Israel’s Benjamin Netanyahu said on Sunday that New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani is “fomenting hate” by calling the prime minister a war criminal who should be arrested over the war in Gaza if he visits the city for the United Nations General Assembly. Netanyahu said he intends to be in New York in September to address the annual UN gathering of world leaders, despite the mayor’s suggestion that he is not welcome. Mamdani said last week that while New York City does not have legal authority to...
WASHINGTON (AP) — Israel's Benjamin Netanyahu said Sunday that New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani is “fomenting hate” by calling the prime minister a war criminal who should be arrested over the war in Gaza if he visits the city for the United Nations General Assembly. gathering of world leaders, despite the mayor’s suggestion that he is not welcome. “He’s supposed to be the mayor of all New Yorkers — Jews, Christians, Muslims, everyone,” Netanyahu said on Fox News Channel’s “Sunday Morning Futures” with Maria Bartiromo.
“But he’s trying to turn one group against the other.” The prime minister has become an increasingly polarizing figure over Israel’s war in Gaza, which was ignited by the Oct. 7, 2023, deadly attack on southern Israel by Hamas militants. in starting the war against Iran on Feb.
28 before launching a ground invasion in southern Lebanon in response to fire from the Iranian-backed Hezbollah group. Netanyahu on Sunday dismissed the International Criminal Court’s war crimes charges against him as “bogus.” He pointed to sexual misconduct allegations against the ICC’s top prosecutor, who was removed from that post on Friday, and said the warrant was an attempt to divert attention. The mayor’s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment Sunday.
support for Israel at risk, Netanyahu says Netanyahu said he was concerned that once-bipartisan political support for Israel in the U.S. is at risk, particularly as progressive and far-left Democrats aligned with the Mamdani wing of the party splinter. He also warned against rising antisemitism in the U.S.
and other Western countries, saying that when he talks to people in New York City, home to the second-largest Jewish population in the world, “Jews feel very uncomfortable.” “And I think it’s wrong. The whole thing is wrong,” he said. Throughout his mayoral election campaign last year, Mamdani said he would seek to order the city’s police to execute the ICC’s arrest warrant over Netanyahu’s role in the war in Gaza.
Summary from source