Israel’s ambassador to the United Nations on Monday fired back at New York City’s mayor, Zohran Mamdani, who has said he is looking into whether he can arrest Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, when he visits the U.N. headquarters in September.
The “threat is empty,” the ambassador, Danny Danon, said in an address to the U.N. General Assembly. Mr. Danon said there is “no legal basis” for an arrest and he accused the mayor of engaging in “political theater” to excite his “radical base.”
When Mr. Mamdani was campaigning for mayor, he had pledged to arrest Mr. Netanyahu on his annual visit to the U.N. General Assembly this September. It would be based on an International Criminal Court warrant citing alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity in connection with the war in Gaza, following the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas-led attack on Israel.
That warrant was issued in 2024. Mr. Netanyahu and Israel’s former defense minister, Yoav Gallant, were accused of having “intentionally and knowingly deprived” Gaza’s population of food, water, fuel and medicine, which they have denied.
In an interview with The New York Times published on Saturday, Mr. Mamdani said he was in “an active conversation” with the city’s Law Department on whether he had the authority to arrest the Israeli leader while he was visiting the U.N.
“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.
Both Israeli and American officials, however, have rejected Mr. Mamdani’s effort, and even some vociferous critics of Israel have suggested that an attempted arrest of Mr. Netanyahu in New York could be problematic.
“Benjamin Netanyahu will not be arrested, in any way, shape, or form, while in the United States of America,” President Trump wrote on social media on Monday, saying Mr. Netanyahu was fighting the Islamic Republic of Iran and that Iranian leaders are the ones that should be arrested.
Mr. Danon has insisted that Mr. Mamdani has no authority to pursue such an arrest, noting that the United States is not a party to the Rome Statute, which created the I.C.C. He said that Washington does not recognize the jurisdiction of the court, among other obstacles.
Indeed, the Trump administration is looking to systematically dismantle the court, which investigates some of the gravest crimes in the world.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio wrote in The Wall Street Journal last week that the U.S. seeks to prevent “a world in which U.S. soldiers, police officers, Border Patrol agents and elected leaders could be dragged before an international court.”
In Mr. Danon’s address on Monday, he also cited the U.N. Headquarters Agreement of 1947 as protecting Mr. Netanyahu and other world leaders who come to the institution.
Mike Waltz, the U.S. ambassador to the U.N., said on Saturday that an arrest of Mr. Netanyahu “is not going to happen.” Responding to the mayor’s statement, he said the headquarters agreement grants diplomatic protections to visiting heads of government and that “federal authority trumps any local mayor’s wishes.”
Mr. Mamdani also responded on Monday to the brouhaha his statement about potentially arresting Mr. Netanyahu had made.
“When someone is charged with an international court warrant it’s something that should be taken seriously,” he said.
Representative Ro Khanna, Democrat of California, a vociferous critic of Israel and possible contender for president in 2028, told Fox News on Sunday that he believed Mr. Netanyahu’s case should proceed in court, but that the U.N. should still welcome him at the world body.
“He can come to the U.N. Assembly,” Mr. Khanna said, adding, “I’m not for creating a spectacle. The U.N. is a place that people can come to.”
Sally Goldenberg contributed reporting.
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