Dozens of people were arrested in New York City while protesting against Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s participation in the United Nations General Assembly on Thursday.
Actors Susan Sarandon and Hannah Einbinder, as well as activist and whistleblower Chelsea Manning, were among the protesters arrested during a sit-in that blocked a main road leading to the UN.
Handcuffed and escorted by a New York Police Department (NYPD) officer, Einbinder was recorded in a video shared on social media saying, “Netanyahu out of New York, no bombs on Lebanon, no bombs on Iran, stop the genocide.”
Nerdeen Kiswani, founder of Within Our Lifetime, a Palestinian-led community organisation, criticised Mamdani’s video, saying it was “a far cry from campaigning on arresting Netanyahu. Instead of arresting Netanyahu, the NYPD arrested the protesters.
“This is the exact opposite of what Mamdani ran on,” she wrote.
Your comment reminds me of the people who criticize a bare majority leader of acting like a dictator. Mamdani didn’t wave a magic wand that was able to suddenly replace how every single police department ran things the moment he was elected, just like there are plenty of state law enforcement agencies kneeling to federal orders when they should be heeding state orders. They also weren’t arrested for protesting Netanyahu, they were arrested for blocking a main road into the UN.
I really don’t see how pressuring the police to use less violent tactics is acting like a dictator. I mean I get what you’re saying but what other democratic lever do people have to change the behavior of the police other than the mayor’s office? Maybe ideally they should be under independent democratic control but that’s not the world we live in.