New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani acknowledged on Tuesday that his administration lacks the independent legal authority to arrest Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, reversing a central campaign pledge he made to detain the Israeli leader if he visited the city.
In a video posted on social media, Mamdani said his administration had reviewed every legal avenue and found that NYC cannot enforce the International Criminal Court’s arrest warrant against Netanyahu. “It is clear that we do not have the independent legal authority to enforce this warrant,” Mamdani stated, though he called on the federal government to act, a request President Donald Trump has firmly rejected.
Mamdani had pledged since campaigning for NYC mayor in late 2024 to arrest Netanyahu if he came to the city, citing the ICC’s November 2024 arrest warrant for the Israeli leader on charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity related to the Gaza conflict. In October 2025, Mamdani told Fox News he would “exhaust every legal option” to carry out the arrest but would not rewrite laws to do so.
The reversal came just days after Mamdani told the New York Times he was in “active conversation” with the city’s legal department to assess his authority to detain foreign leaders. Netanyahu is expected to visit New York in September to attend the United Nations General Assembly.
Legal experts have long been skeptical of Mamdani’s authority. Multiple federal and international laws create barriers to any local arrest attempt. The American Servicemembers Protection Act of 2002 bars local law enforcement agencies from cooperating with ICC processes. Additionally, the UN Headquarters Agreement grants diplomatic protections to visiting heads of state, a protection that U.S. Ambassador to the UN Mike Waltz cited when arguing that Mamdani’s threat would not work during the UN General Assembly session.
The Trump administration has taken an adversarial stance toward the ICC. Trump stated on his Truth Social platform that “Benjamin Netanyahu will not be arrested, in any way, shape, or form, while in the United States of America.” The administration has recently launched a campaign to “dismantle” the ICC, and the U.S. is not a signatory to the Rome Statute that recognizes the court’s authority.
Netanyahu has dismissed Mamdani’s threat as “silly” and “not serious,” and his office said the mayor should “focus on fixing the damage his policies have caused New York.” Israeli officials and some U.S. lawmakers have criticized Mamdani’s stance, with New York state assemblymember Simcha Eichenstein calling on Attorney General Letitia James to investigate whether Mamdani violated local law by threatening the arrest.
Sources
- Time Magazine — Mamdani’s admission of lack of legal authority, his campaign pledge, legal barriers including the American Servicemembers Protection Act and UN Headquarters Agreement, and Trump’s statement.
- Al Jazeera — Mamdani’s campaign pledge and legal review of his authority.
- Wall Street Journal — Reference to the American Servicemembers Protection Act as a barrier to local law enforcement cooperation with ICC.
- The Forward — Context on Mamdani’s legal review and political obstacles.
- The Guardian — Background on the ICC arrest warrant and U.S. rejection of ICC jurisdiction.
