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During his campaign to become mayor of New York, Zohran Mamdani famously vowed that he’d arrest Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu the next time he visited the Big Apple.
This week, Netanyahu essentially called his bluff. He’s expected to address the United Nations in September. And after a whole lot of hemming, and hawing, and hedging, Mamdani admitted in a video Tuesday night that he does not actually have the legal authority to arrest a foreign dignitary on US soil.
The retreat is not surprising to legal experts, who had long questioned how Mamdani would pull this particular promise off. In November 2024, the International Criminal Court — a tribunal recognized by 125 countries, not including Israel, China, Russia, or the US — did issue an arrest warrant for Netanyahu on charges of starvation, murder, persecution, and intentionally directing attacks against civilians.
But the US does not recognize the ICC’s jurisdiction. And even if it did, the job of executing its warrants would presumably not fall to New York City cops. So, why did Mamdani suggest he’d arrest Netanyahu when he actually knew he could not?
The end of the pro-Israel consensus
Mamdani’s allies argue that the principle here mattered, that the mayor needed to issue some kind of denunciation, even if he couldn’t act. But there’s another, more cynical read here, too: For Democrats, critiquing Israel is good politics.
This is a seismic, generational shift, with far-ranging implications for both Democrats and US foreign policy. The party’s left flank has criticized Israel for years, but older and more moderate Dems only soured on Israel recently.
“A few months after October 7, younger and progressive Democrats overwhelmingly took the opinion that Israel was committing a genocide,” said Hamid Bendaas, of the Institute for Middle East Understanding, a pro-Palestinian advocacy group. “But there were still elements of the Democratic Party — people watching MSNBC or NPR — that weren’t convinced.”
For many of these voters, the turning point only came after President Donald Trump took office again. Severe famine swept across Gaza last summer — the consequence of ongoing conflict and Israeli restrictions on food and aid shipments. Netanyahu also allied himself closely with Trump, particularly around the war in Iran. Support for Israel has consequently grown more GOP-coded, rather like Kid Rock or Bass Pro hats.
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