New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani said his administration is in "active conversation" with the city's Law Department over whether it has the legal authority to arrest Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu if the Israeli leader visits for the United Nations General Assembly in September.
The comments, first reported by The New York Times, raise the question of whether a mayor can direct a municipal police force to execute an international arrest warrant against a sitting head of government, and set up an early jurisdictional collision between the city's democratic socialist mayor and the federal government that runs U.S. foreign policy.
What Mamdani said
Mamdani called Netanyahu a "war criminal" who "belongs in the Hague," a reference to the arrest warrants the International Criminal Court issued in November 2024 for Netanyahu and former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant over alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity tied to Israel's military campaign in Gaza. Israel has rejected the allegations and disputes the court's jurisdiction.
The mayor's office has not publicly detailed any legal analysis supporting the idea that the New York Police Department could independently execute such a warrant. Earlier this year, the State Department halted a planned meeting between a senior Mamdani administration official and Iran's UN ambassador, saying foreign policy is a federal, not local, function.
The polling backdrop
The remarks arrive as democratic socialist candidates continue to win Democratic primaries following Mamdani's own November election. A CNBC All-America Economic Survey conducted July 8-12 among 1,000 registered voters found that 32 percent would be more likely to support a candidate who describes themself as a democratic socialist, and 50 percent would be less likely. In the same poll, 29 percent said a Trump endorsement would make them more likely to back a candidate, and 52 percent less likely. The margin of error is 3.1 percentage points.
The federal objection
U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Mike Waltz rejected the mayor's premise. In a post on X, Waltz argued that the United States is not a party to the ICC's founding treaty, that the UN Headquarters Agreement protects visiting heads of government from arrest, that head-of-state immunity applies, and that "federal authority trumps any local mayor's wishes." Waltz called Mamdani's remarks "pure political theater." The United States is not a party to the Rome Statute, the treaty that established the ICC.
The high-level week of the General Assembly opens in September. Netanyahu has not announced whether he will attend.