New York, July 23 — While New York faces several burning issues, Mayor Zohran Mamdani raked up his campaign promise to arrest Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu if he visits the city, only to backtrack and admit he could not do that.
He issued a vituperative video message with fake bravado calling Netanyahu a "war criminal" but confessing he did not have the authority to carry out the threat that he had used to rile up his base of Muslims and the leftist Democratic Socialists base during last year's election.
After having pretended he had national and international superpowers, he finally said, "It is clear we do not have the independent legal authority to enforce this warrant" issued by the International Criminal Court to arrest Netanyahu on war crimes charges.
"My administration has reviewed every avenue available under applicable law to determine if New York City could execute the International Criminal Court's (ICC) arrest warrant if Benjamin Netanyahu came here" and drew a blank, he admitted.
In a recent interview with The New York Times, he repeated his campaign promise, churning the controversy all over again.
Israel's UN Permanent Representative Danny Danon dismissed Mamdani as a "clown" and his "baseless remarks about harassing the prime minister -- it's a joke".
He should instead "be dealing with the homeless people, the garbage in New York", he said.
"He should take care of the security of the people in New York, especially the Jewish community, which is seeing the rise of antisemitism," he added in remarks to Fox News.
President Donald Trump has dismissed the threats out of hand and said Netanyahu won't face arrests.
And Trump has gone the other way, putting sanctions on judges and officials of the ICC, accusing them of taking "illegitimate and baseless actions targeting America and our close ally Israel".
Some of the judges and officials are barred from travel to the US, while Prosecutor Karim Khan's assets in the US are frozen under Trump's orders.
The ICC has also put out a warrant for arresting Russia's President Vladimir Putin on War Crimes charges, but Mamdani and his leftist supporters have been silent on that.
Mamdani said that while he does not have the authority to arrest Netanyahu on the ICC warrant, "the federal government, however, does."
"I call on them to join the ICC and execute this warrant," he said.
But the US is not a party to the ICC and is vehemently opposed to it.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio launched an international campaign against the ICC, saying in a Wall Street Journal op-ed last week that "US soldiers, police officers, Border Patrol agents and elected leaders could be dragged before" judges from other countries.
Elaborating on it, he added on X, "All of them will be at the mercy of foreign judges, thousands of miles away -- facing the constant risk of prosecution and even imprisonment for the so-called 'crime' of defending their own country."
And earlier this month, Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche accused the ICC of acting "in an increasingly lawless and illegitimate manner".
In a letter to ICC President Judge Tomoko Akane, he wrote the court's "record of selective enforcement and credible allegations of internal misconduct raise serious doubts about the ICC's impartiality, credibility, and legitimacy".
A former New York police officer, who was assigned to Netanyahu's security detail during his visit to the city, called out Mamdani's naivete.
He said that it would be foolish for city police to try to arrest Netanyahu because he brings his own team of bodyguards, among the most fearsome in the world.
City police would be no match for them unless they sent several platoons ready for a shootout, he said.
And they would have a layer of federal Secret Service to contend with, he added.