NEW YORK — Israeli Benjamin Netanyahu said on Sunday that New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani is “fomenting hate” by calling the prime minister a war criminal who should be arrested over the war in Gaza if he visits the city for the United Nations General Assembly.
Netanyahu said he intends to be in New York in September to address the annual UN gathering of world leaders, despite the mayor’s suggestion that he is not welcome.
Mamdani said last week that while New York City does not have legal authority to execute an arrest warrant issued by the world’s top war-crimes court, he urged the federal government to do so.
The Israeli leader, who flies to the US on Monday on a different visit, said he was “not concerned” about Mamdani’s previous pledge and accused the mayor of “fomenting hate”.
He will meet US President Donald Trump at the White House on Tuesday and attend a funeral service for the late senator Lindsey Graham. New York is not on his itinerary on this trip.
“He’s supposed to be the mayor of all New Yorkers — Jews, Christians, Muslims, everyone,” Netanyahu said on Fox News Channel’s “Sunday Morning Futures” with Maria Bartiromo.”But he’s trying to turn one group against the other. I speak to Jewish Americans, and they’re afraid right now.”
He referenced a pair of stabbings in New York on Thursday, in which a suspect stabbed a Jewish man and an Asian man just blocks apart.
Both men survived the attacks, which drew condemnations from the city’s Jewish and Asian American leaders.
Mamdani, a staunch supporter of Palestinian rights, made his opposition to the Israeli military operation in Gaza a central plank of his campaign last year. In an address last week, he called Netanyahu a “war criminal.”
As part of that platform while campaigning, Mamdani promised to enforce a 2024 arrest warrant for Netanyahu from the International Criminal Court (ICC), which accused the prime minister of committing war crimes in Gaza.
Netanyahu on Sunday dismissed the ICC’s war crimes charges against him as “bogus.” He pointed to sexual misconduct allegations against the ICC’s top prosecutor, who was removed from that post on Friday, and said the warrant was an attempt to divert attention.
The Israeli military entered Gaza after the Hamas-led attack in Israel on 7 October 2023. About 1,200 people were killed and 251 were taken hostage.
Over 73,000 people have been killed in Israeli attacks in Gaza since then, including more than 21,000 children, according to the territory’s Hamas-run health ministry, whose figures are considered reliable by the UN.
Last week, after the New York Times pressed Mamdani on his pledge to arrest Netanyahu, Mamdani said his administration had reviewed the law and found: “We do not have the independent legal authority to enforce this warrant”.
Mamdani urged the federal government to arrest the prime minister, and said: “Benjamin Netanyahu is not welcome in New York City.”
Source: Saudi Gazette