The Mamdani Myth of International Law

Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani seems to have found a lever for his ideological agenda. New York City is an international city, he insists, and must answer to “international law.” He has argued that this amorphous concept should guide tax-exempt status for certain New York charities, that it should mandate the arrest of a certain head of state, and, most recently, that it should even dictate what is acceptable practice inside certain houses of worship. He invokes “international law” assuredly, as if he can magically turn global treaties into enforceable local ordinances.

Let’s start with the most basic point. There is no “international law” that binds New York City. In fact, what most activists call “international law” is a loose assortment of nonbinding resolutions, aspirational norms, and political declarations. None of these override the constitutional framework under which American cities operate. New York City is governed by the United States Constitution, federal statutes, state law, and its own municipal code. Federal law preempts state and local law (not the other way around), and nothing in that hierarchy is displaced by any external international regime. Yet Mamdani continues to invoke “international law” as if it somehow nullifies American sovereignty.

The few forms of international law that do carry legal force in the United States do so only because the federal government adopts them. It is the federal government alone that conducts foreign diplomacy, enters international treaties, and incorporates international norms into domestic law. States and cities have no such authority. For Mamdani to suggest otherwise reveals a dangerous level of constitutional illiteracy for the incoming mayor of America’s most populous city.

But Mamdani’s fixation on the vocabulary of “international law” reveals something more disturbing than mere ignorance. He selectively invokes this imaginary system to pass sweeping judgment on the majority of Jewish New Yorkers for whom Zionism is a religious, ancestral, and cultural principle — one that is inseparable from their Jewish identity. One need not share that view to recognize that a politician has no business policing the boundaries of what it means to be Jewish.

Mamdani’s reaction to the antisemitic mob that surrounded Manhattan’s Park East Synagogue last week offers the clearest example yet. Faced with a crowd shouting for an intifada and “death to the IDF,” Mamdani’s public fury landed not on the members of the mob, but on the Jews they menaced. Through a spokesperson, Mamdani claimed that, while he “discouraged the language used” at the protest and that New Yorkers should be “free to enter a house of worship without intimidation,” Park East had misused its sacred space in “violation of international law.” He later clarified that his charge referred to “the organization’s promotion of settlement activity beyond the Green Line,” the 1949 armistice border between Israel and its neighbors.

Because Mamdani seemed more interested in what the Jews were doing inside the synagogue than what the mob was doing outside of it, it is worth being clear about what exactly was going on inside. Nefesh b’Nefesh, a nonprofit that assists Jews through the bureaucratic process of immigrating to Israel (in Judaism, such immigration is called “Aliyah,” a deeply rooted religious and historical practice) was giving an informational presentation.

Contrary to Mamdani’s characterization, the “Green Line” was not a subject of discussion. But even if such a topic had been raised, and even on Mamdani’s imagined “international law” terms, it would not be illegal. Mamdani is attempting to parrot longstanding Palestinian talking points about supposed violations of the Fourth Geneva Convention and the Hague Conventions, but he misstates even those. Even if one accepted their premises (and the U.S. and Israeli governments do not), those provisions apply only to state action, requiring forcible transfer — or at least state-initiated relocation. Private individuals are free to move voluntarily and, certainly, no law prohibits a New York City synagogue from hosting an organization that merely “promotes” such a voluntary relocation.

Put simply, no law forbids discussions of where one might live. One law, however, squarely protects this kind of discussion: the First Amendment.

Yet, Mamdani vaguely invoked “international law” as a cudgel against American Jews engaged in a perfectly lawful and constitutionally protected gathering. In so doing, he implied that the synagogue itself had invited scrutiny — and that its religious gathering somehow rendered the surrounding intimidation understandable or even justified. What Mamdani failed to do was call out the members of the mob who were plainly violating actual law. Both federal law (the FACE, or Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances, Act) and New York State law impose civil and criminal penalties for interfering with access to places of religious worship.

It is an unmistakable irony that New York Jews are only now contemplating Aliyah precisely because of the very antisemitic mobs that Mamdani shows no interest in lawfully restraining, even as he weaponizes inapplicable “international law” against the very minority those mobs menace.

And here the contradiction becomes impossible to ignore. While Mamdani insists that international law is the supreme moral authority for New York City, he openly disregards the actual law that will bind him as mayor. The First Amendment not only protects gatherings like the one at Park East, but it also prohibits government officials from defining theology, disfavoring a religious group, or engaging in viewpoint discrimination. However difficult it may be for Mamdani — given his long record of anti-Zionist activism — as mayor, he will be constitutionally obligated to show equal respect to the vast majority of New York Jews who see Zionism as integral to their Jewish identity. Jewish communities may hold diverse views on the matter, but that debate belongs entirely to them. Nothing about Mamdani’s own ideology empowers him to dictate whether Zionism is or is not part of Judaism, or whether discussing Aliyah somehow violates the sanctity of a Jewish sacred space.

Mamdani may grandstand about international law, but no imagined global mandate can override the Constitution he is about to swear to uphold. And if he should forget, the courts — the real ones, in New York — will remind him.

Susan Greene is a litigation and appellate partner at the law firm Holtzman Vogel. She works New York.

Mark Goldfeder is director of the National Jewish Advocacy Center and a law professor at Touro University.

Reprinted with Permission from The National Review – By Susan Greene & Mark Goldfeder

The opinions expressed by columnists are their own and do not necessarily represent the views of AMAC or AMAC Action.