Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu says that New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani is “fomenting hate” after calling for the Israeli ruler’s arrest. Mamdani has described Israel’s military campaign against Palestine as genocide and called the Israeli prime minister a “war criminal.”
The International Criminal Court (ICC) issued an arrest warrant for Netanyahu and former Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant in November 2024 over alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity in the enclave, including “starvation as a method of warfare” and “other inhumane acts.”
Obviously, neither has been arrested, and Netanyahu and Gallant are still out committing the crimes they’ve been accused of. So what good is an arrest warrant then? It seems like as long as someone rules over others, they get a pass on morality. Maybe it’s time to reevaluate our loyalty to a ruler.
While speaking to Fox News on Sunday, Netanyahu dismissed the ICC case against him as “bogus” and said he would still travel to New York despite Mamdani’s calls for his arrest. Netanyahu accused the mayor of “fomenting hate.” He was quoted as saying: “He’s supposed to be the mayor of all New Yorkers – Jews, Christians, Muslims, everyone. But he’s trying to turn one group against the other.”
While Mamdani later acknowledged that New York City has no legal authority to enforce the ICC warrant, he instead urged the Trump administration to act against the Israeli ruler. Neither the United States nor Israel is a party to the ICC, and US federal law bars state and local authorities from cooperating with requests from the court. So basically, the arrest warrant amounts to nothing more than ink on paper. Was there ever any intention by any governing body of following through on this threat?
The war in Gaza began after the October 7th, 2023, Hamas-led attack on southern Israel, in which around 1,200 people were killed and more than 250 were taken hostage. The Jewish State responded with a large-scale military operation in the enclave and has continued expanding its ground campaign, despite a US-brokered ceasefire agreement with Hamas. More than 73,000 people, including over 21,000 children, have since been killed in Gaza, according to the enclave’s health authorities. The campaign has drawn widespread international condemnation and fueled accusations of genocide, which Israel denies. –RT
Trump has also dismissed the prospect of Netanyahu being arrested in the US, saying in a social media post on Monday that the Israeli prime minister “will not be arrested, in any way, shape, or form, while in the United States of America.”