By Mandeep Tiwana, Secretary General of CIVICUS
No leader responsible for mass atrocities enjoys greater impunity on the international stage than Benjamin Netanyahu. This is due to the strange stranglehold of the pro-Israel lobby on the two major political parties in the United States. Unsurprisingly, the assertion by New York City mayoral candidate and frontrunner Zohran Mamdani on September 13 that he would order the arrest of Netanyahu if he ever came there, has attracted blowback from within the mainstream political establishments of both the Democratic and Republican parties, as well from extremist right-wing circles. Legal experts have gone into a tizzy whether a future mayor of New York can arrest the leader of a foreign government.