New York Mayor Sohran Mamdani says he will discuss with city authorities whether Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu can be arrested if he visits New York City for the UN General Assembly session scheduled to be held in September.
The New York mayor said in an interview with the New York Times that he was concerned about the International Criminal Court’s arrest warrant for Netanyahu for crimes against humanity committed in the Gaza Strip.
“I believe that Prime Minister Netanyahu should be at the International Court of Justice in The Hague. “He is a war criminal indicted by the International Criminal Court,” Mamdani said.
Mamdani, a pro-Palestinian democratic socialist, had vowed during his mayoral campaign to arrest Netanyahu if he came to New York. The mayor, who said he was already in active discussions with the city’s legal department about whether he had the legal authority to arrest Netanyahu, said, “We are ready to do whatever New York City law allows me to do, but we are not making new laws for that.”
In response to the statement, Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu said he believed Mayor Mamdani secretly “hates America.” He also said Netanyahu would attend the UN General Assembly in September, despite the threat of arrest. The organization’s Israeli ambassador, Danny Danon, emphasized.