Israel’s ambassador to the United Nations fired back Monday at New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani, who has said he is looking into whether he can arrest Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu when he visits the U.N. headquarters in September.

The “threat is empty,” the ambassador, Danny Danon, said in an address to the U.N. General Assembly. Danon said there is “no legal basis” for an arrest and he accused the mayor of engaging in “political theater” to excite his “radical base.”

When Mamdani was campaigning for mayor, he had pledged to arrest Netanyahu on his annual visit to the U.N. General Assembly this September. It would be based on an International Criminal Court warrant citing alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity in connection with the war in the Gaza Strip, following the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas-led attack on Israel.

That warrant was issued in 2024. Netanyahu and Israel’s former defense minister, Yoav Gallant, were accused of having “intentionally and knowingly deprived” Gaza’s population of food, water, fuel and medicine, which they have denied.

In an interview with The New York Times published on Saturday, Mamdani said he was in “an active conversation” with the city’s Law Department on whether he had the authority to arrest the Israeli leader while he was visiting the U.N.

“Whatever the law allows me to do in New York City, that’s what we will do, but we won’t be writing our own laws to that end,” he said.

Both Israeli and U.S. officials, however, have rejected Mamdani’s effort, and even some vociferous critics of Israel have suggested that an attempted arrest of Netanyahu in New York could be problematic.

“Benjamin Netanyahu will not be arrested, in any way, shape, or form, while in the United States of America,” President Donald Trump wrote on social media Monday, saying that Netanyahu was fighting the Islamic Republic of Iran and that Iranian leaders are the ones that should be arrested.

Danon has insisted that Mamdani has no authority to pursue such an arrest, noting that the United States is not a party to the Rome Statute, which created the ICC. He said that Washington does not recognize the jurisdiction of the court, among other obstacles.

Indeed, the Trump administration is looking to systematically dismantle the court, which investigates some of the gravest crimes in the world.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio wrote in The Wall Street Journal last week that the U.S. seeks to prevent “a world in which U.S. soldiers, police officers, Border Patrol agents and elected leaders could be dragged before an international court.”

In Danon’s address Monday, he also cited the U.N. Headquarters Agreement of 1947 as protecting Netanyahu and other world leaders who come to the institution.

Mike Waltz, the U.S. ambassador to the U.N., said Saturday that an arrest of Netanyahu “is not going to happen.” Responding to the mayor’s statement, he said the headquarters agreement grants diplomatic protections to visiting heads of government and that “federal authority trumps any local mayor’s wishes.”

Mamdani also responded Monday to the brouhaha his statement about potentially arresting Netanyahu had made.

“When someone is charged with an international court warrant it’s something that should be taken seriously,” he said.

Rep. Ro Khanna, D-Calif., a vociferous critic of Israel and possible contender for president in 2028, told The Sunday Briefing on Fox News that he believed Netanyahu’s case should proceed in court, but that the U.N. should still welcome him at the world body.

“He can come to the U.N. Assembly,” Khanna said, adding, “I’m not for creating a spectacle. The U.N. is a place that people can come to.”

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This article originally appeared in The New York Times.

By Ephrat Livni/Dave Sanders
c. 2026 The New York Times Company