By Jim Geraghty
Wednesday, July 22, 2026
Back in the early 1990s, Democratic Senator Daniel
Patrick Moynihan denounced Bill Clinton’s promises of welfare reform as
“boob bait for bubbas.” (Ironically, welfare reform turned out to be one of
Clinton’s greatest achievements as president.)
But the alliterative term stuck around, a useful moniker
for the sort of dumb and unrealistic but popular promise that politicians are
inclined to blurt out as they frenziedly pursue higher office.
In his mayoral campaign, Zohran Mamdani offered some
grade-A “boob bait for bubbas” by promising to
arrest Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu if he visited New York for
the United Nations General Assembly.
If you are not addled by a frothing-at-the-mouth
hostility to Israel and think about this for 30 seconds, you start to see the
problems:
·
What charge would the city of New York bring
against Netanyahu? Mamdani made a big deal out of the International Criminal
Court’s arrest
warrant issued in November 2024, but the U.S. government does not recognize
the authority of the ICC.
·
Not only does the U.S. government not recognize
the authority of the ICC, the Trump administration has imposed sanctions on it. Secretary of State Marco Rubio pledged earlier this month, “using all the tools at our
government’s disposal, working beside every ally with whom we can make common
cause, we will dismantle the ICC — brick by brick, if necessary.”
·
Not only does the New York City government not
have the authority to enforce an ICC arrest warrant, doing so would violate
federal law. The American Servicemembers’ Protection Act states, “No agency
or entity of any state or local government, including any court, may cooperate
with the International Criminal Court.” No mayor has the authority to overrule
federal law.
·
Criminal prosecution in a jurisdiction generally
requires a connection to that jurisdiction, such as criminal conduct occurring
within the state, a harmful result occurring there, or an offense intended to
affect the state. Even if you buy into the allegations in the ICC arrest
warrant, there is no tie to New York City or the United States.
·
While traveling to or from the United Nations
for the annual general assembly or any other reason, Netanyahu would be immune
from arrest, as covered by the Convention on the Privileges and Immunities of the United
Nations, adopted by the U.N. General Assembly on February 13, 1946. That
convention grants representatives of member states immunity from personal
arrest or detention while exercising their functions and traveling to and from
the place of meeting.
·
The Agreement between the United Nations and the United States of
America Regarding the Headquarters of the United Nations, signed in 1947,
declares that federal, state, and local authorities generally may not obstruct
representatives of member nations traveling to or from the headquarters
district.
·
Netanyahu travels with an extensive,
well-trained, and experienced personal
security detail, managed by the Shin Bet, Israel’s domestic security and
counterintelligence agency. In past visits to New York City, Netanyahu has had 20 agents protecting him when he goes to the bathroom; he
was described then as “the most protected man in the world.” The Shin Bet is
exceptionally good at its job, and the NYPD is exceptionally good at theirs as
well, and neither one is interested in getting into a confrontation or shootout
with the other.
I was going to throw in the additional point that there
is a widespread view among
international law experts that “heads of state and heads of government are,
and have long been, entitled to an absolute personal immunity from foreign
jurisdiction.” With that said, Nicolás Maduro, Juan Orlando Hernández, Saddam
Hussein, Slobodan Milošević, Jean-Bertrand Aristide, and Manuel Noriega could
not be reached for comment.
For a multitude of reasons, the notion of New York City
police arresting Netanyahu was absurd from the start. But a whole lot of
progressive activists in the city utterly loathe Netanyahu, and their little
hearts went pitter-patter at the thought of the Israeli leader sitting inside a
jail cell.
Last night, in a short
video statement, Mamdani acknowledged that he has no authority, and never
had any authority, to carry out his campaign promise.
“My administration has reviewed every avenue available
under applicable law to determine whether New York City could execute the
International Criminal Court’s arrest warrant if Benjamin Netanyahu came here,”
Mamdani said. “It is clear that we do not have the independent legal authority
to enforce this warrant.”
No Shinola, Sherlock.
Nothing changed between last fall and now; the only
difference is that the U.N. General Assembly is in two months, and Netanyahu
intends to be there. (The Israeli leader may feel that he must attend
the UNGA this year, to prove the point that no one has the authority to arrest
him on U.S. soil.)
In the end, Mamdani is like the kid who runs for
middle-school student council promising to replace the school lunches with
McDonalds and Chick-fil-A and ban homework. He either didn’t know, or more
likely, didn’t care that he didn’t have the authority to keep this promise; he
just wanted the applause and to look like a tough guy.
Mamdani added, “The federal government, however, does
[have the authority] — and I call on them to join the ICC and execute this
warrant.”
No, the U.S. government does not have the authority to
execute that warrant, at least not without repealing the American
Servicemembers’ Protection Act and recognizing the authority of the ICC, which
would give the ICC the authority to indict and arrest U.S. government officials
and members of the military.
In 2020, the ICC ruled its prosecutor could investigate American citizens who worked in Afghanistan, claiming “a
reasonable basis to believe that members of United States of America armed
forces and members of the Central Intelligence Agency committed acts of
torture, cruel treatment, outrages upon personal dignity, rape and sexual
violence against conflict-related detainees in Afghanistan and other locations,
principally in the 2003-2004 period.”
The Trump administration told the ICC to go pound sand.
In September 2021 — after Joe Biden took office — the ICC’s chief prosecutor announced he had “decided to focus my
office’s investigations in Afghanistan on crimes allegedly committed by the
Taliban and the Islamic State — Khorasan Province (“IS-K”) and to deprioritize
other aspects of this investigation.” Groups like the ACLU were “deeply disappointed” that an international court that had
never been recognized as legitimate by the U.S. government was dropping its
investigation into American citizens.
Rubio warned earlier this month that under the ICC’s
perception of its own powers, “U.S. soldiers, police officers, Border Patrol
agents and elected leaders could be dragged before an international court,
tried by judges from random countries across the globe, found guilty under
international laws we neither consent to nor control, and then imprisoned
thousands of miles from America.”
Mamdani concluded, “I want to be equally clear: Benjamin
Netanyahu is not welcome in New York City, nor is any other war criminal at
large.” This means nothing. Mamdani can declare that the San Antonio Spurs are
not welcome in New York City, and they’re still going to show up at Madison
Square Garden for the game.
It will be interesting to see if any progressive gives
Mamdani any grief for making an unrealistic promise, and once elected,
admitting he never had the ability to keep it. My guess is those complaints
will be few and far between. The “bubbas” don’t really care that much if the
“boob bait” is real or not, they just like the thrill of hearing the promise,
and can easily shrug off it being broken. That’s one of the traits that makes
them “bubbas.” They’re happier being lied to than dealing with reality as it is.
Yearning for your political opponents to get arrested is
a broad, bipartisan passion in America, from former ambassador Joe Wilson wanting to see Karl Rove “frog
marched in handcuffs,” to the Republican chants of “lock her up” during the 2016 presidential campaign against
Hillary Clinton, to Kamala
Harris and other Democrats saying that Donald Trump should be sentenced to
prison for his alleged crimes.
And occasionally, an elected official does get caught
committing crimes and heads off to prison. Former New Jersey Senator Bob
Menendez is currently residing in a minimum security federal prison in
Allenwood, Pa., serving an eleven-year sentence for bribery, acting as a
foreign agent, and obstruction of justice offenses.
The DSA Is Not Sending Its Best
New Jersey Democratic Representative Josh Gottheimer, Monday:
“I’m glad to see other Democrats reiterating what I’ve been saying all along:
the DSA are not Democrats. They’re socialists, who want to hijack the
Democratic Party. The Democrats have a big tent. That’s our strength. We
embrace a range of ideas — but there’s no room for anti-American bomb-throwers
who oppose our ideas, values, & leaders.”
Democratic Representative Summer Lee, of Pennsylvania, a
former member of the Democratic Socialists of America, responded:
“What about Dems who sign bombs and vote to drop them?”
Except . . . Representative Josh Gottheimer has never
signed a bomb. Lee is thinking of Pennsylvania’s Democratic Governor Josh
Shapiro.
Minnesota Representative Ilhan Omar jumped in, adding,
“He signed the bombs you voted to be dropped. Hope this helps!”
Except . . . Omar is thinking of Shapiro’s visit to the Scranton Army Ammunition Plant in 2024
alongside Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky, where he signed an artillery
shell that would be shipped to the Ukrainian armed forces, not the Israeli
ones. (And for what it’s worth, Omar
voted for Ukraine military aid, just like Gottheimer did.)
I’m sorry, but the members of Congress who speak on
behalf of the DSA are antisemitic morons. All Jewish guys named Josh look alike
to them, and they can’t remember whether the guy they’re thinking of was
signing bombs used by Ukraine or Israel, but it doesn’t really matter because
they believe every Jewish officeholder is a warmonger anyway. They’re an
absolute embarrassment, a disgrace to the already low standards of the U.S.
House of Representatives, and a Democratic Party that had an ounce of self-respect
would ask themselves why they put up with such shameful bargain-basement-bin
imbecilic dolts to represent safe blue districts.
ADDENDUM: Over in the Washington Post, I point out that “Qatar
Force One” — the plane that President Trump accepted from the Qatari government
— was not, as promised, 100 percent up to the mission and when the U.S. Air
Force declared, “No risk was taken in security, safety or mission communications,”
that was not accurate. It turns out the new plane doesn’t have the advanced
antimissile capabilities of the old model, which is why the president used one
of the older planes to fly back from Turkey earlier this month.
“Even if you could have closed your eyes to the ethical
problems, you had to wonder how secure a plane from Qatar was. (You know who used to work in the Qatari Water Department? Khalid
Sheikh Mohammed, the mastermind of 9/11.) If you doubt that accepting an
unsolicited large-scale gift can lead to bigger problems, check out that new movie about how accepting a big wooden horse
worked out for ancient Troy.”
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