By: TJVNews.com

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Monday night brushed off a threat from Democratic New York City mayoral nominee Zohran Mamdani to have him arrested if he visits the Big Apple — calling the pledge “silly” and suggesting he will visit the city anyway, with President Donald Trump by his side.

The remarks, made during Netanyahu’s working dinner on Monday evening with Trump at the White House, came in direct response to a statement Mamdani made last December, when the far-left assemblyman told journalist Mehdi Hasan that he would enforce the International Criminal Court’s (ICC) arrest warrant against Netanyahu if elected mayor.

“I’m not concerned about that,” Netanyahu told reporters, according to The New York Post. “There’s enough craziness in the world, but I guess it never ends. This is folly and it’s silly in many ways,” he added. “I’m going to come there with President Trump, and we’ll see.”

Trump, never one to avoid theatrics, chimed in with a trademark quip: “I’ll get him out.”

Mamdani, a Democratic Socialist representing Queens in the New York State Assembly and the surprise victor in last month’s Democratic mayoral primary over former Governor Andrew Cuomo, has long been a fierce critic of Israel and a vocal opponent of Netanyahu’s policies, especially in Gaza. Last year, he told Zeteo that New York’s values align with international law and pledged that under his leadership, the city would take bold steps, including the arrest of Netanyahu.

“No. As mayor, New York City would arrest Benjamin Netanyahu,” Mamdani said. “This is a city that our values are in line with international law. It’s time that our actions are also.”

The New York Post report was quick to note that Mamdani’s comments have triggered strong backlash not only from Jewish leaders and pro-Israel advocates but also from political centrists concerned with the Democratic Party’s shift toward more radical ideologies.

Trump seized on the opportunity to paint Mamdani in even starker ideological terms. “This is a communist. He’s not a socialist. He’s a communist, and he’s said some really bad things about Jewish people,” Trump declared at the dinner. “And he’s said some really bad things about a lot of people. And I think he’s going through a bit of a honeymoon right now, but he might make it. He’s going to behave,” Trump added. “He better behave. Otherwise, he’s going to have big problems.”

The Post also reported that Trump hinted at leveraging federal funding to discipline a Mamdani-led City Hall should the assemblyman follow through on his rhetoric.

While Mamdani’s statements reflect a growing strain of anti-Israel sentiment within America’s progressive left, Netanyahu’s cool dismissal and Trump’s characteristic bravado signal a broader effort to reassert Israeli sovereignty and American-Israeli diplomatic unity in the face of rising radical activism.

“This is a distraction,” one senior Israeli official told The New York Post, describing Mamdani’s arrest threat as “performative theater” that “only underscores how out of touch some elements of the Democratic Party have become.”

Netanyahu’s visit to Washington — his third in six months — comes as Israel and Hamas inch closer to a U.S.-brokered ceasefire and amid high-stakes efforts to expand the Abraham Accords to additional Arab states. While addressing the Mamdani controversy, Netanyahu pivoted to more strategic concerns, again rejecting the notion of a two-state solution in the current climate.

“After October 7th, people said the Palestinians had a state — a Hamas state in Gaza — and look what they did with it,” Netanyahu said, as quoted by The New York Post. “They didn’t build it up. They built down — into bunkers, into terror tunnels, after which they massacred our people, raped our women, beheaded our men, invaded our cities and our towns and our kibbutzim and did horrendous, horrendous massacres — the kind of which we didn’t see since World War Two and the Nazis, the Holocaust.”

The Post noted that Netanyahu’s remarks are likely to resonate with New York’s sizable Jewish population — approximately 1.3 million, the largest in any city worldwide — many of whom view Hamas’s October 7 atrocities as not only a national trauma for Israel but an attack on the global Jewish community.

With its complex demographic mosaic, New York City has also become a frontline for competing narratives about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. It is home not only to the largest Jewish population of any city on earth but also to the largest Muslim population of any U.S. metropolis, estimated at roughly 750,000.

In this volatile context, Mamdani’s remarks have taken on both symbolic and practical significance. As The New York Post reported, Mamdani’s rhetoric — including his past refusal to affirm Israel’s right to exist as a Jewish state and his sympathetic posture toward the “globalize the intifada” slogan — has fueled accusations of extremism and antisemitism.

Indeed, Mamdani has previously said, “I’m not comfortable supporting any state that has a hierarchy of citizenship on the basis of religion or anything else.” Such comments have drawn rebukes from both centrist Democrats and Republican leaders, who see in Mamdani’s worldview an ideological threat to liberal democracy.

While Mamdani’s arrest threat is legally dubious and practically unenforceable — the ICC has no jurisdiction in the United States, and city officials cannot supersede federal law — the political message it sends has drawn clear lines between the increasingly radical left and more traditional supporters of Israel in American politics.

Both Netanyahu and Trump appear eager to leverage this rift to their advantage. As The New York Post report observed, Netanyahu’s defiant tone and decision to appear with Trump reflect a coordinated attempt to reframe the conversation around Israel’s security and America’s global leadership.

“We’re going to come to New York,” Netanyahu reaffirmed. “And we’re going to stand together.”

It was a pointed declaration from a leader who has faced war, diplomacy, political upheaval, and now — from one of the most influential cities in the world — a bizarre challenge from a man not yet elected mayor.

As The New York Post report indicated, in a city of 8.5 million, Netanyahu’s would-be arrestor may have made the headlines — but it’s the Israeli prime minister, with a long record of defying the odds, who is still writing the script.