Shot Across the Bow

Mayor Zohran Mamdani has done something no one else in the United States seems to have the nerve to do. He called out Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as an indicted war criminal and urged the U.S. government to support the work of the International Criminal Court.

He stated that if Netanyahu steps foot in New York City, he should be arrested and turned over to the ICC.

The New York Times denounced the popular mayor for engaging in an embarrassing “stunt” that they claimed was “a waste of time.” Meanwhile, The Detroit News said Mamdani’s reference to the war crimes indictment shows exactly what is wrong with politics today.

If anything, Mamdani was like the boy in the fable who simply pointed out that the Emperor of genocide has no clothes.

Even though Netanyahu gets treated like royalty by the American political establishment, the war crimes indictment hangs over his head.

And it is not going away.

Not that the mainstream media would point out such obvious facts. They have been dutifully powdering over the genocide.

Mamdani knew he didn’t have the authority to have Netanyahu arrested on the streets of New York, but he forced the issue into the American mainstream. And that is significant.

The road may be running out for this despot.

Canada has stated Netanyahu would be arrested if he lands on Canadian soil. Same for Spain, Ireland, Austria, Slovenia, the Netherlands. Germany is hemming and hawing on the issue, stating they are looking at their legal options.

Netanyahu bragged to Fox that if he were arrested in any country, there would be a special military team ready to invade and free him.

It brings to mind when Hitler sent Otto Skorzeny to free Mussolini. Floating the notion of invading a European country to free an indicted war criminal shows how far Israel has gone in its defiance of law and sovereignty.

This is why world opinion has shifted dramatically — even in the United States. Among Jewish Americans, Mamdani is outpolling Netanyahu by a long shot. His call for Netanyahu’s arrest has also garnered support among ordinary American voters.

The mayor’s action wasn’t a stunt; it was a shot across the bow.

It is reminiscent of when former dictator Augusto Pinochet was arrested while receiving medical attention in the UK in 1998. The arrest shook up the international community. Everyone knew that Augusto Pinochet was responsible for horrific crimes following the Chilean coup of 1973.

But the arrest in London forced the question: was it really possible to hold a former leader accountable in another jurisdiction?

Pinochet’s case opened the door to a new era of international law.

The origins lay with the Nuremberg tribunal, which ruled that those who commit war crimes — torture, mass killing — do not have protection because they followed the orders of a sitting government.

In 1948, the Genocide Convention went further, stating that “constitutionally responsible rulers, public officials or private individuals” are not able to hide behind blanket protections of immunity.

The Statute of Rome, adopted in July 1998, committed each signatory nation to “exercise its criminal jurisdiction for those responsible for international crimes.”

This put the onus on countries not only to live up to the rule of international law but to enforce it. The Pinochet case was the first test.

I urge people to read the book 38 Londres Street by Phillip Sands, a lawyer and brilliant writer who was engaged in the case.

Although Pinochet eventually managed to return to Chile, his arrest was a game changer. No longer could criminal leaders believe they could travel the world with immunity. They had to look over their shoulders.

In 1999, Croatian president Franjo Tudman cancelled a trip for medical treatment for fear he would be arrested.

In 2002, Henry Kissinger cancelled a trip to Brazil out of fear he would be arrested for his role in the Chilean coup that brought Pinochet to power.

Even George W. Bush and Vladimir Putin cancelled certain trips for fear they could be arrested.

Netanyahu knows that he is very vulnerable, and so does the American political establishment. They have taken on the role of Netanyahu’s enforcers, attempting to shut down the war crimes investigations in Gaza and dismantling the International Criminal Court.

The United States has issued sanctions against Canadian jurist Kimberly Prost for her investigations into the war crimes in Gaza. Marco Rubio has declared his intention to destroy the court.

But I don’t think that will happen.

The crimes in Gaza are too outrageous to be swept under the carpet. The egregious actions of Netanyahu, senior IDF officials and thousands of IDF soldiers present a staggering level of criminality that has been boasted about and shared on social media by the perpetrators. Despite IDF efforts to kill journalists and other witnesses, the evidence is overwhelming.

125 nations have signed on to the Statute of Rome. It is not possible that these democratic countries will allow themselves to become complicit in the cover-up of the genocide of the century.

In Phillip Sands’ book, he wrote about the anger and frustration when Pinochet was allowed to go back to Chile. But he points out that the trial set a precedent.

Juan Garciaz, a survivor who fought for rights for the Chilean survivors, is quoted as saying that the arrest was a defining moment because it finally “breached a wall of impunity.”

Mamdani has done the same thing regardless of how much The New York Times howls in indignation.

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