By Michelle Nichols
UNITED NATIONS, Sept 25 (Reuters) – The United Nations wasn’t the only New York attraction for visiting world leaders this week – Mayor Zohran Mamdani emerged as a popular draw for like-minded politicians and a target for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
The 34-year-old former state lawmaker, who took office on January 1 in New York City, rode the subway with Ireland’s Prime Minister Micheal Martin, exchanged soccer jerseys with Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, and talked to students with Norwegian Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Store about artificial intelligence.
“In a year when the main sentiment around the UN is existential gloom about the state of the world, a perky young politico was what we all needed,” said Richard Gowan, director of global issues and institutions at the International Crisis Group.
“Of course a meeting with Mamdani is pretty politically low-risk for most leaders. You spend some time on the subway and with school kids. Nobody is going to ask you to solve the North Korea nuclear problem,” he added.
The New York mayor was also a focus of Netanyahu’s Thursday address to the 193-member UN General Assembly in which he berated Mamdani for calling him a war criminal over Israel’s actions in Gaza.
Mamdani discussed “Building an Economy for the Many” over breakfast with Spain’s President Pedro Sánchez, Barbados Prime Minister Mia Mottley and European Council President António Costa, and met LGBTQ+ youth with Dutch Prime Minister Rob Jetten.
Costa, a former mayor of Lisbon, told Mamdani at the event on Tuesday: “You have the best job that a politician can do – I miss the ability mayors sometimes have of identifying a problem in the morning and having it solved by the end of the day.”
Austrian President Alexander Van der Bellen and British Foreign Secretary Ed Miliband also had meetings with Mamdani.
WAR OF WORDS WITH NETANYAHU
While Democrat Mamdani’s meetings were largely with world leaders of similar political leanings, there was one notable exception: Republican US President Donald Trump.
As Trump’s ally Netanyahu escalated a war of words with New York’s first Muslim mayor, Trump met with Mamdani at Gracie Mansion, the mayor’s official residence.
“I want him to be a great mayor, and he’s certainly got potential, got great potential,” Trump said at a joint press conference with Mamdani after their meeting on Monday.
Netanyahu’s address on Thursday was a stark contrast.
“You tried to stop me from coming here. You tried. You tried to silence me. Well, you can’t silence me. You can’t silence the truth,” Netanyahu, Israel’s longest-serving leader, said of Mamdani.
Mamdani campaigned for office on a promise to have Netanyahu arrested for alleged war crimes should he visit the largest US city, but later said he determined he lacked the legal authority to do so. This week, Mamdani described Netanyahu as “the architect of a horrific genocide against Palestinians.”
The evening before Netanyahu’s arrival, Mamdani posted a video on social media of him planting an olive tree at Gracie Mansion with Palestinian families from Gaza with the caption: “May peace be our future.”
Making his first visit to New York on Thursday since Mamdani took office, Netanyahu told the General Assembly: “Israel didn’t commit genocide. Israel prevented genocide.”
In response, Mamdani accused Netanyahu of using his UN speech “to repeat baseless lies meant to sanitize his genocide of Palestinians,” adding: “Yet no lie can change the fact that he remains the subject of an International Criminal Court arrest warrant alleging war crimes and crimes against humanity.”
Israel rejects genocide allegations and says its military campaign targets Hamas, not Gaza’s civilian population. It says it takes steps to minimize civilian harm and says Hamas fighters embed among civilians.
(Additional reporting by John Irish, editing by Don Durfee and Howard Goller)
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