New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani claimed Wednesday that he has "never encouraged" New Yorkers to protest Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's upcoming visit, a statement that sits uneasily beside weeks of fiery rhetoric in which he called Netanyahu a "war criminal" and explored arresting him on city soil.
The Democratic socialist mayor told reporters he has no plans to attend any demonstrations during Netanyahu's scheduled appearance at the United Nations General Assembly in New York. "I do not have any plans to attend any protest at the UNGA," Mamdani said, Fox News Digital reported. He added: "To New Yorkers I have never encouraged them to protest. What I have always told them is that they have the right to do so in this city."
That framing, "I never encouraged it; I just said you have the right", amounts to a careful retreat from a posture Mamdani spent most of the summer building. Less than two months before Wednesday's walkback, the mayor held a press conference on July 22 where he cast protest against Netanyahu as part of the city's identity. He told New Yorkers that expressing opposition "is something that has been a part of what makes our city so special." He invoked the First Amendment by name.
And before that, Mamdani went further than cheerleading protest. He announced that his administration was actively researching whether New York City could execute the International Criminal Court's arrest warrant against Netanyahu, a move that created national headlines and a direct rebuke from the Israeli prime minister's office.
The ICC issued an arrest warrant for Netanyahu in November 2024, alleging war crimes in Gaza. Mamdani seized on the warrant this summer, telling reporters he believed "Prime Minister Netanyahu belongs in The Hague" and that he was a "war criminal who has been charged by the International Criminal Court," as Just The News reported.
The problem: the United States is not a member of the ICC. Neither is Israel. Neither is Palestine. The Rome Statute, the treaty that established the court, does not bind any of the three, and New York City has no legal mechanism to enforce ICC warrants. Mamdani's own administration confirmed as much after reviewing every available legal avenue, Breitbart reported.
On July 22, the mayor publicly conceded the obvious:
"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. It is clear that we do not have the independent legal authority to enforce this warrant."
So the arrest talk was over. But Mamdani did not stop there. He pivoted to demanding that the federal government join the ICC and execute the warrant instead, a request with no realistic prospect of success. He also posted a video on the official @NYCMayor account on X in which he called Netanyahu a "war criminal" and "architect of a horrific genocide against the Palestinian people."
Secretary of State Marco Rubio offered the administration's position in blunt terms, calling the ICC "a national security threat that has been an instrument for lawfare against the United States and our close ally Israel."
Netanyahu did not let the provocation pass. His office dismissed the ICC as a "kangaroo court" with no jurisdiction over Americans or Israelis and pointed to the suspension of ICC Chief Prosecutor Karim Khan, who had pursued the warrant against Netanyahu. Khan was suspended in June following a two-year sexual harassment investigation, a fact Netanyahu's team cited to argue the charges were politically motivated.
Netanyahu himself, in an appearance on Fox News' Sunday Morning Futures, accused Mamdani of "fomenting hate" and said the mayor's rhetoric was making New York's Jewish residents afraid. He confirmed plans to travel to Washington to meet President Donald Trump and then attend the General Assembly in New York, signaling he would not be deterred.
Israel's ambassador to the U.S. separately accused Mamdani of "sowing chaos," and Israel's UN envoy issued a sharp public rebuke of the mayor as well.
Mamdani's Wednesday reversal fits a pattern. On May 31, he became the first New York City mayor in decades to skip the city's annual Israel Day Parade. He has repeatedly criticized Israel's conduct in Gaza and voiced support for pro-Palestinian causes. Each step ratcheted up the rhetoric. Each step played to his political base on the far left.
Then came the arrest-warrant gambit, weeks of public posturing about hauling a sitting head of state into custody, followed by an admission that the city had no power to do any such thing. The Washington Examiner characterized the entire episode as "political theater with no legal basis," noting that Mamdani spent weeks claiming authority he never possessed before quietly admitting his powerlessness.
Now, with Netanyahu's visit approaching and the spotlight growing hotter, Mamdani is distancing himself from the very protest energy he spent the summer stoking. He did not call Netanyahu a war criminal on Wednesday. He did not mention the ICC warrant. He said he had "never encouraged" anyone to protest, a claim that requires ignoring his July press conference, his social media posts, and the weeks he spent publicly exploring how to arrest the man.
The distinction Mamdani is drawing, between encouraging protest and affirming the right to protest, is the kind of line that sounds clever in a press briefing and collapses the moment anyone reads the July transcript. A mayor who calls a visiting head of state a war criminal, researches arresting him, skips a parade honoring his country, and tells the city that opposition is "what makes our city so special" has done more than affirm a constitutional right. He has pointed a crowd in a direction.
Fox News Digital reporter Ashley J. DiMella reached out to Mamdani's office for comment on the apparent contradiction between his Wednesday remarks and his summer-long posture. The article did not indicate whether the office responded.
What remains on the public record is clear enough. Mamdani spent weeks making himself the national face of opposition to Netanyahu's visit. He explored arrest. He used the official mayoral social media account to label a sitting ally's leader a war criminal. He framed protest as civic virtue. And now, with the visit imminent, he says he never encouraged any of it.
Voters can decide what to call that. The polite term is "walking it back." The accurate term is that Mamdani lit the match and is now pretending he was only holding it.
