New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani has now withdrawn his ridiculous threat to arrest Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu. After reviewing “every avenue available,” he now acknowledges that he lacks the legal authority to act under an unenforceable warrant from the International Criminal Court in The Hague.
What absolute nonsense. It was incontestable from the outset that Mamdani’s threat to arrest Netanyahu was pure political theater, designed to energize the anti-Israel activists to whom he has catered since his days as founder of Students for Justice in Palestine at Bowdoin College in Maine.
But what began as political theater increasingly resembles a 21st-century version of a medieval passion play—a spectacle calculated to mobilize anti-Israel demonstrators and turn the streets of New York City into an anti-Israel mob scene when Netanyahu visits in September to address the annual meeting of the U.N. General Assembly.
I repeat what I wrote in JNS before Mamdani even took office: the threat to arrest Netanyahu was “as toxic a form of radical-left virtue-signaling as it was legally impossible, diplomatically reckless and socially divisive.”
Anyone who thought Mamdani’s anti-Israel showmanship would dissipate once he settled into the business of governing New York City wasn’t paying attention.
In 2021, Mamdani told a conference of Young Democratic Socialists that his anti-Israel BDS activism was the “crux of the reason” he joined the Democratic Socialists of America. Now, as mayor, castigating Israel appears to have become essential to the business of governing New York City.
Since taking office, the mayor has treated New Yorkers to a steady stream of anti-Israel and anti-Zionist hostility.
Within hours of being inaugurated, he revoked two executive orders: one discouraging city agencies from participating in boycotts targeting Israel, of which he has long been a leading proponent; and the other directing city agencies to rescind the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s (IHRA) working definition of antisemitism that his predecessor, Eric Adams, had adopted. He became the first New York City mayor in decades to decline the customary appearance at the city’s annual Israel Day Parade.
As demonstrators heckled Jews entering synagogues for events and information sessions, Mamdani declined to condemn these anti-Israel protests, instead defending them on the ground that programs promoting the sale of real estate in Israel allegedly violated international law.
Along the same lines, he vetoed a City Council bill prompted by the synagogue demonstrations that would have required the New York City Police Department to establish and report on buffer zones around educational institutions. Among his stated justifications for the veto was that the measure could affect protests involving issues such as Palestinian rights. Mamdani declined to veto a bill specifically protecting religious institutions; nevertheless, the measure had passed with a veto-proof majority.
Perhaps most troubling and revealing, like many of his DSA allies and progressive colleagues, Mamdani has continued to use AIPAC as a whipping boy for everything that ails American politics. He recently branded the Jewish lobbying organization a “monster,” accusing it of “mov[ing] millions of dark money into Democratic primaries … .” According to Mamdani, AIPAC’s “goal” is to “turn us against one another.”
If only the mayor understood how neatly these accusations line up with classic antisemitic tropes. Then again, perhaps he does.
So, what can we expect from Act II of Mamdani’s hit show?
My guess is that his DSA comrades are planning massive anti-Israel demonstrations when Netanyahu comes to New York in September. The faux “legal review” was a promotional stunt for the real event. What better platform for garnering world attention to demonize Israel, screaming, “It’s a genocide!” than the U.N. annual meeting?
The point was never the arrest of Netanyahu. It was the publicity and political mobilization that the shocking threat of arrest would generate.
Mamdani came into office boasting that his anti-Israel, BDS activism was the “crux of the reason” he entered politics. His conduct since taking office demonstrates that contempt for Israel remains at the “crux” of his politics and a defining theme of his mayoralty.
That may be an acceptable role for a political activist. But it is an outrageous and dangerous posture for the mayor of New York City.
