In his successful run for mayor of New York City, Zohran Mamdani pledged that he would arrest Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu if he ever set foot in the city. After his election victory, Mamdani reiterated this pledge and defended it, asserting that New York City is a “city of international law.”
Speaking to a local news station, Mamdani said, “I’ve said time and again that I believe this is a city of international law, and being a city of international law means looking to uphold international law. And that means upholding the warrants from the International Criminal Court, whether they’re for Benjamin Netanyahu or Vladimir Putin.”
When an anti-Israel mob Manhattan’s Park East Synagogue last week, harassing Jewish attendees and chanting “Death to the IDF,” Mamdani’s press secretary defended the mob by claiming that the synagogue “should not be used to promote activities in violation of international law.”
Once again, Mamdani referenced this amorphous “international law,” a concept that exists only in the minds of globalists. There is no such international law.
What does exist, and especially in Mamdani’s case, is U.S. law with the highest expression found in the Constitution, which delineates the hierarchy of American jurisprudence. There is local law, superseded by state law, superseded by federal law. There is no international law in that hierarchy, and where any binding international regulation exists, it only comes under the authority of the federal government, and only after the federal government has agreed to it.
Mamdani, who will soon be swearing an oath to uphold the Constitution, not some amorphous international law.
Furthermore, his defense of the anti-Israel mob breaking the law was because he did not like the fact that the synagogue was hosting a nonprofit organization that helps educate Jews on how they can immigrate to Israel. His suggestion that they were somehow in violation of “international law” is both ridiculous and a blatant dismissal of the First Amendment.
The First Amendment protects Americans’ right to freedom of speech, freedom of religion, and freedom of assembly, all of which these Jewish attendees exercised.
Whether he likes it or not, whether he agrees with them or not, Mamdani’s job as mayor will be to uphold, protect, and defend the constitutional rights of all New Yorkers, including the First Amendment.
There is no “international law” that trumps the U.S. Constitution. Indeed, to suggest otherwise as an elected American official is to promote sedition.
America and its laws apply to all who live within its borders, regardless of whether they agree with them. Mamdani is clearly identifying himself, not as an American first, but as a globalist. He’s not expressing concerns about upholding the rights of his fellow New Yorkers and Americans; rather, he’s playing a game to distance himself from the binding authority of American law.
Should he attempt to lean into this “international law” nonsense, he will soon find himself at odds with the courts. North Carolina Senator Ted Budd is introducing legislation to prevent Mamdani from arresting Netanyahu. Dubbed the American Allies Protection Act, if passed, it would stop any Justice Department grants from going to any U.S. city that cooperates with the International Criminal Court in arresting a NATO or U.S. non-NATO ally.
As Budd pointedly and correctly put it, the U.S. is “not bound by the morally bankrupt” court. He also observed, “Mayor-elect Mamdani’s pledge to facilitate the arrest of Benjamin Netanyahu is not just ridiculous; it represents a grave threat that could seriously damage America’s relationship with our closest allies and partners.”
Any elected official in America who does not recognize the Constitution as the supreme legal authority defining and protecting all Americans’ freedoms and rights should be immediately disqualified and not allowed to hold such office.
