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<\/a><\/p>\nU.S. President Donald Trump meets Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at White House in Washington, D.C., July 28, 2026. (Ma\u00e2ayan Toaf (GPO)\/Handout\/Anadolu via Getty Images)<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
The Israeli leader made an evocative reference to the period when the Nazis took over Germany in a Fox News interview on Tuesday, adding that he is \u201cdefinitely going\u201d to New York for the U.N. General Assembly in September. The planned trip prompted Mamdani, a staunch pro-Palestinian advocate, to explore executing an international arrest warrant against Netanyahu. <\/p>\n
Mamdani said last week that his Law Department did not find the city could legally make the arrest, but he challenged the U.S. government to do so, calling Netanyahu \u201cthe architect of a horrific genocide against the Palestinian people.\u201d President Donald Trump has rejected the idea of an arrest. The United States is not a party to the International Criminal Court, which has accused Netanyahu of war crimes and crimes against humanity in Gaza, and its warrants have no legal power in the United States.<\/p>\n
Netanyahu responded to Mamdani in an interview with Fox News commentator Sean Hannity, a close Trump ally, while visiting Washington, D.C. this week. He called the mayor a \u201chate-spewing elected official who\u2019s pitting one group of New Yorkers against the other.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cHe\u2019s turning them against New York Jews. I mean, what are we, in the 1930s?,\u201d said Netanyahu.<\/p>\n
Since calling for Netanyahu\u2019s arrest, Mamdani has said repeatedly that he does not single out Jews or Israel for punishment.<\/p>\n
\u201cMy interest in executing that warrant is not specific to Benjamin Netanyahu, but to anyone who they put a warrant towards for war crimes and crimes against humanity,\u201d Mamdani said to reporters last week, adding that he also described Hamas\u2019 Oct. 7 attacks on Israel as a \u201chorrific war crime.\u201d<\/p>\n
In a separate press conference on Monday, Mamdani said his characterizations of Netanyahu as a war criminal \u201cwere not even frankly personal assessments, they were objective facts.\u201d <\/p>\n
Mamdani\u2019s views are increasingly popular in the United States, with a new survey from The Economist\/YouGov showing that nearly half of Americans believe the country should arrest Netanyahu. 49% of respondents said the United States should enforce the ICC warrant, while 27% said \u201cno\u201d and 23% were unsure.<\/p>\n
Former Mayor Bill de Blasio also backed Mamdani\u2019s statements. \u201cI think he drew attention to the fact that Netanyahu is literally a war criminal,\u201d de Blasio said in a Fox News interview on Monday. \u201cThis guy\u2019s policies led to the deaths of tens of thousands of Palestinian children, and that defines a war crime to me and to so many people around the world.\u201d<\/p>\n
Major Jewish groups have fiercely criticized Mamdani\u2019s arrest ambitions. The UJA-Federation of New York accused him of \u201cdistortions and disinformation.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cAt a time of rising antisemitism, repeatedly singling out and vilifying the world\u2019s only Jewish state for perceived political benefit is repugnant, puts Jews at greater risk \u2014 and leaves many Jewish New Yorkers feeling targeted and unwelcome in the city we call home,\u201d the federation said in a statement. <\/p>\n
Before his interview with Hannity on Tuesday, Netanyahu slipped into the White House through a side door for a meeting with Trump that did not include public face time. Pundits theorized that the low-profile affair reflected how unpopular Netanyahu has grown in the United States amid the Iran and Gaza wars, making it politically risky for Trump to be seen with him, as the president\u2019s approval also sinks to a new low.<\/p>\n