WhatsappDeep down, the mayor-elect knows that his proposal to arrest the Israeli prime minister is a non-starter. He can’t admit that, however, or his supporters would regard it as a sell-out.
Now that Zohran Mamdani has been elected mayor of New York City, should Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu test the 34-year-old’s pledge to arrest him by visiting the five boroughs?
Inna Vernikov, a Ukraine-born Jewish Republican councilwoman from Brooklyn, N.Y., clearly thinks that he should. Last week, Vernikov—an outspoken supporter of the Jewish state and one of the most visible opponents of the pro-Hamas demonstrations that have blighted this city—issued an invitation to Netanyahu to visit on Jan. 1, the day Mamdani takes office. “In recent months, there have been irresponsible and frankly absurd statements made by Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani, who has campaigned on the promise of ‘arresting’ you upon setting foot in our city,” she wrote. “Your visit would stand as a powerful reminder that this city stands with Israel, the Jewish people, and the principles that unite our two great nations.”
Vernikov, of course, is confident that no arrest would take place should Netanyahu come here.
There is an arrest warrant for the Israeli leader, along with former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, which was issued last November by the International Criminal Court in The Hague, alleging both war crimes and crimes against humanity—though notably, in this context, not for “genocide,” the word constantly screeched in Netanyahu’s direction by Mamdani and his acolytes. But as anyone with a modicum of awareness of the U.S. relationship with the ICC would have known before speaking out, the warrant simply isn’t valid in the Big Apple or anywhere else in this country.
Not only has the United States, under successive Democratic and Republican administrations, refused to ratify the Rome Statute underpinning the ICC’s efforts. In February of this year, U.S. President Donald Trump imposed sanctions on the court, pointing out that it has, “without a legitimate basis, asserted jurisdiction over and opened preliminary investigations concerning personnel of the United States and certain of its allies, including Israel, and has further abused its power by issuing baseless arrest warrants targeting Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Former Minister of Defense Yoav Gallant. The ICC has no jurisdiction over the United States or Israel, as neither country is party to the Rome Statute or a member of the ICC.”
You can’t really get more black and white than that.
Were the Israeli premier to roll up in any of the five boroughs, it’s far more likely that in attempting to execute the ICC’s warrant, it would be Mamdani, and not Netanyahu, who would find himself on the wrong side of the law.
Though Vernikov hasn’t said as much, clearly, her purpose is to embarrass Mamdani by showing the avowedly socialist mayor the limits of his powers. Like his plans for free buses, which would promptly become magnets for petty criminals, or municipally owned grocery stores, which would put hundreds of immigrant-run bodegas out of business, the promise to arrest Netanyahu is built on sand. Were he to visit, the likelihood is that the prime minister would be trolled around Manhattan by keffiyeh-clad supporters of the Hamas death cult before safely departing again for Tel Aviv. For his part, Trump openly regards Mamdani’s threat as performative nonsense, jovially telling Netanyahu during their White House meeting in July that should he find himself behind bars during a trip to Gotham, “I’ll get you out.”
Mamdani, it appears, has yet to receive the message. In a recent conversation with pro-Hamas influencer Mehdi Hasan, he denounced Netanyahu as “someone who is facing a warrant from the ICC, someone who has perpetrated a genocide of Palestinians for close to two years,” earnestly opining that New York City under his stewardship could “showcase a model of what politics could be—that we are a city that believes in international law.”
As is well known, Mamdani has never had an actual job, let alone any experience of running one of the world’s largest and greatest cities. But we shouldn’t make the mistake of assuming that he is a dimwit because of that. Deep down, he knows that his proposal to arrest Netanyahu is a non-starter, but he cannot admit as much, as his supporters—many of whom are irredeemably dimwitted—would regard this as a sell-out.
The mischievously delightful chutzpah undergirding Vernikov’s invitation to Netanyahu is based on this realization. On literally day one of his four-year term in office, Mamdani would be forced to watch one of his signal campaign promises melt into the air.
Netanyahu himself understands this, having acknowledged during his last meeting with Trump that Mamdani’s goal is “silly” and “not serious.” So, should he respond to Vernikov in the affirmative?
There is certainly great value in frustrating Mamdani at the earliest possible opportunity. Doing so would expose that the support for Hamas he and his supporters have indulged in, while often violent and always ugly, is essentially theatrics. No one seriously believes that Mamdani will obtain a prized photograph of a chastened Netanyahu being dragged out of the Waldorf Astoria by officers of the New York City Police Department, handcuffed in his pajamas.
Mamdani’s failure here would therefore be a much-deserved poke in the eye to the keffiyeh cult, a morale boost for the significant majority of Jewish citizens of New York who voted against him and a reminder of the vital role that Israel plays in the city’s economy. According to the latest study by the United States‒Israel Business Alliance, Israeli companies have generated the city nearly $20 billion of revenue and created 25,000 jobs.
But Netanyahu must also weigh up the negatives, like his personal unpopularity among many Israelis as well as American Jews. There is a risk that accepting Vernikov’s invitation will center the dispute with Mamdani around Netanyahu personally, instead of the incoming mayor’s rancid objection to the existence of Israel as a Jewish, democratic state and his support for boycotting the very same companies that have brought so much wealth to New York.
He must also ask whether, as Israel’s prime minister, it is appropriate for him to go head-to-head with the mayor of a foreign city. For these reasons, there will likely be those in Netanyahu’s circle advising him to keep his powder dry by saving his next visit for a more important occasion, such as the annual U.N. General Assembly in September.
Whatever Netanyahu decides, we should take heart from Vernikov’s initiative. Mamdani will not govern this city unopposed. Every misstep and every non-viable campaign promise will come back to bite him in the rear. The next four years will be a battle, and it has already started.
