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Israeli Ambassador to the United Nations Danny Danon said New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani (D) has “no jurisdiction” to arrest Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu during his planned visit to New York in September, dismissing the mayor’s threat as “a stunt.”
In an interview with The New York Times, Mamdani said his administration is in “an active conversation” with the city’s legal department about whether there is legal authority to arrest Netanyahu if he attends the U.N. General Assembly in September, describing the Israeli leader as a “war criminal.”
“We all know it’s a stunt, you know, and no basis to these remarks of the mayor,” Danon said in a Monday interview with NewsNation. “He wants to distract the conversation from his failures in running the city and putting the blame on Israel.”
Danon argued Mamdani lacks the authority to carry out such an arrest, noting that the U.S. is not a party to the International Criminal Court (ICC), which issued an arrest warrant for Netanyahu in November 2024 over alleged war crimes tied to Israel’s military action in Gaza.
“The U.S. is not part of the ICC so there is no warrant against a prime minister in the U.S., and there is no jurisdiction for the mayor,” he said.
The Israeli ambassador also cited an agreement governing the U.N. headquarters in New York, arguing foreign leaders have long been permitted to travel to the city to address the General Assembly.
“The only thing the mayor can do is sit in the sidelines and maybe learn something about the rule of law,” Danon said.
President Trump also weighed in on Mamdani’s threat, insisting Netanyahu “will not be arrested” on U.S. soil.
“Benjamin Netanyahu will not be arrested, in any way, shape, or form, while in the United States of America,” Trump wrote in a Truth Social post on Monday. “He is fighting against the Islamic Republic of Iran, which recently killed 52,000 innocent protestors, and has spent the last 47 years killing American Soldiers, and others.”
Trump continued: “The only ones that should be arrested are the people that led Iran into this unprecedented SPIRAL OF DEATH AND DESTRUCTION.”
Netanyahu’s office blasted Mamdani and the ICC in a statement on Sunday posted to the social platform X.
“The ICC is a kangaroo court that has no jurisdiction over Americans or Israelis,” the statement reads. “Its bogus arrest warrant against Prime Minister Netanyahu was issued by a disgraced former ICC Prosecutor, Karim Khan, a few days before allegations of sexual misconduct against him became public.”
The statement continued: “Instead of backing Khan’s criminal behaviour, Mr. Mamdani should focus on fixing the damage his policies have caused New York.” The statement also accused Mamdani of “attacking the leader of the Jewish state and the only democracy in the Middle East.”
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