Mamdani and Arresting Netanyahu

Many New Yorkers of all faiths would like to see Netanyahu arrested, but Mamdani's threats are not quite that simple.

Back when he was running for mayor in 2025, Zohran Mamdani, when asked about his positions and statements on Israel, would respond that as mayor he would not be doing foreign policy but was going to be focused on making New York City affordable. Many of the Jewish voters leaning towards other candidates did not believe him at the time, but perhaps more significantly it is unlikely that many within Mamdani’s own base believed that he would stop talking about Gaza and Israel if he became mayor. It is also unlikely that many of his strongest supporters wanted Mamdani to focus less on Israel.

Seven months into his term, Mamdani has been a pretty good mayor. He has been much less beholden to the wealthiest New Yorkers then his predecessor and has pushed back against conservative tropes about how New York City must be governed, while demonstrating that he is a better manager than his critics thought he would be. Mayor Mamdani has also never taken his eye off the ball with regards to the conflict in Gaza. This was most recently apparent when Mamdani renewed his campaign promise to arrest Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu should he come to New York.

This was always an empty threat and despite Mamdani’s claims that he was consulting with his legal department, it is hard to imagine he ever thought he had the legal right to do this.

The bottom legal line is that Benjamin Netanyahu cannot be arrested in the United States for being found guilty by a court that the United States has not recognized. Moreover, if it was legal to arrest Netanyahu, that would be done by federal officials or federal officials in cooperation with local officials. It is hard to imagine the New York City mayor didn’t know that before he made the threat. When confronted by this, Mamdani revised his position and has urged New Yorkers to protest Netanyahu when he comes to New York.

There is also a paradox here. Many perhaps most New Yorkers, including a substantial number of Jewish New Yorkers would like to see the Israeli Prime Minister arrested and would like to protest his visit. Many of us understand the Israeli Prime Minister to be guilty of war crimes, crimes against humanity, ethnic cleansing and other atrocities including possibly genocide.

It is also possible both to oppose what the Israeli regime is doing, believe that Benjamin Netanyahu should be held accountable for his war crimes and at the same time to believe that Mamdani is not threatening to arrest Benjamin Netanyahu because he suddenly has a new legal theory or because he is solely driven by a deep commitment to liberate the people of Gaza.

To understand that we must go back to Mamdani’s promises around affordability. I have lived in New York City for the entire time Mamdani has been mayor. Most New Yorkers I know agree that he is doing a pretty good job. Most of the people I know who voted for him would happily vote for him again either in a democratic primary or a general election. They basically like the guy, think he is working hard, are very happy the Knicks won the NBA championship and believe the mayor is advocating and working for all New Yorkers not just the wealthy.

I agree with all that. However, over the last seven months not a single New Yorker has said to me they believe the city is more affordable.

It is not fair to blame the mayor for New York City remaining so expensive. The economic factors driving that are beyond the power of any mayor, including this one. Additionally, the components Mamdani’s core program of free buses, free childcare, freezing the rent and publicly supported grocery stores in each borough are very difficult to implement-although he has made some progress here including the promised rent freeze. However, even if successfully implemented, these policies will have a moderate impact and will not effect all New Yorkers. Despite all those caveats, it remains true that Mamdani has struggled to deliver on the key theme of his campaign.

For Mamdani going back to his core political belief, the one that catapulted him from an obscure if charismatic assembly backbencher to being a viable mayoral candidate, is good politics-and threatening to arrest Netanyahu allows him to do that. This is why the critique that this is not what Mamdani was elected to do falls short. Mamdani was elected precisely because he was uncompromisingly critical of Israel. Many, but not all, of his voters want him to continue to focus on Israel. For those voters Mamdani’s comments about Netanyahu are the fulfillment of an implicit promise from the campaign.

The problem, at least for some of us, is that constantly banging the drum about what he believes to be the unique evils of the state of Israel makes Jewish New Yorkers less safe. The protestations by too many on the left that being anti-Israel is essentially a magical shield against being antisemitic does not change that.

We are now at a moment where a substantial proportion of the American left sees anybody who does not view Israel as a uniquely terrible force in the world that has no legitimacy whatsoever, or who suggests that there can be an overlap between anti-Israel sentiment and antisemitism, as a genocidaire. That is nonsense, but it is powerful, politically potent and potentially dangerous nonsense. Mamdani’s recent comments about Netanyahu demonstrate this with the deftness, intellect and charisma that even the Mayor’s harshest critics must recognize.

Photo: cc/Department of Defense

Regardless of Mamdani’s statements about the universality of his views, he has only focused on this one foreign country. It almost goes without saying that the Mayor has been silent about what he would do if, for example, a Russian military leader came to New York.

Simlarly, while Mamdani has rightly giving voice to New Yorkers who survived the Nakba in the late 1940s. I have not heard him do anything to recognize the genocide that occurred in Bangladesh at the hands of what is now Pakistan in the early 1970s, nor have I ever heard him discuss the Rohingya people. Mamdani has also never threatened to arrest Elon Musk for abolishing USAID, a decision that has led to hundreds of thousands, and probably more than a million, deaths primarily from starvation and lack of access to medicine.

I also am aware that if a Jewish writer ever mentions any tragedy or horror other than Gaza or suggests that there is a scintilla of antisemitism on the left, many will see that writer as complicit in genocide in Gaza.

The core conundrum here is that concern about antisemitism does not make it any less neccessary, on the one hand, to recognize the atrocities Israel is committing, demand accountability in accordance with international law for the Israeli leaders who are responsible for the massive numbers of civilian deaths in Gaza and the ethnic cleansing project in both the West Bank and Gaza and insist that the US change its relationship with Israel and no longer continue to fund the Israeli military.

On the other hand, it is also possible and necessary to accept both that other terrible things are occurring, or have occurred in recent history, and that Israel, while led by a messianic, brutal and expansionist regime is an extraordinarily bad actor in the moment, while at the same time recognizing that there are other bad actors in the world, some of which are worse. Failing to accept this is single out Israel, and consistently singling out Israel is a not-too-distant cousin of obsessing over the Jews; and that has long been a core component of antisemitism on the ideological right, left and center.

It is also possible that when a mayor runs on a pledge of focusing on the city rather than posturing on international politics it is okay to hold him to that pledge.

For Mamdani threatening to arrest Netanyahu is a political win. It takes away attention from the difficulties he has confronted with his affordability agenda and offers political red meat for his base. Many Jewish New Yorkers will be upset about this and, whether we want to recognize it or not, it contributes to a climate of growing antisemitism, but there is limited political cost to that, especially for Mamdani.

The most puzzling thing about this is that in the big picture Mamdani’s mayoralty is doing fine. He has delivered on some promises, managed the city well, responded to the crises that have arisen-mostly due to climate change-more than adequately, centered working and poor people in city governance and has been an excellent cheerleader for the city.

While it may be good for Mamdani that we are discussing Netanyahu, it might have been better if we were discussing his decision this week to appoint Lina Khan to head the Economic Development Corporation. That is also the kind of thing that many New Yorkers of all ethnicities, races and faiths wanted to see when we voted for Mamdani.