Mamdani’s Empty and Possibly Illegal Threat of Enforcing an ICC Warrant * The Gateway Pundit * by Antonio Graceffo

New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani said in a New York Times interview released July 18, 2026, that he is in “active conversation” with the city’s Law Department over whether he has authority to arrest Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu if Netanyahu travels to New York for the United Nations General Assembly in September.

Mamdani said he believes Netanyahu “belongs in the Hague” and called him a war criminal charged by the International Criminal Court, adding that “whatever the law allows me to do in New York City, that’s what we will do, but we won’t be writing our own laws to that end.” The pledge dates to his mayoral campaign, when he first said he would direct the NYPD to enforce an ICC warrant against Netanyahu if the Israeli leader visited the city.

Asked about it, Netanyahu told radio host Sid Rosenberg he believes Mamdani secretly “hates America,” while Israel’s UN ambassador Danny Danon said Netanyahu will attend the UNGA session regardless.

By July 20, Mamdani had doubled down, telling reporters Netanyahu “is the architect of the genocide of Palestinians in Gaza” and calling that “not… my personal assessment” but “facts of public record.” President Donald Trump responded on Truth Social that Netanyahu “will not be arrested, in any way, shape, or form, while in the United States of America.”

Netanyahu’s office followed with a statement calling the ICC “a kangaroo court that has no jurisdiction over Americans or Israelis” and describing the warrant as “bogus,” attributing it to former ICC Prosecutor Karim Khan. An investigation later found Khan had engaged in “serious misconduct” and a “serious breach of duty,” per documents reviewed by the Associated Press in June.

The warrant itself dates to November 21, 2024, when the ICC’s Pre-Trial Chamber I unanimously rejected Israel’s jurisdictional challenges and issued arrest warrants for Netanyahu and then-Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, citing reasonable grounds to believe both bore criminal responsibility for war crimes and crimes against humanity, including starvation as a method of warfare, from October 8, 2023 through May 20, 2024.

Neither the United States nor Israel is a party to the Rome Statute, and Congress addressed the matter directly through the American Servicemembers’ Protection Act of 2002. Under 22 U.S.C. § 7423, no U.S. court and no state or local government agency may cooperate with the ICC in response to a request submitted under the Rome Statute.

A companion provision, 22 U.S.C. § 7421, states the U.S. “will not recognize the jurisdiction of the International Criminal Court over United States nationals.” The current administration reiterated its non-recognition position in a February 2025 order imposing sanctions on ICC personnel, stating the court “has no jurisdiction over the United States or Israel, as neither country is party to the Rome Statute.”

Named legal experts have weighed in directly on Mamdani’s position. Rebecca Ingber, a law professor at Cardozo School of Law, told NY1 that head-of-state immunity shields Netanyahu from criminal jurisdiction and that his UN status affords further protection while he is in the city for the General Assembly, describing the arrest threat as “completely detached from reality.”

New York Governor Kathy Hochul made a related point the previous year, stating plainly that the mayor “does not have the power to do that.” Separately, NYU law professor Samuel Estreicher and law student Matthew Fouracre, writing in Justia’s Verdict, examined the warrant’s jurisdictional basis and concluded that head-of-state immunity remains a central obstacle to enforcement against a sitting or former head of government.

U.S. Ambassador to the UN Mike Waltz laid out four objections to Mamdani’s position in a social media post: the U.S. is not party to the Rome Statute; the UN Headquarters Agreement grants diplomatic protections to visiting heads of government; head-of-state immunity applies; and, per his earlier comments to CNN, the proposal amounts to “pure political theater.”

The same NBC report cited several former prosecutors who said an arrest attempt by Mamdani or NYPD on the strength of the ICC warrant would violate federal law and could expose those involved to federal conspiracy charges.

Mamdani has been asked directly whether NYPD Commissioner Jessica Tisch would permit such an arrest. In an earlier Fox News interview, he declined to answer, saying only that he would “exhaust every legal option” without writing new law to do so, and he acknowledged in that same interview that the U.S. has not ratified the Rome Statute treaty.

There appears to be no legal basis for Zohran Mamdani, the mayor of a U.S. city, to arrest the prime minister of a foreign country. Doing so would appear to violate diplomatic immunity and could constitute the unlawful deprivation of a person’s liberty. At the same time, U.S. federal law protects covered U.S. persons and covered allied persons from enforcement of ICC warrants. Aside from causing a major international incident, Mamdani would likely find himself at odds with the federal government, as Congress has authorized the President to use the military and all other means necessary and appropriate to secure the release of covered U.S. and allied persons detained by or on behalf of the ICC.