Trump rules out Netanyahu arrest as US escalates campaign against ICC

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will not be arrested on US soil, President Donald Trump declared Monday, an assurance that underscored a widening gap between international criminal law on paper and its enforcement in practice as Washington escalates its campaign against the court seeking his arrest. “Benjamin Netanyahu will not be arrested, in any way, shape, or form, while in the United States of America,” Trump wrote on social media, adding that Netanyahu is fighting Iran and that “the only ones that should be arrested” are Iran’s leaders. The statement followed remarks by New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani, who said in an interview published Saturday that the city’s Law Department is considering its options ahead of September, when Netanyahu typically travels to New York for the UN General Assembly’s high-level gatherings. “I believe that Prime Minister Netanyahu belongs in The Hague. He’s a war criminal who has been charged by the International Criminal Court. And what you will find is that is an opinion that is held by many purely because of what his actions have wrought over these last many years,” he said in an interview with the New York Times Magazine. Mamdani, who took office in January, campaigned on a pledge to have police arrest Netanyahu if he entered the city. The International Criminal Court issued arrest warrants in November 2024 for Netanyahu and his then-Defense Minister Yoav Gallant over alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity during the Gaza war. Israel rejects the court’s jurisdiction and denies committing war crimes. On Sunday, the Prime Minister’s Office called the warrant “bogus” and the court a “kangaroo court.” ICC member states have a duty to arrest and surrender suspects to the court. But despite its key role in shaping the court, the US is not a member state. Then-President Bill Clinton signed the court’s founding document, the Rome Statute, in the final days of his term in 2000, but he never submitted it to the Senate. In 2002, as the treaty took effect and the court opened, President George W. Bush’s administration notified the UN that the US did not intend to become a party, a step the White House contended released Washington from any residual duty to honor an agreement it had signed. Congress that year passed the American Service-Members’ Protection Act, barring most US cooperation with the court. Israel is not a signatory to the Rome Statute. The ICC can issue an arrest warrant for a national of a non-member state when the alleged genocide, crimes against humanity, or war crimes were committed after July 1, 2002 in the territory of a state party or a state that has accepted the court’s jurisdiction, or when the UN Security Council refers the situation to the prosecutor under Chapter VII. The Netanyahu warrant rests on conduct occurring in Palestinian territory rather than on Israel’s membership. In effect, Trump’s declaration restates longstanding US policy, but it lands amid a broader assault on the court’s authority, giving old policy new force. The UN’s presence in the city gives New York no additional authority. The 1947 headquarters agreement requires US authorities not to impede delegates’ travel to the UN district and bars local officials from entering the grounds on official business without the secretary-general’s consent. But the district is not foreign soil. US law applies there. Customary international law grants sitting heads of government personal immunity from prosecution abroad, a principle the International Court of Justice affirmed in a 2002 ruling involving an incumbent foreign minister. US courts defer heavily to the executive branch on such matters. Foreign policy is a federal power, and harassing foreign officials is a federal crime. US Ambassador to the UN Mike Waltz cited these points Saturday, calling Mamdani’s position “pure political theater.” Mamdani has not said what legal theory the city might invoke. In the weekend interview, he said: “I will follow the laws that we have here in New York City because I believe that there is an importance in following the law as a leader who presides over our city… Whatever the law allows me to do in New York City, that’s what we will do, but we won’t be writing our own laws to that end.” The exchange follows an announcement a week earlier in which Secretary of State Marco Rubio outlined what the State Department called a whole-of-government campaign to disable the ICC, saying Washington would dismantle the court “brick by brick” if necessary. The plan contemplates sanctions, visa revocations and pressure on allies to withdraw.