Zohran Mamdani, the Democratic nominee for mayor of New York City, said that if elected, he would order the New York Police Department to arrest the prime minister of Israel if he sets foot in the city, offering new details on how he plans to carry out a campaign pledge.
Mr. Mamdani said in an interview with The New York Times on Thursday that the prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, was a war criminal who was committing genocide in Gaza. If the Israeli leader were to come to New York, Mr. Mamdani said, he would honor a warrant issued by the International Criminal Court for Mr. Netanyahu’s arrest by having him apprehended at the airport.
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’s pledge will likely provoke strong reactions in New York, the second-largest home to Jews in the world.
Although New Yorkers now generally express support for Palestinians over Israel in its war with Hamas, Mr. Mamdani’s 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 “globalize the intifada.” He has since said he would discourage the use of the phrase, even as he holds to his position that Israel’s leader is a war criminal.
Mr. Mamdani had said earlier in the mayor’s 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 Mr. Netanyahu’s arrival in the city.
“This is something that I intend to fulfill,” Mr. Mamdani said.
Mr. Mamdani, a state assemblyman who leads in the polls ahead of 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 licenses for same-sex couples.
“This is a moment where we cannot look to the federal government for leadership,” Mr. Mamdani said. “This 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.”
The United States is not a party to the International Criminal Court and does not recognize its authority. President Trump moved to punish the court in February for issuing the warrant for Mr. Netanyahu’s arrest, arguing that it had “no jurisdiction over the United States or Israel.”
Mr. Netanyahu’s office did not respond to a request for comment, though he said in July that he was not worried about Mr. Mamdani’s threat. A spokeswoman for the Consulate General of Israel in New York declined to comment.
Mr. Mamdani said he would also arrest Vladimir V. Putin, the president of Russia, for whom the International Criminal Court issued an arrest warrant in 2023.
“It is my desire to ensure that this be a city that stands up for international law,” he said.
Experts said that any attempt to have the Police Department 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.
Matthew C. Waxman, a professor at Columbia Law School, said that no such arrest had ever been made on American soil.
“This isn’t even a close call,” Mr. Waxman said. “In my mind, this statement is more a political stunt than a serious law-enforcement policy.”
Mr. Mamdani has been a fierce critic of Israel, and his criticism has escalated during Israel’s war in Gaza, where more than 60,000 Palestinians have been killed, according to health officials there.
Mr. Netanyahu has said the war must continue until Hamas disarms and releases the remaining hostages it took in 2023 during an attack in Israel that killed about 1,200 people.
The prime minister’s standing has become particularly toxic among Democrats as the war has continued. Some of the most prominent Jewish leaders in Congress have said his handling of the war has hurt Israel and its reputation around the world.
A recent survey by The New York Times and Siena University showed that New Yorkers supported Mr. Mamdani’s stance on Israel and on the war. And Mr. Mamdani held a slim lead with the poll’s small sample of Jewish likely voters, with about 30 percent support, closely followed by the current mayor, Eric Adams, and former Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo.
Mr. Cuomo, Mr. Mamdani’s main rival in the mayor’s race, is a strong supporter of Israel and volunteered to join Mr. Netanyahu’s legal defense team in November, shortly after the International Criminal Court issued its arrest warrant for Mr. Netanyahu.
The arrest warrant accused Mr. Netanyahu of war crimes and crimes against humanity in the Gaza Strip. The court said in a news release that there were reasonable grounds to believe that Mr. Netanyahu and another top Israeli official had “intentionally and knowingly deprived the civilian population in Gaza of objects indispensable to their survival, including food, water, and medicine.”
The court does not have a police force and relies on law enforcement from its member nations. Countries that ratified the statute that brought the court into existence are obligated to execute its arrest warrants.
But American presidents of both parties have balked at the possibility of the court exercising its authority on U.S. soil. They have argued explicitly that becoming a member nation might empower an international prosecutor to pursue American or Israeli leaders, Mr. Waxman said.
A 2002 federal law, the American Servicemembers Protection Act, explicitly barred state and local agencies from cooperating with the court, though an amendment to that law allows the United States to assist with bringing to justice foreign nationals accused of genocide, war crimes or crimes against humanity.
Beth Van Schaack, the United States Ambassador at Large for Global Criminal Justice under President Joseph R. Biden Jr., said that an arrest could theoretically be possible under that provision. She noted that at least two individuals with active I.C.C. warrants had been arrested after entering American custody in the past, though neither arrest occurred in the United States.
But she said that it was not clear that the New York police would be empowered to make such an arrest. And another expert, Todd Buchwald, a former ambassador at large under President Barack Obama and Mr. Trump, said the amendment would not allow for an arrest by state or local officials.
If the police were to arrest Mr. Netanyahu in New York, several experts said the action would need to be pursuant to a violation of state or city law, but it was not clear what the charges might be. And Mr. Buchwald added that, even if the Israeli leader were charged with a crime, he was entitled to head of state immunity, under one of several international laws that would protect Mr. Netanyahu.
It is also not clear if Police Department officials would accede to Mr. Mamdani’s request to arrest Mr. Netanyahu. George Grasso, the department’s deputy commissioner for legal matters from 1997 to 2002, said the idea was “bizarre.”
He said that part of his job entailed telling the mayor at the time, Rudolph W. Giuliani, when his requests ran afoul of the police’s legal authority.
“I would look the mayor in the eye and say, ‘No, we can’t do it,’” he recalled.
In arguing for Mr. Netanyahu’s arrest, Mr. Mamdani noted that the Israeli prime minister had made military decisions while in New York that killed civilians in the Middle East.
Mr. Netanyahu said this summer at a meeting at the White House with Mr. Trump that he was not concerned about Mr. Mamdani’s comments, and called the prospect of him being arrested “silly in many ways.”
“I’m going to come there with President Trump and we’ll see,” Mr. Netanyahu said.
Mr. Trump added in reference to Mr. Mamdani: “He better behave. Otherwise, he’s going to have big problems.”
Isabel Kershner contributed reporting from Jerusalem. Kirsten Noyes contributed research from New York.
Emma G. Fitzsimmons is the City Hall bureau chief for The Times, covering Mayor Eric Adams and his administration.
Jonah E. Bromwich covers criminal justice in the New York region for The Times. He is focused on political influence and its effect on the rule of law in the area’s federal and state courts.
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