If Mamdani Moves To Arrest Netanyahu, the Mayor Could Be the One Guilty of Breaking the Law

Mayor Mamdani’s declaration that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu “belongs in the Hague” has put in sharp relief New York City’s 112th mayor’s quixotic quest to arrest the premier of the Jewish state.Mr. Mamdani is likely to be on the wrong side of the law if he attempts to unleash the New York Police Department on Mr. Netanyahu when he addresses the United Nations General Assembly in September. “The threat is empty” is how Israel’s envoy to the world body, Danny Danon, put it this week. An attempt to enforce it, though, could be illegal. Mr. Mamdani told the New York Times on Sunday that he is in “an active conversation” with New York City’s Law Department about enforcing the arrest warrant issued by the International Criminal Court for Mr. Netanyahu in 2024. Hizzoner vows “Whatever the law allows me to do in New York City, that’s what we will do.” Mr. Mamdani has called Mr. Netanyahu a “war criminal.”The vow to arrest Mr. Netanyahu was one that Mr. Mamdani issued on the hustings, notwithstanding the reality that neither Israel nor America is a party to the Rome Statute, which chartered the criminal court. That means that the court has no jurisdiction in the United States. Mr. Netanyahu will also be entitled to head-of-government immunity. Courts have generally deferred to the State Department to designate which officials fall under the overhang of this protection. The 1947 Headquarters Agreement mandates that the UN complex at Turtle Bay enjoys protected status as well. Federal law ordains that “Whoever assaults, strikes, wounds, imprisons, or offers violence to a foreign official, official guest, or internationally protected person or makes any other violent attack upon the person or liberty of such person” can be imprisoned for up to three years. Any order by Mr. Mamdani to arrest Mr. Netanyahu would likely trigger a Supremacy Clause challenge. That section of the Constitution commands that when federal and state law collide, federal law triumphs.Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu addresses the United Nations General Assembly on September 26, 2025 at New York City. Michael M. Santiago/Getty ImagesThis week Mr. Trump declared that “Benjamin Netanyahu will not be arrested, in any way, shape, or form, while in the United States of America.” The 47th president instead asserts that the “only ones that should be arrested are the people that led Iran into this unprecedented SPIRAL OF DEATH AND DESTRUCTION.” While generally criminal law is the province of the states, arresting Mr. Netanyahu would encroach on the federal government’s purview over the conduct of foreign policy.Another federal law, known as the “Hague Invasion Act,” empowers the president to deploy “all means necessary and appropriate to bring about the release of any U.S. or allied personnel being detained or imprisoned by, on behalf of, or at the request of the International Criminal Court.” The mention of “allied personnel” suggests that its application could extend to Mr. Netanyahu, the elected leader of America’s ally Israel.On Monday a New York state assemblyman, Simcha Eichenstein, published a letter he wrote to the state’s attorney general, Letitia James, asking her to “determine whether any New York State laws have been violated, or if these actions constitute criminal official misconduct.” Mr. Eichenstein adds that “Under New York penal law, a public servant who knowingly performs an unauthorized act, and misuses their position to pressure law enforcement into making an arrest may be guilty of official misconduct.”Mr. Mamdani, who frequently appeals to “international law,” is invoking the authority of the ICC even as Secretary Marco Rubio is calling for a “whole-of-government” approach to “dismantle the ICC — brick by brick, if necessary.” America’s top diplomat explains that the court has become a “standing world tribunal with near-unlimited reach, empowered to override the courts and constitutions of the U.S. and other sovereign states — and to prosecute and arrest our citizens.”Israel appears to be unbothered by Mr. Mamdani’s threats. The country’s envoy to the United Nations, Danny Danon, told the world body on Monday that the “threat is empty,” and that there is “no legal basis” for an arrest. Mr. Netanyahu’s office issued a statement declaring that “The ICC is a kangaroo court that has no jurisdiction over Americans or Israelis.” Hizzoner, the statement adds, “appears interested in diverting public attention from his follies and attacking the leader of the Jewish state.”

If Mamdani Moves To Arrest Netanyahu, the Mayor Could Be the One Guilty of Breaking the Law

If Mamdani Moves To Arrest Netanyahu, the Mayor Could Be the One Guilty of Breaking the Law

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