Mamdani wants to arrest Netanyahu — New York should be throwing him a parade

Benjamin “Bibi” Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister, is speaking at the United Nations on Thursday, and the best New York can do is launch a protest against his presence and what he stands for.Netanyahu is perhaps the gutsiest leader of the 21st century. At no small cost to his reputation, he responded powerfully to the worst attack on the Jewish people since the Holocaust. His goal was to ensure the survival of his country, exercising the right of his nation to defend itself. Of course, since it’s Israel and since he’s a Jew, the world wanted him and his country to roll over and die. Bibi is the kind of Jewish leader his enemies despise — the Jew who fights back. And for that, the performative mayor of New York wants to put him in jail. As Alan Dershowitz says, Netanyahu is the only person Zohran Mamdani actually wants to arrest.It’s not just the mayor. Many European nations, unashamed of their centuries-old history of antisemitism, have sought since Oct. 7, 2023, to isolate Israel economically and culturally. They don’t even want Israeli singers in the Eurovision competition.The U.N., that great farce, condemns him at every turn.All because when Bibi’s nation’s enemies rose up against him, he fought back and he fought back hard.Even the Nazis protected their women and children as best they could during World War II. Not Hamas, which used women and children as human shields to protect the mosques, hospitals, and schools it had turned into military facilities and weapons depots.The world’s left-wing media, including such storied outlets as the BBC and the New York Times, accepted at face value every accusation, every falsified statistic, and every outright lie that Hamas could concoct.Netanyahu and Israel face implacable enemies. Hamas refuses to disarm and instead is regrouping. Iran remains willing to starve and murder its citizens in the name of rebuilding its military. Qatar spends billions of dollars supporting Israel’s enemies and funds the relentless PR campaign the left has waged since Oct. 7.When it comes to most topics, everyone’s entitled to their opinion. It’s a free country. But those who approve online or offline the atrocities of Oct. 7, 2023, the babies, children, and women murdered in front of their families and friends, the taking of hundreds of hostages of all ages — they should be ashamed of themselves, now and forever.Fifty years ago this summer, Netanyahu’s older brother and hero, Jonathan Netanyahu, was the sole Israeli Defense Force member to die in the successful raid on an African airport to which Palestinians had hijacked an Air France jet. From that moment forward, Netanyahu committed himself to the defense of the Jewish people, in part to honor the memory of his fallen brother.Netanyahu’s father was one of the leading scholars of European medieval antisemitism, so Bibi was no stranger to the stories of the pogroms, the blood libels, and the murder of Jews for hundreds of years at the hands of the so-called civilized world.His opponents claim that he is keeping Israel at war to avoid jail time for corruption charges. The corruption charges are an absolute joke. We’re talking about boxes of cigars, charges ginned up by his political enemies to destroy him. Say, doesn’t that have a familiar ring to it? After all, we’ve seen the same thing here for years with regard to the bogus prosecutions of President Donald Trump.Netanyahu’s enemies also claim that he is leading Trump into war, having the American military do his bidding. First, this is an absurdity. Anyone who knows Trump knows that he cannot be led by anyone. Second, Israel and the United States share a common strategic objective — a world free of terrorism. So let’s give up the lie that Trump has been somehow coerced into fighting Bibi’s war.The enemies of the Jewish state like it better when Israel is run by naive politicians willing to negotiate and give away the store to Palestinian negotiators who, like the Iranian regime, have no intention of keeping their word.Sorry, world. That’s not how Bibi rolls.OPINION: MAMDANI’S NEW YORK WANTS JEWS TO SHUT UP. WE CHOOSE DEFIANCEHis life mission is to rid the world of the Iranian menace. And when that happens, New York should get the confetti ready.Instead of another foolish protest, it will truly be time for a parade. Michael Levin is a two-time New York Times bestselling author. His next novel, 2028, A Political Thriller, will be published by Morgan James in April.