Zohran Mamdani said New York City is still reviewing whether it has the authority to order the New York Police Department to arrest Benjamin Netanyahu if the Israeli leader comes to the city for the United Nations General Assembly in September. But Mamdani also said he will not write new laws to make that happen, leaving the question of what the city can actually do still open.
The issue has become a live political test because the visit Mamdani is talking about is not abstract. Netanyahu is expected in New York for the United Nations General Assembly in September, and Mamdani has tied his comments to that trip. Asked about it this week, Mamdani said he believes Netanyahu belongs in the Hague and called him a war criminal charged by the International Criminal Court.
Mamdani told Lulu Garcia-Navarro that he is in active conversation with New York's law department and that he is not clear whether he has the legal authority needed to order an arrest. He said, “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.”
That is where the story gets complicated. Mamdani has said for months that he would order the New York Police Department to arrest Netanyahu, a pledge he made during his 2025 mayoral campaign after the ICC warrant over the Israel-Hamas War. He has also called the war a genocide. But now he is saying both that the city is reviewing the arrest question and that he will not rewrite the law to force the outcome he once described in blunt terms.
Netanyahu dismissed the threat on Saturday on Sid & Friends in the Morning, saying he is not concerned. He accused Mamdani of supporting Hamas after the October 7 massacre and warned him to look carefully at who he is condemning and praising. Ofir Akunis also rejected the idea, saying Mamdani has no authority to call for Netanyahu's arrest and should focus on New York City alone.
The legal and political stakes turn on a narrow question: whether a mayor can direct city police to act on a foreign leader tied to an ICC warrant when that leader is expected at a UN event in September. Mamdani is keeping the possibility alive, but his own words suggest he may stop at the edge of what the law already allows. If Netanyahu does come to New York, the city may soon have to answer that question in public, not in theory.
