Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Wednesday that he still planned to visit New York City despite incoming mayor Zohran Mamdani’s threats to arrest him in compliance with an International Criminal Court warrant.

“Yes, I’ll come to New York,” Netanyahu said in a virtual interview with the New York Times’ Dealbook forum. The premier made the same pledge in July, before Mamdani was elected mayor four months later.

Asked if he would seek to speak to Mamdani, Netanyahu replied, “If he changes his mind and says that we have the right to exist, that’ll be a good opening for a conversation.”

Mamdani, a democratic socialist who will be New York’s first Muslim and first South Asian mayor, has said he supports Israel’s right to exist but has balked at saying Israel has the right to be a Jewish state, saying no country should have a “hierarchy of citizenship” based on religion or other factors.

Mamdani declined at first to condemn slogans such as “globalize the intifada” or to call for the disarmament of Hamas, though he later walked back his position on both points following significant backlash.

Mamdani has vowed to send the New York Police Department to enforce arrest warrants against leaders wanted by the International Criminal Court, including Netanyahu or Russian President Vladimir Putin.

The Hague-based ICC last year said it had reasonable grounds to believe Netanyahu was responsible for alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity in Israel’s war against Hamas........

© The Times of Israel