When Law Becomes Political Theatre

When Law Becomes Political Theatre

New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani has once again called Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu a war criminal and an architect of genocide, while repeating that Netanyahu should be arrested when he visits New York to address the United Nations General Assembly.

There is only one inconvenient problem with this dramatic declaration: Mamdani has already admitted that he has no legal authority to order such an arrest.

That small detail exposes the entire spectacle.

This is not law enforcement. It is political theatre, carefully staged around Israel because attacking Israel remains one of the easiest ways for ambitious politicians to gain international attention.

The United States is not a member of the International Criminal Court and has no domestic mechanism for enforcing its arrest warrants. American law also prohibits the extradition of individuals to the ICC, while visiting heads of government enjoy extensive legal protections, particularly when attending United Nations proceedings. Mamdani cannot simply instruct the New York Police Department to arrest the prime minister of Israel because he dislikes him or accepts the accusations made against him. Legal experts have confirmed that he possesses no such authority.

Mamdani knows this.

Nevertheless, he continues to speak about arresting Netanyahu because the threat was never primarily intended to produce an arrest. It was intended to produce headlines, applause and viral social media clips.

That should concern everyone who genuinely believes in the rule of law.

A politician cannot claim to be defending international justice while publicly declaring someone guilty before any trial has taken place. An arrest warrant is not a conviction, an allegation is not a verdict and repeatedly using the word genocide does not transform a political accusation into an established judicial fact.

Yet Israel is treated as though the normal principles of justice no longer apply.

When Hamas invaded Israel on October 7, murdered approximately 1,200 people, kidnapped 251 human beings and deliberately targeted families, no mayor threatened to arrest the political leaders, financial sponsors or international defenders of the terrorist organization. There was no comparable campaign demanding that officials from Qatar or Iran be detained upon arrival in New York, despite the support those regimes have provided to extremist organizations across the Middle East.

Instead, the democratic leader of the country that was attacked became the preferred target.

This selective outrage is not justice. Justice cannot be credible when terrorism is explained, excused or placed into context while Israel’s response is immediately criminalized. It cannot be credible when Hamas embeds itself among civilians and the consequences are attributed exclusively to Israel. It cannot be credible when unverified figures supplied by Hamas controlled institutions are repeated as unquestionable truth while Israeli evidence is treated with automatic suspicion.

Netanyahu is travelling to New York to address the United Nations, where he has promised to defend Israel’s soldiers and confront the accusations being directed against his country. The General Assembly opened its annual debate on September 22, providing yet another international stage on which numerous leaders will condemn Israel while carefully avoiding the ideologies, regimes and terrorist networks that have kept the Middle East trapped in violence.

One does not have to agree with every decision Netanyahu makes to recognize the danger of what Mamdani is doing. Israel is a democracy whose government can be criticized, challenged and replaced by Israeli voters. Criticism is legitimate. Declaring its prime minister guilty of genocide and threatening an arrest that the mayor knows he cannot legally execute is something entirely different.

It replaces evidence with slogans and law with personal ideology.

Perhaps that is the most disturbing part of this episode. Mamdani is the mayor of New York, a city with one of the largest Jewish communities outside Israel, yet he appears remarkably comfortable turning the arrival of Israel’s prime minister into a public confrontation built around accusations that have already contributed to a hostile environment for Jewish and Israeli citizens.

Words spoken by powerful officials do not remain confined to press conferences. They travel into universities, workplaces, demonstrations and streets. When a mayor portrays the leader of the Jewish state as a genocidal criminal who should be arrested, he cannot pretend to be surprised when hostility toward Israel spills over into hostility toward Jewish people.

The law should never become a prop in an ideological performance.

If Mamdani genuinely respects justice, he should begin by respecting its most basic principles: authority, jurisdiction, evidence and the presumption of innocence. If he cannot do that, then his declarations have nothing to do with accountability.

They are simply another attempt to place Israel in the dock before the trial has even begun.