Mamdani encouraged protests of Netanyahu’s visit. His NYPD will respond to them.

New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani acknowledged this week that his administration does not have independent authority to arrest Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. During his mayoral campaign, Mamdani said he would order the New York City Police Department to enforce an arrest warrant issued for the Israeli leader by the International Criminal Court.

But Mamdani is still encouraging New Yorkers to protest Netanyahu’s potential visit to the city for the United Nations General Assembly in September if they wish.

“One of the bedrocks of our city is protesting. It is something that’s been a part of what makes our city so special that New Yorkers can express themselves whether they are in support or in opposition no matter what,” Mamdani told reporters, responding to a question about what people frustrated by Netanyahu and his war in Gaza can do. “When we respect our constitution, we also respect our First Amendment.” Mamdani didn’t answer when asked whether he would join protests himself. 

The visit – and the likelihood of large protests surrounding it – could put Mamdani’s NYPD in an awkward position, however. The NYPD typically responds to any large demonstrations in the city and the department heightens security on the east side of Manhattan around big events at the U.N. Plans have not been finalized for how the department will respond to the General Assembly this fall, according to a department spokesperson.  Historically though, the NYPD delivers a detailed security briefing for the press and public in advance of the gathering. 

The NYPD did not immediately provide comment on Mamdani’s remarks on Netanyahu. 

Last year, New York City officials described their response to the General Assembly as “elevated out of an abundance of caution,” noting the war in Gaza, coinciding Jewish holidays and tensions around the killing of conservative political figure Charlie Kirk. As world leaders gathered for the 80th session, the NYPD deployed thousands of police officers to patrol around and below UN headquarters, in the air with drones and on the waterways, shut down streets and coordinated with federal security partners. Part of that work meant responding to the several thousand New Yorkers protesting Netanyahu, both in advance of his arrival and as he delivered a defiant address in defense of Israel’s ongoing military actions in Gaza. 

Tensions are still on edge heading into this year’s assembly, scheduled to open Sept. 8. Public opinion on Netanyahu has further soured, which could increase the magnitude of protests that would coincide with his potential visit – not to mention potential protests against the United State’s war in Iran. Unlike last year, however, when then-Mayor Eric Adams protesters said he’d meet with the Israeli leader and attend his speech, protesters will have an ally in Mamdani at City Hall.

The NYPD has responded en masse to anti-Israel protesters before, including under the Mamdani administration. In April, police arrested around 90 people protesting arms sales to Israel by sitting in the middle of Third Avenue in Midtown, Manhattan. Eight people were arrested by the NYPD in early May while protesting outside of a Brooklyn hospital where federal immigration agents took an individual seeking medical attention.

Mamdani made the comment encouraging protests at an unrelated City Hall press conference on Wednesday, following a video he released Tuesday night in which he called Netanyahu a “war criminal” and urged the federal government to enforce the ICC’s arrest warrant, but acknowledged that the city could not do so on its own. In a New York Times interview released a few days prior, Mamdani said that his administration was still looking at the possibility. Mamdani did not answer questions at the City Hall press conference Wednesday about when his administration came to the conclusion that it couldn’t enforce the arrest warrant.

Mamdani has been a consistent and harsh critic of Israel, but in the wake of Hamas’s 2023 attack on Israel and Israel’s siege of Gaza he was a leading pro-Palestinian voice, a topic that came up often on the campaign trail last year.

In the Tuesday night video, he called Netanyahu “the architect of a horrific genocide against the Palestinian people,” including the deaths of more than 73,000 people and widespread starvation. The video prompted immediate backlash from some Jewish organizations and elected officials who accused him of singling out Israel for criticism, 

Mamdani’s politics have awkwardly clashed with the NYPD before. In May, fellow progressives criticized the NYPD’s response to a protest outside a Brooklyn hospital, where U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement had taken a detainee for treatment following their arrest of the man. In videos and accounts shared from the protest, anti-ICE demonstrators and some local officials said it looked like the NYPD was “providing security for ICE” – another entity Mamdani has roundly condemned. 

Council Member Sandy Nurse was one of those electeds who criticized the NYPD’s response to the ICE protests.  “I don’t think it’s a good look for the NYPD to be defending a war criminal, the same way it was not a good look for NYPD to be to be defending ICE, which is doing lawless crimes,” she said Wednesday, when asked how she would like to see Mamdani manage potential anti-Netanyahu protests in September.