{"id":224354,"date":"2025-09-13T19:48:15","date_gmt":"2025-09-13T19:48:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/224354\/"},"modified":"2025-09-13T19:48:15","modified_gmt":"2025-09-13T19:48:15","slug":"new-york-mayor-candidate-pledges-to-order-arrest-of-binyamin-netanyahu-if-elected-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/224354\/","title":{"rendered":"New York mayor candidate pledges to order arrest of Binyamin Netanyahu if elected \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

Zohran Mamdani, the Democratic nominee for mayor of New York City<\/a>, has said that if elected, he would order the New York Police Department (NYPD) to arrest Israeli prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu<\/a> if he sets foot in the city.<\/p>\n

Mr Mamdani said in an interview with The New York Times that Mr Netanyahu was a war criminal who was committing genocide in the Gaza Strip<\/a>. If the Israeli leader were to come to New York, Mr Mamdani said, he would honour a warrant issued by the International Criminal Court for Netanyahu\u2019s arrest by having him apprehended at the airport.<\/p>\n

Legal experts suggested that having Mr Netanyahu arrested would be a practical impossibility and some said it could violate federal law. Even so, Mr Mamdani\u2019s pledge will likely provoke strong reactions in New York, the second-largest home to Jews in the world.<\/p>\n

Although New Yorkers now generally express support for Palestinians over Israel<\/a> in its war with Hamas, Mr Mamdani\u2019s vow could still complicate his attempt to reassure a segment of Jewish leaders who had expressed concern about some of his stances, including his refusal to condemn the phrase \u201cGlobalise the intifada\u201d. He has since said he would discourage the use of the phrase, even as he holds to his position that Israel\u2019s leader is a war criminal.<\/p>\n

Mr Mamdani had said earlier in the mayor\u2019s race that he would arrest Mr Netanyahu. In the interview on Thursday, he did not back down and offered new specifics, affirming that he would order the police to make the arrest upon Netanyahu\u2019s arrival in the city.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is something that I intend to fulfil,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Mr Mamdani, a state Assembly member who leads in the polls before the November election, said that state and local Democrats needed to show that they would take action where the federal government will not. He cited a decision made by Gavin Newsom, now the governor of California, in 2004, when, as mayor of San Francisco, he defied federal law and issued marriage licences for same-sex couples.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is a moment where we cannot look to the federal government for leadership,\u201d Mr Mamdani said. \u201cThis is a moment when cities and states will have to demonstrate what it actually looks like to stand up for our own values, our own people.\u201d<\/p>\n

The United States is not a party to the International Criminal Court and does not recognise its authority. US president Donald Trump<\/a> moved to punish the court in February for issuing the warrant for Mr Netanyahu\u2019s arrest, arguing that it had \u201cno jurisdiction over the United States or Israel\u201d.<\/p>\n

Mr Netanyahu\u2019s office did not respond to a request for comment, though he said in July that he was not worried about Mr Mamdani\u2019s threat. A spokesperson for the consulate general of Israel in New York declined to comment.<\/p>\n

Mr Mamdani said he would also arrest Vladimir Putin, the president of Russia, for whom the International Criminal Court issued an arrest warrant in 2023.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is my desire to ensure that this be a city that stands up for international law,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Experts said that any attempt to have the NYPD arrest Mr Netanyahu or Mr Putin under the claim of executing a warrant from the International Criminal Court would almost certainly bring Mr Mamdani into conflict with the federal government.<\/p>\n

Matthew C. Waxman, a professor at Columbia Law School, said that no such arrest had ever been made on U.S. soil.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis isn\u2019t even a close call,\u201d Mr Waxman said. \u201cIn my mind, this statement is more a political stunt than a serious law-enforcement policy.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mr Mamdani has been a critic of Israel, and his criticism has escalated during Israel\u2019s war in Gaza, where more than 60,000 Palestinians have been killed, according to health officials there. \u2013 The New York Times<\/p>\n

2025 The New York Times Company<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Zohran Mamdani, the Democratic nominee for mayor of New York City, has said that if elected, he would…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":224355,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5122],"tags":[40580,5229,12938,90,9117,5248,405,403,5226,5225,5228,5227,80,118252,117103,67,586,132,5230,68,2969,54308,5301],"class_list":{"0":"post-224354","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-new-york","8":"tag-40580","9":"tag-america","10":"tag-attacks","11":"tag-elections","12":"tag-mayoral-race","13":"tag-metro","14":"tag-new-york","15":"tag-new-york-city","16":"tag-newyork","17":"tag-newyorkcity","18":"tag-ny","19":"tag-nyc","20":"tag-politics","21":"tag-sept-11","22":"tag-terror","23":"tag-united-states","24":"tag-united-states-of-america","25":"tag-unitedstates","26":"tag-unitedstatesofamerica","27":"tag-us","28":"tag-usa","29":"tag-world-trade-center","30":"tag-zohran-mamdani"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115198722340623362","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/224354","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=224354"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/224354\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/224355"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=224354"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=224354"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=224354"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}