New Yorkers elected a mayor. Zohran Mamdani appears determined to moonlight as an international prosecutor.
Mamdani used a social media address to declare Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu a “war criminal” who is “not welcome” in New York City, even while conceding that City Hall has no legal power to arrest him.
The performance drew a blistering rebuke from the Simon Wiesenthal Center, which accused Mamdani of abusing the prestige of his office, erasing Hamas from his account of the Gaza war and staging a “televised political spectacle.”
“My administration has reviewed every avenue available under applicable law to determine whether New York City could execute the International Criminal Court’s arrest warrant if Benjamin Netanyahu came here,” Mamdani said.
“It is clear that we do not have the independent legal authority to enforce this warrant.”
That did not stop the mayor from continuing his prosecution by video.
“The federal government, however, does, and I call on them to join the ICC and execute this warrant,” Mamdani said. “Benjamin Netanyahu is not welcome in New York City, nor is any other war criminal at large.”
The International Criminal Court issued its warrant for Netanyahu in November 2024. The court alleges that Netanyahu bears responsibility for war crimes and crimes against humanity connected to Israel’s military campaign in Gaza.
The accusations remain allegations, and the warrant is not a conviction.
The Simon Wiesenthal Center said Mamdani crossed the line between expressing a political opinion and turning the mayor’s office into a platform for attacking the leader of the Jewish state.
“Mayor Mamdani did not simply express a personal political opinion,” the center said. “He used the authority, symbolism and credibility of the mayor’s office to issue what amounted to an official public address declaring that the democratically elected leader of the world’s only Jewish state is a ‘war criminal’ who is ‘not welcome in New York City.’”
“That is a profound misuse of the office entrusted to him by all New Yorkers.”
The organization also hammered Mamdani for acknowledging the limits of his authority, then proceeding with the address anyway.
“After acknowledging that New York City has no independent legal authority to execute the International Criminal Court’s arrest warrant, the mayor nevertheless chose to transform that legal reality into a televised political spectacle,” the center said.
The center argued that the most revealing part of Mamdani’s address was what he left out.
“His address made no mention of Hamas or the October 7 massacre of innocent civilians,” the statement said. “Instead, he delivered a sweeping moral indictment of Israel while erasing the terrorist atrocities that ignited this war.”
The group accused Mamdani of repeatedly singling out Israel and using City Hall to legitimize rhetoric that isolates the Jewish state and fuels division in New York.
That charge carries particular weight in a city where Jewish residents have faced what the center described as alarming levels of antisemitism, harassment and intimidation.
The organization urged Mamdani to return his attention to the work he was actually elected to perform: protecting New Yorkers, making neighborhoods safer and combating hatred at home.
“New Yorkers elected a mayor, not a prosecutor of foreign leaders,” the center concluded. “Mayor Mamdani should spend less time trying to demonize only one leader and one country from City Hall and more time protecting the New Yorkers he was elected to serve.”
Jewish rights group skewers sleazeball Mamdani for peddling Hamas propaganda in televised 'political spectacle' https://t.co/jieVmD2mb5 pic.twitter.com/ExmBEVCdSB
— New York Post (@nypost) July 22, 2026
