Mamdani’s Political Smoke Screen Blown Away  

On Theo Von’s streaming show, “This Past Weekend,” New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani renewed his call for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to be arrested over alleged war crimes, while arguing that the United States should join the International Criminal Court and enforce its warrants.

Specifically, he said: “If I had my say, the US government would have joined the ICC, honored every single warrant that they’ve issued. I believe that the US government should join the ICC. It should enforce its warrants for everyone.”

While he said he thinks all warrants should be enforced, he only speaks about one, the one for the Prime Minister of Israel, Benjamin Netanyahu about whom he said: “When you ask about the prime minister, we’re talking about the architect of a horrific genocide.”  But what about the others? There are LOTS of others.

A look at warrants issued by the International Criminal Court reveals a long list of accused but not arrested people in addition to Netanyahu.  The ICC has active, unanswered arrest warrants for several individuals across multiple global situations who remain at large and are listed here.

• Yoav Gallant (Former Israeli Defense Minister), for the same alleged charges as Netanyahu.
• Vladimir Putin (President of Russia) for the war crime of unlawful deportation and transfer of population (children) from occupied areas of Ukraine to Russia.
• Maria Lvova-Belova (Russian Commissioner for Children’s Rights) for the same unlawful deportation charges regarding children.
• Sergei Kobylash and Viktor Sokolov (Russian military commanders) for directing attacks at civilians and civilian objects in Ukraine.
• Sergei Shoigu and Valery Gerasimov (Former Russian Defense Minister and Chief of the General Staff) for war crimes involving directed attacks against civilians and causing excessive incidental harm.
• Omar Al-Bashir (Former President of Sudan) for counts of genocide, war crimes, and crimes against humanity.
• Ahmed Haroun and Abdel Raheem Muhammad Hussein (Former Sudanese senior officials) for war crimes and crimes against humanity in Darfur.
• Rodrigo Roa Duterte (Former President of the Philippines) concerning crimes against humanity related to the “war on drugs”.
• Ronald Marapon Dela Rosa (Former Philippine National Police Chief) for similar charges as Duterte.
• Khaled Mohamed Ali El Hishri for war crimes tied to Tarhunah in Libya.
• Saif al-Islam Gaddafi for crimes against humanity allegedly committed during the 2011 Libyan civil uprising.
• Iyad Ag Ghaly (Mali) for war crimes and crimes against humanity in northern Mali
• Haibatullah Akhundzada (Afghanistan) wanted for political and gender-based persecution.
• Joseph Kony (LRA / Uganda) wanted for decades on numerous counts of war crimes and crimes against humanity

(Note: Warrants for Hamas leaders Yahya Sinwar, Ismail Haniyeh, and Mohammed Deif were withdrawn or closed following confirmations of their deaths).

However, the only person on this list that Mamdani goes after is Netanyahu.   And nobody says a word about that, do they?  Nobody at the UN, nobody among his supporters in New York, and nobody here in Israel either for some reason. Isn’t there anyone out there who sees through the smokescreen that this clearly anti-Israel and probably antisemitic mayor of New York has created to shore up his base?

Seth Pinsky, CEO of 92NY in a recent article in the The Forward analyzed why such an obsession with Israel.  He says: “More important than his electoral margin, though, is the coalition that produced it.  His victory rested heavily on three blocs: self-defined very liberal voters; and Muslim and South Asian voters, who turned out in historic numbers. South Asian and Indo-Caribbean turnout, for example, rose 350% between 2021 and 2025, with 87% of South Asian votes going to Mamdani. Analyzing available data, I believe that, taken together, these three blocs accounted for well over 50% of all Mamdani votes.”

His analysis continues: “When one barely ekes out a majority (Mamdani won with 51% of the vote) against flawed opponents, and one’s coalition is fundamentally misaligned, one must find ways to hold it together…..Yes, it (i.e. Israel and Gaza) is a subject on which he holds sincere convictions. But, more importantly, it is one of few issues on which his coalition agrees. His relentless focus on Israel — to the exclusion of other worthy targets, including grave human rights offenders across South Asia and the Muslim world — is no accident. It is a political calculation allowing him to don the mantle of moral crusader while keeping his coalition on-side and united.”

At the end of the day, democratic socialist or not, he is an astute politician who knows how to read his base and play to it.  Towards that end, he uses the same convenient foil that has been used for millennia, the Jews now coupled with the successfully revived symbol of our sovereignty, Israel.

It is high time that the Jewish community of New York and around the world called the mayor on his dishonest obsession with Israel while turning a blind eye to much worse human rights violations worldwide.   To invoke former Prime Minister Gold Meir’s retort to then US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger when he pressed her to pull back from Suez, based on her experience living through Ukrainian pogroms as a child: “My father’s face, Henry, I will never forget that look. All he wanted to do was to protect his children. I am not that little girl hiding in the cellar!”

And we are not little children hiding in the cellar any longer, either.  Time to stand up proudly and be counted.  I have no doubt that in the face of a bombardment of the facts he mayor will soften or abandon his position which, in any event, rests on very few kernels of truth.