Israeli PM’s office slams New York mayor over Netanyahu arrest remarks
The office of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Sunday denounced New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani after he said he is considering whether to arrest the Israeli leader during a coming United Nations summit.
“Mr Mamdani should focus on fixing the damage his policies have caused New York,” Netanyahu’s office said, in a post on its official X account.
“Like Karim Khan, Mamdani appears interested in diverting public attention from his follies and attacking the leader of the Jewish state and the only democracy in the Middle East.”
In an interview published on Saturday, Mamdani said he was consulting New York City’s legal team about the extent of the mayor’s authority to direct police to detain a foreign leader, referring to Netanyahu.
“I believe that Prime Minister Netanyahu belongs in The Hague,” Mamdani told The New York Times newspaper. “He’s a war criminal who has been charged by the International Criminal Court.”
“Whatever the law allows me to do in New York City, that’s what we will do,” he said.