“Benjamin Netanyahu is a war criminal—the architect of a horrific genocide against the Palestinian people,” said Zohran Mamdani in his most watched video statement to date. These words rang true in the ears of millions who oppose Israel’s genocide in Gaza.

Zohran has taken a pro-Palestine stance since well before his run for mayor. During his campaign, he said he would execute the International Criminal Court’s (ICC) arrest warrant for the Butcher of Gaza. 

With Netanyahu’s scheduled appearance at the UN General Assembly in New York on September 24, Zohran’s campaign promise has been brought to the fore.

Calling for Netanyahu’s arrest

In a July interview with Lulu Garcia-Navarro of The New York Times, Zohran reaffirmed, “I believe that Prime Minister Netanyahu belongs in The Hague. He is a war criminal who has been charged by the International Criminal Court.” 

He then said he would follow the law in any attempt to arrest Netanyahu. Garcia-Navarro, raising her eyebrow and prodding Mamdani, quipped, “I’m sorry, I don’t understand… What does the law allow you to do?” 

It was clear that Zohran, at this point, was unsure.

Following this interview, the mayor set out to discover whether he had legal authority to order the arrest. After setting his legal team in motion, he concluded that his office lacks the authority to execute the ICC’s arrest warrant.

So instead, Zohran called on the federal government to carry out the arrest. The Trump administration, however, has no interest in seeing Netanyahu behind bars and will continue to fund and arm the Zionist regime.

Nonetheless, many have been emboldened by the fact that the mayor of the wealthiest city in the wealthiest country in world history has openly called for the arrest of the genocidal-imperialist Netanyahu. According to a July Economist/YouGov poll, 49% of Americans believe Netanyahu should be arrested, a 22-point margin over the 27% who do not.

Media onslaught

Immediately after the statement, the media was flooded with headlines poking holes into Zohran’s comments from every angle possible. The New York Post claims that Zohran’s mere acknowledgment that Netanyahu is a war criminal has created a “powder keg” that will endanger the population of New York City. Patrick Henry, president of the NYPD’s police union, chimed in: “The mayor’s heated rhetoric could be enough to push demonstrations over the edge into chaos.” 

But Zohran did not explicitly call for mass demonstrations. In reality, he called for something much tamer:

“I’m simply saying that this is a city where if anyone feels a level of frustration or opposition, protest is something that we will always respect. I leave it to New Yorkers themselves to make that decision.” 

He then explicitly said he was not calling for demonstrations: “To New Yorkers, I have never encouraged them to protest. What I have always told them is that they have the right to do so in this city.”

Such “heated rhetoric” is sure to push the city to the edge of chaos! The jokers in the New York Post and the NYPD can’t tolerate that an elected official has merely acknowledged workers’ right to protest against an internationally recognized war criminal in their city.

As if the hypocrisy weren’t already astonishing, Netanyahu himself accused Mamdani of “fomenting hate” against Jewish New Yorkers. But Mamdani isn’t the one waging a campaign to wipe an entire population off of the face of the Earth.

What these attacks reveal is that the ruling class and the Zionists are afraid. Since October 2023, the American public has soured on Israel. According to ongoing polling by Gallup, Americans’ sympathy with Palestine has never been higher. A plurality of 41% of Americans sympathize with Palestine in the conflict, while 36% sympathize with Israel.

Jewish Americans also favor Mamdani over Netanyahu. A plurality of 44% of Jewish Americans view Mamdani favorably, while 39% view him unfavorably. What’s more: 59% of Jewish Americans have an unfavorable view of Netanyahu. 70% of Jewish Americans say that criticizing Israel is not antisemitic.

The ruling class remembers the mass pro-Palestine movement in 2023–24. They remember the encampments at Columbia and CCNY that they violently crushed with the NYPD, in fear that they might spill over to the rest of the working class. 

The anger against US complicity in the crimes of Zionism hasn’t disappeared since then—it is just being expressed in different ways: electorally, through the election of pro-Palestine candidates; and culturally, through the mass support that Macklemore received after being booted from Ed Sheeran’s tour for his “Free Palestine” message.

The ruling class is afraid that if someone with Zohran’s influence and reach gives oxygen to this mood, the mass anger might rise back to the surface.

Whose laws?

Zohran should not be surprised that he has no legal avenue to effectuate the arrest. The US capitalist legal system has always existed to uphold the interests of the ruling class. The Taft-Hartley Act, for example, barred workers’ organizations from using effective militant methods, such as hard pickets and solidarity strikes.

Capitalists and their politicians will happily break their own laws whenever these stand in the way of their interests. One only needs to look as far as Donald Trump, who will bend and break whatever laws he sees fit in furthering his own political and economic objectives. 

In a recent video statement Zohran said: “The UN ushered in an age of multilateralism and a pledge, however idealistic, to world peace.” Unfortunately, this is a serious misunderstanding about what the UN actually represents.

Organizations like the ICC and the UN are legal and diplomatic fig leaves for the foreign policy of the most powerful imperialist nations—of which the United States is the foremost. International capitalist law does not sit outside the balance of power between nations on the global stage. It is a reflection of that balance, a useful tool for maintaining the domination of exploited nations by imperialism.

When international law goes against the interests of the dominant imperialist powers, it is merely brushed aside. This is exactly why the ICC’s warrant for Netanyahu’s arrest hasn’t been executed. The US doesn’t even recognize the ICC’s authority in the country.

Besides, if we’re talking about war criminals, there are hundreds of them sitting in the high halls of Washington, DC. Trump and the Pentagon have been bombing civilians in Iran for over six months. His administration ordered strikes on a school in Minab, Iran, which killed 163 schoolgirls. Where is the ICC warrant for the arrest of Trump and the US high command? 

Biden and the overwhelming majority of Congress funded and armed Israel while knowing that the Zionist regime was using those weapons to target civilians. Where are the writs of detention for these warmongers?

The application of international law has never been impartial. Out of the 61 arrest warrants issued by the ICC, none have targeted the US. No trial was ever held against President Truman or anyone else for the nuclear bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. This most terrible war crime killed 200,000 and doomed generations to the lingering effects of radiation.

Notably, the UN was key in ratifying the partition of Palestine and creating the state of Israel in 1948–49, after the Zionists’ brutal terrorism of the Nakba. 

The ICC, UN, and other hollow diplomatic bodies cannot be wielded in the struggle against imperialism. The only power that can deal justice to Netanyahu, Trump, or any of the other war criminals in the American capitalist class is the organized working class.

Zohran’s call for Netanyahu’s arrest are seen by many as a bold step forward compared to the complicity and cooperation in Israel’s genocide by Democrats and Republicans alike. But to break with the interests of US and Israeli imperialism in deeds, it is necessary to break with the institutions that reinforce their power, including their laws.

The NYPD

Even if the mayor of New York did have the legal authority to authorize Netanyahu’s arrest, we couldn’t trust the NYPD to carry out such an order. The police force exists to protect the property of the capitalists in New York.

At the 2023 DSA convention, Zohran said, “We have to make clear that when the boot of the NYPD is on your neck, it’s been laced by the IDF.” Communists could not agree more. The United States’ biggest and best-funded police department has a long history of brutality and corruption. It receives training by the same military that is responsible for transforming Gaza into a mound of rubble. 

New York City’s police commissioner—billionaire heiress Jessica Tisch—is a self-proclaimed “proud Zionist.” She would fiercely oppose any attempt to mobilize her police department to arrest Netanyahu.

At a recent press conference, Tisch said: “Every year, we see an uptick in demonstrations and protests coinciding with the UN General Assembly, and as always, the NYPD will facilitate First Amendment activity.” As an example of how much the NYPD loves “facilitating First Amendment activity,” look no further than the hundreds of pro-Palestine students beaten and arrested by the NYPD in 2024!

Zohran has the ability to fire Tisch at any moment. He could have replaced her as soon as he was sworn in. Instead, he kept her around as a concession to Wall Street, who want someone they can trust in charge of New York’s guns, batons, and surveillance. Zohran believes that he will be able to better negotiate with the members of her class if she is “on his side.” But by keeping Tisch and other Zionists at his side, he is only lacing the straitjacket around him even tighter. 

Bourgeois politics vs. socialist politics

At that same DSA convention in 2023, Zohran correctly pointed out how to win over workers to the cause of Palestine: “We have to make it materially connected to their life. We are in a country where those connections abound, especially in New York City, you have so many opportunities to make clear the ways in which that struggle over there is tied to capitalist interests over here.”

Again, communists agree. Zohran could not only show how the interests of the US and Israeli capitalists are connected, but use his position to point out how to fight them. One needs only mention the $1.5 trillion military budget and highlight that this money is not being spent on free childcare, public transport, and cheaper groceries and rent—some of Zohran’s key campaign promises. 

The ruling class is preventing Zohran from implementing his program through a multi-pronged attack using the media, the state bureaucracy, bourgeois law, and the pernicious influence of “friendly” billionaire advisors who try to convince him to govern like a bourgeois politician and not a working-class fighter.

Above all, Mamdani is hemmed in by his choice to run in the Democratic Party. Genocide Joe’s party is never going to be a tool for advancing either working-class interests or the interests of the Palestinians. The “connections abound” between Zionism and the Democrats: the armies of lobbyists, wealthy donors, and PACs that tie the party’s political machinery to the wider interest of the ruling class and its imperialist designs.

It’s impossible to govern in the interests of the working class, or bring justice to Palestine, while playing by the rules set by the capitalists and their political machine. 

If Zohran seriously wanted to lead the working class in this struggle, this would first and foremost require breaking with both pro-Zionist parties of the US ruling class. From there, he could use his clout, authority, and platform to explain to the working class that a better life and world are possible, but only if the workers organize and mobilize on a class-independent basis and prepare for a long struggle. 

To kick out Netanyahu, mobilize the workers

Protests are being organized against Netanyahu’s visit to NYC on September 24. Faced with this, Netanyahu plans on making his trip as short as possible. Given the widespread sentiment against Israel’s genocide and US military intervention abroad, the potential exists for a mass, anti-imperialist movement.

A militant socialist mayor would lean on this mood, explain the workers’ inherent power as a class when organized, and mobilize them en masse to oppose Netanyahu’s appearance in New York. To expand the movement and draw in organized labor, it would be necessary to make the struggle against Zionism materially relevant to the lives of Americans, as Zohran himself has stated. Appealing to the rank and file of the labor movement on the basis of the real economic links between the cost of living crisis in the US and the billions of dollars spent arming Israel is more than possible—it would only be necessary to tell the truth.

A whole host of NYC union contracts will be up for negotiation next year. The ruling class is trying to pressure Zohran to act like a responsible capitalist mayor and balance the budget at the expense of the workers. Instead, Zohran could explain to the workers that there is more than enough money to guarantee wage increases for them and all NYC workers—in the coffers of the NYPD, the US military, Wall Street, and in the bank accounts of the Tisch family and other billionaires—but that these parasites won’t give up their privileges and profits without a serious struggle. 

The structures to launch such a struggle already exist in organized labor and the layer of workers and youth who want to see Netanyahu brought to justice—including the 100,000 volunteers who helped elect Zohran less than a year ago. The AFL-CIO’s New York City Central Labor Council alone represents over 1.2 million workers across the city. A movement of the rank and file, spurred by militant statements from the mayor, could either push its ossified leadership to take action against the bosses and imperialists, or bring forth new class-struggle leaders.

A resolution could be proposed in every union local in New York, demanding strike action against the Butcher of Gaza and the US government, who cut social services while increasing their military budget. The central demand of such a movement would be: welfare, not warfare!

To end imperialism, fight for revolution!

The RCA wholeheartedly encourages any initiative to bring the genocidal maniac Netanyahu to justice. But we can’t hope to bring justice against the imperialists under this system.

If Zohran did take the necessary steps to follow through on his promise and carry out the arrest of Netanyahu, it would immediately provoke a political crisis and a direct confrontation with the federal government. The hawks in Washington would not sit idly by and watch the working class take matters into its own hands.

Ultimately, the arrest, prosecution, and conviction of Netanyahu would require nothing short of a workers’ government. The working class would require a state power—including armed bodies of men of its own—to arrest the war criminals and capitalist parasites, keep them behind bars, and defend the continued gains of the revolutionary movement.

To deal the most decisive blow against Zionism, it would be necessary to bring down its most foundational pillar of support: US imperialism.

If the working class took power and expropriated capitalism in the US, Netanyahu could be made to pay immediately, along with Trump, Hegseth, Biden, Harris, and every other imperialist war criminal. A workers’ government in the most powerful country on Earth would swiftly administer proletarian justice to those who have destroyed the lives of millions around the world and sacrificed them on the altar of imperialist exploitation and capitalist profiteering.

The Revolutionary Communists of America are building a force that can harness the raw class anger in society into a force of disciplined revolutionaries who consciously understand the most pressing tasks of the movement today. The revolutionary party is the key ingredient in ensuring that capitalism and imperialism are overthrown in the United States and worldwide.