Zohran Mamdani spent months talking like the mayor of New York City could turn the NYPD into an enforcement arm for an international court.

Then his own lawyers apparently got involved.

In a video released Tuesday night, Mamdani conceded that City Hall does not have the independent legal authority to arrest Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu if he comes to New York for the United Nations General Assembly in September.

That is quite a retreat from the campaign promise that helped make Mamdani a national figure on the far left.

Mamdani did not abandon his attack on Netanyahu. He called the Israeli leader a war criminal, accused him of genocide and said he was not welcome in New York.

ADVERTISEMENT

The admission that mattered came in the very next breath: after reviewing what Mamdani described as every available legal avenue, his administration concluded that New York City cannot independently enforce the International Criminal Court’s warrant.

The mayor then tried to pass the demand to Washington, calling on the federal government to join the ICC and execute the warrant instead.

There is one glaring problem with that pivot.

President Trump had already made the federal government’s position unmistakable.

According to the Associated Press, President Trump said Monday that Netanyahu would not be arrested “in any way, shape, or form” while in the United States.

The AP reported that Mamdani issued his concession late Tuesday after previously saying his administration was examining whether local authorities could act on the ICC warrant. His legal review ended with City Hall admitting it had no independent enforcement power, even as the mayor continued to demand Netanyahu’s arrest.

Netanyahu is expected in New York for the U.N. General Assembly in September. The AP also noted that the United States is not an ICC member and that Washington has rejected the warrant, leaving Mamdani’s fallback appeal aimed at a federal government whose answer was already public.

So Mamdani has now landed in an extraordinary position. He admits his own city lacks the power to carry out his threat, then demands help from a federal administration that has already rejected the entire premise.

This was not some obscure technicality uncovered at the last minute.

ADVERTISEMENT

The United States Code says that no agency or entity of a state or local government may cooperate with the ICC in response to a request made under the Rome Statute. The same section bars state and local entities from extraditing a person from the United States to the court or providing support to it.

That language does not leave much room for a mayor looking to stage an international arrest at a New York airport.

The United States is also not a party to the Rome Statute, the treaty that created the ICC. The court can issue warrants, but it has no police force of its own and depends on governments to make arrests.

The United Nations treaty record lists the countries that ratified or acceded to the Rome Statute. The United States signed the treaty in 2000 but later notified the U.N. that it did not intend to become a party.

The record matters because the ICC relies on participating governments to carry out its warrants. Member states accept cooperation duties under the treaty; a city government inside a non-member country cannot simply claim those powers for itself.

Israel is not a party either. Although the ICC says it has jurisdiction based on the Palestinian territories, neither Jerusalem nor Washington accepts that the court can command American police agencies to detain Israel’s sitting prime minister.

That is the legal wall Mamdani’s promise finally hit.

Even Democratic Sen. John Fetterman of Pennsylvania mocked the idea before Mamdani’s walk-back, arguing that the mayor had no way to carry it out and should focus on New York’s own problems.

Fetterman’s criticism now looks less like partisan sniping and more like a preview of the conclusion City Hall’s legal review would reach days later.

ADVERTISEMENT

Netanyahu’s office was not interested in giving Mamdani credit for finally acknowledging the limits of his authority.

As The Times of Israel reported, the prime minister’s office called the ICC a “kangaroo court” with no jurisdiction over Americans or Israelis. It accused Mamdani of trying to distract from his own record in New York by targeting the leader of the Jewish state.

The Israeli government rejects the ICC’s allegations and argues that the court has no jurisdiction over Israel, which is also not a party to the Rome Statute. Netanyahu’s office said Israel had taken extraordinary wartime measures to reduce civilian harm while fighting Hamas, and it dismissed the warrant as politically tainted.

The Times of Israel also pointed to two separate federal obstacles: American law bars local-government cooperation with the ICC, and another statute protects foreign officials, including heads of state, from imprisonment or obstruction. New York Gov. Kathy Hochul had already said last year that a New York City mayor lacked the power Mamdani claimed.

The ICC announced its warrants for Netanyahu and former Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant in November 2024. The court said it found reasonable grounds to believe they bore criminal responsibility for alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity connected to the war in Gaza.

Those remain allegations. Israel has forcefully denied them and says its war was launched in response to the October 7, 2023, Hamas terrorist attack, in which roughly 1,200 people were killed and 251 were taken hostage.

Mamdani is free to keep attacking Netanyahu. He is free to demand that President Trump reverse American policy and embrace the ICC.

What he cannot do is pretend the mayor of New York possesses a power that federal law denies him.

After months of swagger, the legal answer fit into one sentence: New York City cannot make the arrest.

ADVERTISEMENT

And now everybody knows it.

This is a Guest Post from our friends over at WLTReport. View the original article here.

 

Join The Conversation. Leave a Comment.