cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/49644560
New York City mayor Zohran Mamdani has said he was reviewing whether his administration could arrest Benjamin Netanyahu if as expected the Israeli prime minister visits the city for the UN general assembly in September.
Mamdani’s comments on Saturday’s episode of the New York Times’s the Interview podcast echoed ones he had made to the publication as he successfully ran for mayor last fall.
“I believe that prime minister Netanyahu belongs in The Hague,” Mamdani said, referring to the Dutch city that is home to the international criminal court, which issued an arrest warrant for Netanyahu in November 2024 over alleged war crimes in Gaza. “He’s a war criminal who has been charged by the international criminal court, and what you will find is that is an opinion that is held by many, purely because of what his actions have wrought over these past many years.”
Mamdani said it was unclear to him whether he has the legal authority to order the New York police department (NYPD), which he oversees, to detain a foreign leader like Netanyahu. But he said he was in “an active conversation” with the city’s law department about the matter.
Can’t he just create a stalemate where the NYPD blocks Netanyahu’s car and then call the feds?
They would probably do nothing with him, but Mamdani would have done his part, Netanyahu would have an horrible time, and the trump administration would have once again to explain their acts, maybe loosing a few voters along the way.
But maybe it would make things even worse, IDK.
Maybe let’s do it but with the New York national guard
Not that the federal police are likely to act on it, as much as I’d love otherwise.