During his mayoral campaign, Zohran Mamdani made a promise that stood out even in a crowded field of pledges: if elected, New York City would arrest Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on an International Criminal Court warrant if he ever set foot in the city. "As mayor, New York City would arrest Benjamin Netanyahu," he told a podcast host in December 2024, months before he'd even won the primary. This week, in office, he walked that promise back.
In a video posted Tuesday, Mamdani said his administration had spent months examining "every avenue available under applicable law" to determine whether the NYPD could execute the ICC's 2024 warrant against Netanyahu. "It is clear that we do not have the independent legal authority to enforce this warrant," he said. He didn't soften his underlying view of the case, however, calling Netanyahu a "war criminal" and saying the Israeli leader is "not welcome in New York City, nor is any other war criminal at large."
Why the legal reality was always going to catch up
The gap between the promise and the outcome was baked in from the start. The United States is not a signatory to the Rome Statute that created the ICC and does not recognize the court's jurisdiction — a point Rep. Jerry Nadler, a fellow New York Democrat, raised bluntly back when Mamdani first made the pledge as a candidate: "The City of New York has no jurisdiction to do such a thing." Local police enforcing an international warrant the federal government doesn't recognize was always going to run into that wall.
A charge Israel firmly rejects
The ICC warrant, issued in November 2024, accuses Netanyahu and former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant of using "starvation as a method of warfare" and intentionally targeting civilians during Israel's military campaign in Gaza — allegations Israeli officials deny. President Trump has said Netanyahu will not be arrested "in any way, shape, or form" during any U.S. visit, and Israel's U.N. ambassador along with the pro-Israel lobbying group AIPAC condemned Mamdani's remarks as spreading "false accusations" for political gain.
Notably, even some of Mamdani's own political allies were reportedly uneasy with the pledge from the start — The New York Times previously reported that Murad Awawdeh, head of the New York Immigration Coalition, said arresting Netanyahu wasn't a priority for his organization. Whatever the politics, the legal outcome landed exactly where critics like Nadler predicted: a mayor can express a moral position, but can't unilaterally enforce an international warrant the U.S. government doesn't recognize.