DON'T ARREST MAMDANI: SHOOT HIM IN THE MOUTH!
Zohran Mamdani should be arrested, says Israeli ambassador
Danny Danon accused the New York mayor of ‘inciting attacks’ with his call for protests against Binyamin Netanyahu when he attends the UN General Assembly
The Israeli ambassador to the UN has called for the New York mayor Zohran Mamdani to be arrested for inciting violence ahead of Binyamin Netanyahu’s arrival for the UN General Assembly.
Mamdani encouraged New Yorkers to protest against the Israeli prime minister’s UN address this month after conceding that he does not have the legal authority to detain Netanyahu on a warrant issued by the International Criminal Court (ICC) in November 2024.
Danny Danon, the ambassador to the UN, told The Times: “He’s called to arrest the prime minister, but I think if somebody should be arrested it’s him because his incitement caused attacks against Jews in the city.”
He made the comment in a wide-ranging interview covering what Netanyahu plans to say on the podium, Israel’s growing isolation at the UN, and strained ties with the British government over Israel’s illegal settlement expansion.
Danon has spent more than a decade representing Israel internationally, including two terms at the UN. “This will be my eighth general assembly and the UN was always challenging, but this year is different because we have a new mayor in town, one who instead of organising and supporting the delegation is calling for protests and inciting more chaos in the streets,” he said.
Mamdani had said he would seek to order the city’s police to execute the ICC’s arrest warrant over Netanyahu’s alleged crimes against humanity in Gaza. After consulting his legal department, Mamdani acknowledged that the NYPD did not have the power to execute the warrant because the US was not a party to the Rome statute.
He told New Yorkers that he understood their frustration and that expressions of protest were something the city would “always respect”.
In response to the accusation he was fuelling antisemitism, Mamdani said: “We have to root out antisemitism from across the five boroughs and that’s because the city is one that has no room for hate or bigotry of any kind, and when we make criticisms of a nation state or policies, we have to remember those are criticisms of exactly that — never of a people, never of a faith.”
Danon responded: “If you look beyond his words and his cynical smile, read between the lines, he is condemning hate and saying he stands with the Jewish communities and at the same time inciting against people, inciting against the prime minister, calling people to go to the streets. He’s playing a dangerous game.”
A member of Netanyahu’s Likud party and a former minister in his government, Danon said he had been co-ordinating the leader’s security with the State Department and had had no communication with the mayor’s office.
The Israeli delegation is heading into one of the most hostile political climates in New York since the country became a member of the UN in 1949.
The Democratic socialist Mamdani was elected on a pro-Palestinian platform in a city that had long been at the heart of American political support for Israel.
Anti-Israel activists have spent weeks organising a campaign to “flood” the streets outside the UN headquarters with protests aimed at disrupting Netanyahu’s arrival, scheduled for September 23. Pro-Israel activists are planning counter-demonstrations.
The opening of this year’s general assembly, which sees world leaders travel to New York for a week, also happens to fall on Yom Kippur, the Jewish New Year and the holiest day of the year in Judaism.
Patrick Hendry, president of the NYPD Police Benevolent Association, accused the mayor of putting police officers in a “terrible position”.
“Protests during the UN General Assembly are nothing new, but when the mayor of the city is actively calling for demonstrations, violent agitators will assume they have permission to cause as much havoc as possible,” he said.
Netanyahu’s speech will be much-anticipated. He has long been one of the UN’s most theatrical speakers, turning his annual addresses into carefully choreographed political set pieces — from the cartoon bomb and red marker he used to illustrate Iran’s nuclear programme in 2012 to the maps of a “new Middle East” he brandished in 2023.
The UN Secretariat has rejected Israeli requests to move Netanyahu’s address to a morning slot. The Israeli delegation had intended to time the broadcast for the peak 8pm primetime evening news back home. Israeli officials are anticipating a walkout when Netanyahu takes to the podium, as happened last year.
The prime minister has become an increasingly polarising figure over Israel’s assault on Gaza, which followed the deadly attack on southern Israel by Hamas militants on October 7, 2023. Israel also joined the US in strikes against Iran this year before launching a ground invasion in southern Lebanon in response to fire from the Iranian-backed Hezbollah group.
Recent polls show support for Israel among New Yorkers, and Americans generally, is at a record low.
Danon said Netanyahu planned to speak at the General Assembly about Israel’s “opportunities”. “Despite the situation we had in the last year, I think we have a lot of great opportunities ahead of us,” he said. “We are negotiating with Lebanon, we have channels of communication with Syria.”
Next week will mark the sixth anniversary of the signing of the Abraham Accords, a US-brokered agreement between Israel and several Arab nations to establish formal diplomatic relations. “We will talk about expanding the accord, we believe more countries will join soon,” he added.
Danon, 55, served as UN envoy from 2015 to 2020 and was asked by the prime minister to return to the position in 2024, becoming the first Israeli to serve two terms.
He said he agreed to do so after the October 7 attacks. Danon made the campaign to secure the release of the hostages central to his diplomacy, repeatedly using Security Council meetings, letters and events at UN headquarters to demand international pressure on Hamas.
“It was shocking to come back and find an even more hostile UN than I left,” he said. He expressed concern about antisemitism in New York City, which is home to the largest Jewish population in the world outside Israel. “In the past, we were aware of antisemitism and the obsession and hate of Jews, but it was done behind closed doors. Today it’s out loud and it’s coming not only from member states, but official UN agencies.”
Over the summer, Israeli security forces were included in an annex to a UN report listing parties credibly suspected of conflict-related sexual violence.
“The secretary-general put Israel on the same blacklist with Hamas, blaming us for committing sexual crimes. It’s part of [a] broader campaign against us,” said Danon, claiming the UN had an institutional bias against Israel.
Israel has become increasingly isolated at the United Nations. In the past year the UN General Assembly adopted 15 resolutions targeting Israel, compared with 12 resolutions concerning the rest of the world combined.
Netanyahu has railed against the UN as a place “where good is portrayed as evil, and evil is portrayed as good”, dismissing it as a “swamp of antisemitic bile”.
Britain last year joined 141 other countries in endorsing the New York Declaration, a framework for steps toward a two-state solution. The UK government then formally recognised the State of Palestine.
Danon has historically been to the right of Netanyahu on the issue of Palestinian rights and self-determination, opposing a two-state solution and advocating annexing much of the West Bank. Netanyahu has at various times at least publicly endorsed the possibility of a Palestinian state.
Danon said Israel had been a great ally to the UK but it had not always been reciprocated after October 7. He expressed concerns about the countries’ relationship under the new Labour government.
“The UK is an important country, and we value the partnership with the UK,” hesaid. “Unfortunately, we have seen the interference of domestic politics in the statements and decisions of the government of the UK. We regret that.”
In his first Commons speech as foreign secretary, Ed Miliband promised to “reset” Britain’s policy on Israel, saying he will try to stop British companies helping to build settlements in the West Bank.
Miliband is under pressure to go further and ban trade in goods and services with people or organisations linked to illegal settlements.
Gideon Sa’ar, the Israeli foreign minister, responded by saying: “If Britain acts against the state of Israel, the state of Israel will act against Britain. We have the tools. The period is over when people act against the state of Israel and the state of Israel doesn’t respond.”
Danon declined to say what “tools” Sa’ar was referring to, telling The Times: “I hope that the leadership in the UK will understand that it’s more complicated. Taking sides or putting out declarations without looking at the content and the complexity is not helpful.”
Meanwhile, British politicians have been angered by comments made by Yair Netanyahu, the premier’s son, backing Argentina’s claim to the British-controlled Falkland Islands.
The younger Netanyahu posted on X that “the Falkland Islands belong to Argentina” and that Israel should support Argentina’s claim because the Argentinian government, under President Milei, was more friendly to Israel.
Asked about the post, Danon said: “We have a government, we have a prime minister, we have a spokesperson, and like any other democracy anyone can say whatever they want, but the government is the one who’s deciding about the policy. If it was the position, we would have said it, but no one in the government said it.”
Sa’ad has previously said that in contrast to the Falklands, Israeli settlements in the West Bank were “in the cradle of our own civilisation”.
Recent incidents of settler violence have been one of the biggest flashpoints for Israel at the UN.
An American NBC News correspondent and his crew were attacked last month by settlers while reporting in Jalud, near Nablus. In July Ro Khanna, a Democratic congressman from California, said he and his delegation were stopped and detained for more than an hour by armed settlers while visiting the occupied West Bank.
Danon is an outspoken defender of Israel’s West Bank settlements, which he regards as permanent Jewish communities, although he said that settler violence was “something we should not accept”.
“We condemn violence, we take action against those criminals who commit those crimes,” but, he said, “you cannot look at half a million people inhabiting land the size of the city of Liverpool and generalise that they’re all violent. It’s unacceptable.”
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