Mamdani Was Urged During 2025 Campaign To Stop Talking About Arresting Netanyahu

NEW YORK — During last year’s New York City mayoral race, outside advisers to Zohran Mamdani urged him to stop making public threats about arresting Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, warning that his focus on the issue could put him in a politically precarious position, according to two people with direct knowledge of the conversations.

The revelation adds to an unfolding controversy that began when Mamdani said in an interview that aired Saturday he remained in “active conversation” with city government lawyers about having the NYPD arrest Netanyahu when he comes to the city for the United Nations General Assembly in September.

Mamdani — who first threatened to cuff Netanyahu when he was still a longshot mayoral candidate — made that claim despite having already been advised by city lawyers he had no legal power to take the Israeli prime minister into custody on war crime charges brought by the International Criminal Court, The New York Times reported Wednesday. Mamdani, a longtime critic of the Israeli government, said days after the interview aired he wouldn’t attempt to arrest Netanyahu, acknowledging he had no “independent legal authority” to enforce an ICC warrant.

The notion of arresting Netanyahu has long animated the mayor’s hard-left base. And Mamdani continued to publicly indicate an arrest was a possibility up until that Tuesday evening video address — calling into question how honest he was in The Times interview released Saturday — even though he was advised to drop the issue more than six months ago by some of his confidantes.

The fact that Mamdani’s own allies urged him in 2025 to tone down the arrest-Netanyahu rhetoric signals his team isn’t in uniform agreement on the issue.

At least two outside advisers voiced concern to Mamdani’s team during last year’s campaign, according to the two people with knowledge of the exchanges, who were granted anonymity to discuss private conversations. The reasons were twofold.

First, the advisers were worried Mamdani was putting himself in an impossible situation, as legal experts were already pointing to the longstanding statutory barriers preventing a New York City mayor from ordering the arrest of a foreign dignitary. Second, they were concerned that Mamdani ran the risk of alienating voters who might take issue with him dabbling in an area completely outside the professional purview of the mayor instead of focusing on local concerns.

The pushback came “because it was a distraction and would put him in a tough position,” one of the people who spoke with POLITICO said.

It isn’t clear exactly when last year the concerns were first raised to the mayor’s campaign, though one of the people said it became a topic of discussion in September. Once in office, according to another person close to City Hall, Mamdani had the Law Department look into the question.

The mayor’s office declined to provide details on when Mamdani learned of the legal prohibitions around collaring a foreign head of state against the wishes of the federal government. A spokesperson referred POLITICO to a Wednesday press conference where the mayor provided unclear answers to six questions on the subject.

There was, however, a notable shift in Mamdani’s rhetoric on arresting Netanyahu in September 2025, months after he defeated former Gov. Andrew Cuomo in the June Democratic primary.

On Sept. 12, 2025, Mamdani told The New York Times that he planned to “fulfill” his promise — first made in December 2024 — to arrest Netanyahu if he ever stepped foot in the city under his watch. Mamdani even specified he would order his NYPD to execute the arrest.

Less than two weeks later, Mamdani was far less adamant when speaking to Mehdi Hasan, a former MSNBC anchor who now runs Zeteo, an independent media outlet.

“We are a city that believes in international law,” he told Hasan on Sept. 25, 2025 when asked if he still planned to arrest Netanyahu. “Now look, to be clear, I'm going to operate within the bounds of the law. I'm not Donald Trump seeking to create my own legal system as I make my own decisions."

The ICC issued its warrant for Netanyahu’s arrest in November 2024 on war crimes and crimes against humanity charges over Israel's war in Gaza, which has left more than 73,000 Palestinians dead. Israel launched the war in response to Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023 terror attack in which the group’s militants killed some 1,200 people and took 250 hostage.

Mamdani’s most ardent anti-Israel supporters seemed willing to accept his acknowledgment that he can’t execute the warrant for Netanyahu’s arrest.

But Nerdeen Kiswani, a founder of Within Our Lifetime, a pro-Palestine group, argued he should still use every lever at his disposal to disrupt the Israeli premier’s visit to New York.

“Don’t roll out the red carpet for a wanted war criminal. Don’t use the NYPD to insulate him from public outrage. Don’t suppress the New Yorkers who take to the streets demanding accountability,” Kiswani, who has been increasingly critical of Mamdani, wrote in a post on X late Tuesday. “If Netanyahu is truly not welcome in New York City, that principle should be reflected in how the city treats his visit, not just in rhetoric.”

The NYPD, however, is intimately involved in the protection of all diplomats visiting the city for the annual general assembly, and neither the mayor’s office nor the NYPD gave any indication they would make an exception for Netanyahu.

"As we do every year, the NYPD works with the Secret Service, the State Department, and other federal agencies to provide protection to foreign dignitaries traveling to New York City based on the level of threat assessed,” an NYPD spokesperson said in a statement.

The mayor’s office declined to comment on UN security measures.

Because of the complex logistics that come with hundreds of foreign dignitaries moving around the city, the police department typically embeds several officers or detectives into security details from abroad. A high-profile prime minister like Netanyahu, for example, might get between four to six members of the NYPD assigned to him, according to Terence Monahan, chief of department at the NYPD under former Mayor Bill de Blasio.

“We have so many different dignitaries, we want to make sure that we are coordinating efforts and get them in and out quickly and safely,” he said.

An official with the Secret Service, which leads the security effort during the annual general assembly, said Netanyahu will be among those protected just like in years past and noted that the federal agency expects to coordinate security with the NYPD.

“I’m not going to speculate on whether that’s going to be any different based on [Mamdani’s] comments, but in general we are leading on providing protection of foreign leaders and we do that in coordination with local authorities,” said the official, who was granted anonymity to discuss a sensitive topic.