Even if you can't hold him you should just arrest him anyway. Embarrass him. Make him sit in a cell for a few minutes and make a photo op out of it.
this post was submitted on 19 Jul 2026
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‘He’s a war criminal’: Mamdani exploring whether he can arrest Netanyahu if he visits New York
(www.theguardian.com)
Yep. Good old 'You can beat the charges, but you can't beat the ride.'
Perfectly legal under New York law to arrest him and hold him in a cell for 24 hours while you decide whether or not you can actually charge him with anything.
I like that thinking.
No a photo op can go seriously awry. Just see what's legally doable.
Go out into the street and execute him. Then piss on the corpse.
That could backfire spectacularly. Arrest him, trump immediately gets on tv demanding his release, and even if they were going to release him anyway, the right-wing will flaunt it as a “win,” that Mamdani backed down to trump.
Of course, trump would then have the DOJ investigate Mamdani and pin some bullshit charges on him.
Mamdani could ride his bike around in a Speedo going ding ding!
Whether he can order them to, whether there would be diplomatic blowback, and whether they can legally do so are three very different questions, probably answered yes, hell yes, and "it depends how fast you can get him to the Hauge". The current administration has shown that detaining heads of state is acceptable, so long as you get them out quickly.
It would be so funny if the mayor of new york black bagged netanyahu and handed him over to the icelandic police or interpol.
NYPD has no authority to detain anyone outside the borders of New York, so who is going to operate the flight?
A private plane leaving New York going east must obtain oceanic clearance from FAA air traffic controllers to transit the oceanic airspace. (I'm just assuming that there's some way to get out of the mess of NYC controlled airspace from an outlying field on VFR without contacting ATC. But in the oceanic region class A tends to drop really low to try to get under.).
In any case, such a flight would be confronted immediately by the US Atlantic Air Defense Identification Zone. All flights are required to establish two-way communication and be assigned a discrete transponder code. Non-compliers are intercepted by the US Air Force for visual identification, and they can be coerced into landing back in US territory. So it would be pretty easy for the feds to get them there.
In addition civilian flights entering and leaving US territory are required to file eAPIS notices with CBP containing passenger manifests with passport numbers, etc., at least 60 minutes before departure. So if this plane hits the ADIZ with no eAPIS or with fishy eAPIS, it's another way for the feds to find out which one to intercept.
But in any case, a more likely response is just a TFR that closes New York or the entire North Atlantic airspace to civilians. And nobody gets to go to Europe that night. Nothing on that scale has happened since 9/11, but we're talking about kidnapping a head of state, not Edward Snowden.
What about driving him to Canada?
I don't, for a second think Mamdani will actually order him arrested, the posturing is likely all just for show, but if he did, and they managed to bundle Netanyahu on to a plane, what exactly could anyone do about it once they took off? Shoot it down, killing Netanyahu in the process? The government would be on the horns of a very classic dilemma; let the plane go, losing Netanyahu, or shoot it down, killing him? As I said in my first post, the diplomatic and political fallout to a plan like this would be extreme whatever happened.
My suspicion is they'd shoot, and try to pin the whole thing on radical leftwing trans communist muslim terrorists. It go down well with trump's base, and do nothing to mollify any other states.
I doubt they would shoot the plane down but otherwise agree.
I mean, if they are willing to extralegally kidnapp a head of state, why comply with orders to return to US? The only reason to stop the plane is to rescue Netanyahu, and shooting at the plane would defeat that purpose. But realistically, it would already all go wrong at the arrest part. Heads of state don't travel without bodyguards that don't give a shit if you have a badge of local police. Would likely be a shootout, unless NYPD had owevhelming numbers and managed to surround them.
Also, spoiler alert, it is not legal in any way and Mamdani is just talking shit. Which is not a criticism really, I like good shit talking like this.
You literally made up a scenario where it wouldn’t work so you can larp? Like to be this malignant is on purpose, you talk like cop imma find you you.
This is what a hero looks like America.
If New York gets a new Batman character soon, it will probably be him
Let's fucking go.
I don't know if that's a good idea. He's a mass murderer