After Zohran Mamdani, New York City's leading mayoral candidate, pledged to arrest Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu if he visits the city, Netanyahu responded to questions about whether he's worried.
In December, Mamdani, who identifies as a democratic socialist and is the Democratic Party’s nominee for New York City mayor, said, "as mayor, New York City would arrest Benjamin Netanyahu."
"This is a city that our values are in line with international law. It’s time that our actions are also," Mamdani said, referring to the International Criminal Court issuing an arrest warrant against Netanyahu as well as Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant.
Netanyahu met with President Donald Trump at the White House on Monday evening to discuss a range of topics, including Iran and Israel’s ongoing war with Hamas.
Left: Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu speaks during a press conference in Jerusalem on December 9, 2024. Right: Zohran Mamdani, New York State Assemblyman and mayoral candidate for New York City, speaks at an emergency rally held by the Working Families Party to criticize the Trump administration, after ICE agents arrested Ras Baraka, mayor of Newark and New Jersey Democratic candidate for governor, at Foley Square in New York, New York, U.S., May 10, 2025. (MAYA ALLERUZZO/POOL/AFP via Getty Images and REUTERS/Bing Guan)
When asked whether he was worried about the possibility of facing arrest in America’s largest city, Netanyahu said, "I'm not concerned about that."
The prime minister added, "I'm going to come there with the President Trump and we'll see."
He went on to say that Mamdani’s threat is "silly in many ways, because it's just not serious."
Trump also chimed in, saying, "We don’t know who the mayor is going to be yet, but this is a communist. He's not a socialist. He's a communist, and he's said some really bad things about Jewish people."
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Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, accompanied by U.S. President Donald Trump (L), speaks during a dinner in the Blue Room of the White House on July 07, 2025 in Washington, DC. (Andrew Harnik/Getty Images)
"He might make it," Trump said. "But, you know, it all comes through the White House. He needs the money through the White House. He needs a lot.
"He's going to behave. He'll behave. He better behave. Otherwise, he’s going to have big problems."
Hearkening back to an earlier question asked by reporters, Netanyahu said, "what is serious" is whether there can be a two-state solution in Gaza that does not pose an existential threat to the Israeli people.
"Look, there's enough craziness in the world, but I guess it never ends," he said. "After October 7th, people said the Palestinians had a state, Hamas state in Gaza, and look what they did with it. They didn't build it up. They built down two bunkers into terror tunnels, after which they massacred our people, raped our women, beheaded our men, invaded our cities and our towns and our kibbutzim and did horrendous, horrendous massacres, the kind of which we didn't see since World War two and the Nazis, the Holocaust."
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Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, right, hands President Donald Trump a folder during a meeting in the Blue Room of the White House, Monday, July 7, 2025, in Washington. ((AP Photo/Alex Brandon))
"So people aren't likely to say, let's just give them another state. It'll be a platform to destroy Israel," he added. "We'll work up a peace with our Palestinian neighbors, those who don't want to destroy us, and we'll work out a peace in which our security, the sovereign power of security, always remains in our hands."
"Now, people will say it's not a complete state. It's not a state, it's not that, we don't care," he said. "You know, we vowed, ‘never again.’ Never again is now, it's not going to happen again."