is not welcome. Mamdani said last week that although New York City does not have legal authority to execute an arrest warrant issued by the world\u2019s top war-crimes court, he encouraged the federal government to do so.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe\u2019s supposed to be the mayor of all New Yorkers \u2014 Jews, Christians, Muslims, everyone,\u201d Netanyahu said on Fox News Channel\u2019s \u201cSunday Morning Futures\u201d with Maria Bartiromo. \u201cBut he\u2019s trying to turn one group against the other.\u201d <\/p>\n
The prime minister has become an increasingly polarizing figure over Israel\u2019s war in Gaza, which was ignited by the Oct. 7, 2023, deadly attack on southern Israel by Hamas militants. Israel also joined the U.S. in starting the war against Iran on Feb. 28 before launching a ground invasion in southern Lebanon in response to fire from the Iranian-backed Hezbollah group.<\/p>\n
Netanyahu on Sunday dismissed the International Criminal Court\u2019s war crimes charges against him as \u201cbogus.\u201d He pointed to sexual misconduct allegations against the ICC\u2019s top prosecutor, who was removed from that post Friday, and said the warrant was an attempt to divert attention.<\/p>\n
The mayor\u2019s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment Sunday.<\/p>\n
U.S. support for Israel at risk, Netanyahu says<\/p>\n
Netanyahu said he was concerned that once-bipartisan political support for Israel in the U.S. is at risk, particularly as progressive Democrats aligned with Mamdani\u2019s position splinter from many mainstream members of the party. <\/p>\n
He also warned against rising antisemitism in the U.S. and other Western countries, saying that when he talks to people in New York City, home to the second-largest Jewish population in the world, \u201cJews feel very uncomfortable.\u201d <\/p>\n
\u201cAnd I think it\u2019s wrong. The whole thing is wrong,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Throughout his mayoral election campaign last year, Mamdani said he would seek to order the city\u2019s police to execute the ICC\u2019s arrest warrant over Netanyahu\u2019s role in the war in Gaza. Amnesty International and other international organizations have concluded that Israel\u2019s conduct in Gaza amounts to genocide. <\/p>\n
Mamdani acknowledged last week that his city did not have the legal authority to arrest Netanyahu and called on federal authorities to step in. <\/p>\n
\u201cI want to be equally clear, Benjamin Netanyahu is not welcome in New York City, nor is any other war criminal at large,\u201d he said in a video message.<\/p>\n
He told New Yorkers that he understood their frustration and that expressions of protest were something the city would \u201calways respect.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Hague-based court has accused Netanyahu, his former defense minister and the late leader of Hamas of crimes against humanity. The Palestinian territory\u2019s Health Ministry says over 73,000 people have been killed in Israel\u2019s offensive \u2014 roughly half of them women and children. Some 1,200 people, most of them civilians, were killed in the initial Hamas attack on Israel.<\/p>\n
Trump assured Netanyahu he won\u2019t be arrested<\/p>\n
President Trump told Netanyahu in a social media post Monday that he \u201cwill not be arrested, in any way, shape, or form, while in the United States of America.\u201d<\/p>\n
Netanyahu is expected in Washington this week to meet with Trump and attend funeral services for the late Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina. <\/p>\n
Graham, a leading defense hawk and strong supporter of Israel, died unexpectedly two weeks ago from what is believed to be a torn aorta. The prime minster called him an \u201cextraordinary American patriot.\u201d<\/p>\n
Mascaro writes for the Associated Press. AP writer Anthony Izaguirre in New York contributed to this report. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"WASHINGTON\u00a0\u2014\u00a0Israel\u2019s Benjamin Netanyahu said Sunday that New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani is \u201cfomenting hate\u201d by calling the prime…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":223835,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[33],"tags":[41620,7226,496,8772,37,8810,34870,24696,876,4204,396,722,5694,36,64085],"class_list":["post-223834","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-israel","tag-arrest-warrant","tag-city","tag-gaza","tag-icc","tag-israel","tag-last-week","tag-mamdani","tag-mayor","tag-netanyahu","tag-new-york","tag-people","tag-president-trump","tag-sunday","tag-war","tag-world-leader"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@iran\/116987765116975699","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/223834","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=223834"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/223834\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/223835"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=223834"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=223834"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=223834"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}