Why Mamdani chose insidious rhetoric over arresting Netanyahu

People keep writing about New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s call for the arrest of Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu. Mamdani pledged to arrest Netanyahu during his campaign, but as mayor, he clearly has no power to do so. He’s not a federal official. He has no jurisdiction over an Israeli head of government. Any high school civics student could tell you that Netanyahu’s arrest was never going to happen.

Knowing this full well, Mamdani recently released a video announcing his powerlessness, and then unleashed a venomous attack on Netanyahu and Israel.

So why did he do it? Why make a pledge he knew he could not fulfill and then engage in vicious rhetoric after the fact?

Certainly, the strategy of using anti-Israel rhetoric to boost one’s own political and cultural standing has been put into practice the world over.

There is Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez, who regularly demonizes Israel because he is deeply unpopular at home, and his country suffers from inflation and basic governance issues. There are senatorial and congressional candidates in the United States who use anti-Israel remarks for the same purposes. There are far-right political podcasters like Tucker Carlson, Candace Owens and Nick Fuentes who have regularly employed Israel- and Jew-bashing to raise their stats and viewership. All of these people know how to generate a headline when needed.

Moreover, socialist leaders across the West keep discovering the same thing: Governing is hard; demonizing is easy. When you can’t fix a housing crisis, transit system or crime rate, you find an enemy instead. Israel is the easiest of enemies because attacking it costs you nothing at home and buys you a global audience.

The New York mayor is using a similar strategy, but his endgame is different and more dangerous.

Under Mamdani, New York City is struggling. While the mayor touts that some violent crimes, including shootings and homicides, are down, a recent report in the New York Post citing statistics from the New York City Police Department showed that other major crimes, including murder, rape, robbery, burglary, felony assault, grand larceny and auto theft, are up, especially felony assaults and rape.

Jews, in particular, are facing open hostility on the street, as evidenced by the stabbings on Tisha B’Av. Even Mamdani’s economic policies are already showing strain.

Yet in the middle of all this, Mamdani’s most viral moment as a public figure is a fantasy about arresting a foreign head of state whom he has no authority to touch.

I believe that Mamdani’s video was a recruitment tool, plain and simple. In the video, he made a not-so-veiled call for protest during Netanyahu’s visit. I believe that Mamdani intends to lead those protests, and I would not be surprised if that week turns violent as a result.

Mamdani is investing in this strategy ahead of time and beginning to foment the violence now, months before Netanyahu’s planned September visit to the U.N. General Assembly. He is aiming to build a crowd around rage at an imagined crime. And don’t be surprised when that crowd acts upon their rage in the streets.

Fuentes, Owens, Carlson and plenty of others chase viewership, instead of accuracy, by exploiting this rage. Say the wildest thing, watch the numbers climb and worry about the consequences later—if there are any at all.

Politics has become the same game. It is no longer a contest of who can build a better city or a stronger economy. It is a contest of who can generate the loudest outrage cycle. Sadly, actual violence is often the result of both, and the victims suffer the consequences.

Mamdani is showing us that he cares less about his own constituents and more about the headlines he can generate. Hating Israel and/or Jews is one of the easiest headlines available; it costs nothing at home and draws attention from everywhere else. So instead of fixing the subway, the housing market or the crime rate, the mayor is spending his time and influence on statements about Israel and Netanyahu because outrage travels faster than policy ever will.

Mamdani knew he couldn’t arrest Netanyahu. He never wanted to. He just wanted people to watch, to get angry and to join in a protest that should never be held in the first place.