Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told Fox News he was "not concerned" about New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani's previous pledge to arrest him, and accused the mayor of "fomenting hate" in an interview aired as the two figures traded public broadsides over the ICC arrest warrant hanging over the Israeli leader.

In the Fox News interview, Netanyahu referenced two stabbings in New York in which a suspect stabbed a Jewish man and an Asian man blocks apart. The suspect allegedly shouted "Allahu akbar" and was charged with hate crimes; both victims survived. Netanyahu said Jewish New Yorkers were "afraid right now" and told the interviewer, "I speak to Jewish Americans." He argued that Mamdani "is supposed to be the mayor of all New Yorkers, Jews, Christians, Muslims, everyone, but he's trying to turn one group against the other" (BBC). The Independent reported that Netanyahu went further, effectively suggesting Mamdani was "behind" the stabbing of a Jewish victim through his rhetoric (The Independent).

The exchange marks the sharpest escalation in an unusual confrontation between a sitting head of government and a municipal mayor, one that has drawn in questions of international law, head-of-state immunity, and the domestic politics of both countries.

The International Criminal Court issued an arrest warrant for Netanyahu in 2024, accusing him of war crimes in Gaza. The court's prosecutor, Karim Khan, pursued the case (NPR). Netanyahu has called the ICC charges "bogus," and Israel has denied committing war crimes in Gaza (BBC).

Mamdani's opposition to Israel's military operation in Gaza was a central plank of his mayoral campaign. He promised while campaigning to enforce the ICC arrest warrant for Netanyahu if the Israeli prime minister entered New York City. In an address the week before the BBC's reporting, Mamdani called Netanyahu a "war criminal" and declared, "Benjamin Netanyahu is not welcome in New York City." Reuters separately reported that Mamdani accused Netanyahu of committing "genocide in Gaza" while calling for enforcement of the ICC warrant (BBC).

Mamdani walked back the arrest threat the week before the BBC article, acknowledging he lacked independent legal authority to enforce the ICC warrant. He instead urged the federal government to arrest Netanyahu (BBC). Politico reported on July 21 that Mamdani had reversed his campaign pledge to arrest Netanyahu under the ICC warrant (Politico). NPR confirmed the reversal on July 22, reporting that Mamdani said New York City cannot arrest Netanyahu (NPR).

The legal backing for that reversal is straightforward. Independent legal experts told Reuters that Mamdani lacked authority to arrest Netanyahu because the United States generally recognizes immunity for sitting heads of state (Reuters). Reuters published its legal analysis on July 22, 2026, titled "Why New York's Mamdani cannot have Israel's Netanyahu arrested" (Reuters).

Netanyahu also posted a direct response to Mamdani on his official X account: "My answer to Mamdani: I will come to New York to fight for the truth of the Jewish people" (X/@netanyahu). The post, with status ID 2081426927005401524, was published on July 26, 2026.

The Fox News interview itself is hosted at foxnews.com/video/6402184997112 (Fox News). The Guardian reported on July 26 on Netanyahu's "fomenting hate" accusation over Mamdani's calls for the Israeli PM's arrest (The Guardian). The New York Times covered the Netanyahu-Mamdani story in a July 26 article that included an interview with Mayor Mamdani (New York Times). The mayor's office did not immediately respond to a request for comment from the BBC.

The broader context here is a collision between three separate legal and political domains that rarely intersect so directly. The ICC warrant places Netanyahu in a category shared by a small number of sitting heads of state, creating obligations under the Rome Statute for member states to execute arrests. The United States, however, is not a party to the Rome Statute and does not recognize ICC jurisdiction over its own nationals or, by extension in practice, over allied leaders visiting U.S. soil. That structural gap is what made Mamdani's original pledge legally untenable and what makes the federal government the only conceivable enforcement actor, a fact Mamdani himself conceded.

What gives the confrontation its political charge is not the legal mechanism but the symbolic arena. New York City hosts the United Nations headquarters, making it a frequent destination for heads of state who otherwise might face arrest in ICC member states. Netanyahu's declared intention to travel to New York "to fight for the truth of the Jewish people" frames the visit as a defiance of both the ICC and his municipal critic. For Mamdani, the confrontation reinforces the profile that powered his mayoral campaign, positioning him as a national-level voice on U.S. policy toward Israel and Gaza, even on questions far outside a mayor's legal authority.

The stabbings Netanyahu referenced inject a separate dimension. By tying Mamdani's rhetoric to acts of street-level violence, Netanyahu is framing the mayor's statements not as political disagreement but as a catalyst for communal danger, a characterization Mamdani's office has not yet publicly addressed. Whether that framing resonates beyond the immediate news cycle will depend on whether the link Netanyahu drew between political speech and physical violence is sustained by subsequent events or remains, for now, an assertion from an interview studio.