Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu fired back at New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani on national television, accusing the democratic socialist mayor of stoking hatred against Jews, and linking his rhetoric to a stabbing outside a Manhattan synagogue days later.
Netanyahu appeared on Fox News' "Sunday Morning Futures" with host Maria Bartiromo and did not hold back about the mayor who has called him a "war criminal" and urged federal officials to arrest him under an International Criminal Court warrant. The prime minister said Mamdani's public attacks are making Jewish New Yorkers afraid, and that the consequences are already showing up on city streets.
The interview came days after a 51-year-old suspect, Raul Morales, allegedly stabbed a Jewish man in the chest with a screwdriver outside a Manhattan synagogue while shouting "Allahu Akbar." Morales was arrested. Authorities also allege he stabbed a 57-year-old Asian man in a separate attack while shouting the same phrase. A hate crime investigation is underway.
Netanyahu did not accuse Mamdani of ordering violence. But he drew a direct connection between the mayor's public denunciations and the climate that followed. Netanyahu told Bartiromo:
"They're afraid right now, and I don't think it's accidental that after [Mamdani] made this hate speech against Israel and against me, the next day, a Jew is stabbed coming out of a synagogue."
He said Jewish Americans in New York have told him directly that their fear is growing. And he placed the blame squarely on a mayor he says is failing his own city.
Netanyahu's sharpest charge was that Mamdani is abandoning the basic obligation of a mayor, to represent all residents, not to weaponize one group against another:
"Look what he's doing. He's fomenting hate. He's supposed to be the mayor of all New Yorkers, Jews, Christians, Muslims, everyone, but he's trying to turn one group against the other."
He added bluntly: "I think that it's shameful. This thing is very bad for New York. I think it's very bad for peace."
The backdrop to Netanyahu's rebuke is a series of escalating public statements by Mamdani. Last week, the mayor called Netanyahu "the architect of a horrific genocide against the Palestinian people", language that Netanyahu and his allies reject as inflammatory and factually false. Mamdani also labeled the Israeli prime minister a "war criminal."
Mamdani went further, publicly urging federal officials to enforce the ICC arrest warrant against Netanyahu. He acknowledged that New York City officials lack the legal authority to carry out such an arrest themselves, a reversal from earlier suggestions that the city might act on its own. But he pressed Washington to do what he could not.
The mayor also declared Netanyahu "not welcome" in New York and called for protests. His office did not respond to Fox News Digital's request for comment on Netanyahu's criticism.
That posture has drawn fire from across the political spectrum. Sen. John Fetterman, a Pennsylvania Democrat not known for siding with Republicans, publicly rebuked Mamdani over the arrest threat. And a survivor of the Nova music festival massacre also confronted the mayor's stance, calling it a betrayal of victims of terrorism.
Despite Mamdani's declaration that the Israeli leader is unwelcome, Netanyahu made clear he has no intention of staying away. The United Nations General Assembly convenes in New York in September, and Netanyahu said he plans to attend.
He told Bartiromo:
"I've appeared just about every year... in my prime ministership, unless there are security conditions, but barring that, and I don't expect that to be the case this time, yes, I do intend to come to New York."
When asked directly whether Mamdani's threats concerned him, Netanyahu was dismissive: "I'm not concerned."
That answer carries weight. A Nova festival survivor has already called out Mamdani over the arrest rhetoric, and the mayor's credibility on security matters has taken hits on other fronts as well. A promised cleanup of a sprawling Manhattan homeless encampment quietly passed its deadline without results, a pattern of bold announcements followed by inaction.
The stabbing outside the Manhattan synagogue is now part of an active hate crime investigation. Morales, the suspect, faces allegations in two separate attacks. The Jewish victim was stabbed in the chest. The details are ugly, and the timing, one day after Mamdani's public broadside against Netanyahu, is the kind of sequence that demands scrutiny, not dismissal.
Netanyahu's argument is straightforward: when a mayor of the largest city in America singles out a foreign leader with incendiary language, calls him a war criminal, demands his arrest, and encourages street protests, the atmosphere shifts. The people who live in that city, particularly the Jewish residents Mamdani is supposed to serve, feel it.
Mamdani first floated the idea of arresting Netanyahu ahead of the planned September visit, generating national headlines and drawing condemnation from elected officials in both parties. He later conceded the city lacked the authority. But the rhetoric kept escalating, from policy objection to "war criminal" to "genocide", and the mayor showed no sign of dialing it back even after a man was stabbed outside a house of worship.
His office's silence in response to Netanyahu's criticism only deepens the contrast. A mayor who has plenty to say about a foreign head of state apparently has nothing to say to the Jewish constituents who are afraid to walk out of synagogue.
Words from City Hall carry weight. When a mayor chooses to spend that weight on inflammatory accusations rather than on the safety of his own residents, the failure is not just rhetorical, it is the job left undone.
