How to keep an alleged war criminal out of New York

Earlier this month, Israeli national security minister Itamar Ben-Gvir—possibly the most prominent figure on Israel’s extreme right—cancelled a visit to New York amid legal pressure, in a rare moment of accountability for a regime that generally operates with near impunity where the United States is concerned. 

Ben-Gvir, who is best known for attempting to build a crocodile moat around one of his prisons, advocating to bring back hanging, starving prisoners, and pushing for Israel to settle Gaza, was scheduled to attend an international police summit at the UN. But after the Center for Constitutional Rights, a legal advocacy group, and the Hind Rajab Foundation, a Belgium-based group that files war crimes claims against individual Israeli soldiers, asked New York Attorney General Letitia James to investigate Ben-Gvir for war crimes, he bowed out.

“I think it’s a big win,” said Jake Romm, the organization’s US spokesperson. “Anything that signals that impunity is going away is a victory, even if it’s not an arrest. He’s being made afraid of accountability. It’s a sign the impunity is starting to crumble.” 

The lawyers asked New York Attorney General Letitia James to investigate Ben-Gvir. His policies, they contend, have harmed residents of New York, where multiple participants in the Global Sumud Flotillas to Gaza—attempts to deliver aid through Israel’s blockade that have repeatedly been attacked by the Israeli military—reside and are prepared to testify that they were harmed by Ben-Gvir. Najeh Abduljalil, a New York resident who served as an EMT on a boat full of military veterans sailing to Gaza with aid last year, witnessed Ben-Gvir’s threats towards his group—then watched as the Israeli military allegedly firebombed a boat 70 meters away from him. “The whole idea was to psychologically terrify us,” Abduljalil said. 

Michael Fix, another flotilla participant, alleged “physical and mental abuse” in Israeli prisons under Ben-Gvir’s administration. And a Palestinian-American New York resident who spent time in Israeli jails said in an interview that Ben-Gvir was to blame for “severe changes in conditions” when he took over Israel’s prison ministry: an increase in physical beatings, alongside the elimination of family visitation for some Palestinian prisoners, and reduction of the prisoners’ food allowance. 

The Center for Constitutional Rights and Hind Rajab Foundation both argue  that Attorney General James would have jurisdiction to investigate Ben-Gvir, though James hasn’t spoken publicly on the matter. Her office did not respond to multiple requests for comment.

But in September, an even more significant architect of genocide in Gaza is scheduled to come to New York: Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who has presided over the killing of at least 73,000 Palestinians.

During Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s campaign, he promised to arrest Netanyahu. But in a video posted Tuesday, Mamdani acknowledged that he lacks the independent legal authority to put Netanyahu in handcuffs, calling on the federal government to do so.

Donald Trump, in apparent response, posted on social media that Netanyahu “will not be arrested, in any way, shape, or form, while ​in the United States of America.” 

That doesn’t mean Netanyahu is immune to the tactics fielded against Ben-Gvir—or that he and his collaborators can’t be made unwelcome in New York. The mayor could follow the example of Rudy Giuliani, who in 1995 had Yasser Arafat, chairman of the Palestine Liberation Organization, ejected from a Lincoln Center UN concert. He could direct the New York Police Department not to assist with Netanyahu’s motorcade. Or he could join the calls for James to open an independent investigation into how Ben-Gvir,  Netanyahu, or other Israeli officials may have harmed New Yorkers.