A mayor checking whether he's allowed to arrest a foreign prime minister - that sounds like political theatre, and partly it is. But behind the new New York mayor's performance lies something more real: an arrest warrant from an international court that most Western leaders prefer to keep quiet about.

Zohran Mamdani, the mayor of New York, said he is checking whether his administration could arrest Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu should he come to the city for the UN General Assembly in September. The International Criminal Court issued an arrest warrant for Netanyahu in November 2024 over alleged war crimes in Gaza, among them „starvation as a method of warfare, murder, persecution and other inhumane acts”.

„His place is in The Hague,” Mamdani declared on a New York Times podcast, echoing the positions from his successful mayoral campaign. He admitted he isn't sure he has the legal authority to order the New York police, which is under his control, to detain a foreign leader, but confirmed he had discussed it with the city's legal department. „We'll do everything New York law allows us to,” he said.

Legal experts rated such an arrest as „practically impossible” and warn it could create a direct clash with the US federal government. The United States is not a member of the International Criminal Court and does not recognize its jurisdiction. In February 2025, President Trump imposed sanctions on the court, claiming it has no authority over either the US or Israel.

Netanyahu dismissed Mamdani's threats in a radio appearance, saying he wasn't worried and accusing the mayor of supporting Hamas - which Mamdani denied. Israel's ambassador to the UN, Danny Danon, criticized Mamdani by pointing to rising antisemitism in the city, while Trump's UN ambassador, Mike Waltz, called the threat „pure political theatre”.

And yet, behind the theatre a shift is visible. Mamdani recalled that opposition to aid for Israel is growing within the Democratic Party itself - nearly half of the Democrats in the House of Representatives voted on Wednesday to strike down 3.3 billion dollars in military aid. The measure failed, but the vote itself shows how thin the support has become that was once considered untouchable.

For the Balkans, where people know all too well what it means for an international court to point a finger at someone's leader, this scene has a particular flavour. The difference is that here the finger is pointed at an ally of the most powerful state on earth - and precisely for that reason the warrant will, most likely, stay only on paper. Justice, it seems, carries a different weight depending on who is sitting in the dock.