The Muslim mayor of a Detroit suburb has promised to arrest two high-profile Israeli officials — should they ever make the unlikely decision to visit his city.
In 2021, Dearborn, Michigan, an Arab-majority city of over 100,000 residents, elected its first Muslim mayor: Abdullah Hammoud. Hammoud, a 34-year-old Democrat who previously served in the Michigan House of Representatives, has long been a sharp critic of Israel.
On Thursday, he stretched that criticism into a full-on threat to arrest Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, should they ever venture onto Dearborn soil.
"Dearborn will arrest Netanyahu & Gallant if they step within Dearborn city limits," Hammoud wrote on X. "Others cities should declare the same."
His post came just after the International Criminal Court issued arrest warrants for Netanyahu and Gallant for the alleged "war crime of starvation as a method of warfare; and the crimes against humanity of murder, persecution, and other inhumane acts" in Gaza between October 2023 and at least May 2024.
"This finding is based on the role of Mr Netanyahu and Mr Gallant in impeding humanitarian aid in violation of international humanitarian law and their failure to facilitate relief by all means at its [sic] disposal," the ICC said.
Following these allegations from the ICC, Hammoud claimed in his post that American "city leaders can ensure Netanyahu & other war criminals are not welcome to travel freely across these United States."
In his post, Hammoud also lamented that "our president may not take action" on the arrest warrants. However, it is unclear whether Hammoud was referring to the outgoing Biden administration, the upcoming second Trump administration, or both.
In 2021, before he was elected mayor, Hammoud called on Biden to demand a ceasefire in the ongoing hostilities in Gaza. Then earlier this month, he contravened other area Muslim leaders and refused to meet with Donald Trump in the days leading up to the 2024 election, though he also declined to endorse Kamala Harris.
'Local authorities do not have the legal authority to detain a global leader under such circumstances. Regardless, this scenario is implausible.'
On Thursday, the ICC announced it had issued the warrants after denying challenges from Israel regarding the institution's jurisdiction. According to WDIV, the ICC was established in 2002 to prosecute genocide and other war crimes when member countries refuse to or cannot do so themselves.
Neither Israel nor the United States is a member of the ICC.
Blaze News reached out the Dearborn Police Department to clarify whether its officers would follow through and arrest either Netanyahu or Gallant on the off chance they ever pay the city a visit. We did not receive a response.
With such general animosity against Israel in Dearborn, many see Hammoud's post as just an empty threat.
"Yeah I’m sure he’s coming to Dearborn," joked James Dickson, a Michigan journalist and the host of the "Enjoyer" podcast.
"Anyone recall when the Michigan Legislature granted mayors in this state police powers?" wrote Chad Livengood, politics editor at the Detroit News.
EJ Kimball, senior policy adviser at the U.S. Israel Education Association, made a similar suggestion, telling Blaze News in a statement:
The United States is not a party to the International Criminal Court, meaning there is no jurisdiction to enforce an ICC arrest warrant within the U.S.
Additionally, local authorities do not have the legal authority to detain a global leader under such circumstances. Regardless, this scenario is implausible, as Prime Minister Netanyahu would not travel to Dearborn or any similar jurisdiction.
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Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu slammed International Criminal Court prosecutor Karim A. A. Khan for filing applications for arrest warrants against Netanyahu and Israeli Minister of Defense Yoav Gallant.
Khan has alleged that there are "reasonable grounds to believe" the two Israeli officials "bear criminal responsibility for ... war crimes and crimes against humanity."
'What a travesty of justice. What a disgrace.'
Khan is also seeking arrest warrants for several Hamas figures, alleging that there are "reasonable grounds to believe" those individuals "bear criminal responsibility for ... war crimes and crimes against humanity."
Israel has been striving to wipe out Hamas in response to the heinous October 7 attack last year when terrorists perpetrated slaughter, rapes, and kidnappings.
"Israel, like all States, has a right to take action to defend its population. That right, however, does not absolve Israel or any State of its obligation to comply with international humanitarian law. Notwithstanding any military goals they may have, the means Israel chose to achieve them in Gaza – namely, intentionally causing death, starvation, great suffering, and serious injury to body or health of the civilian population – are criminal," Khan said in a statement.
"The outrageous decision by the ICC prosecutor Karim Khan to seek arrest warrants against the democratically elected leaders of Israel, is a moral outrage of historic proportions. It will cast an everlasting mark of shame on the International Court," Netanyahu declared. "Israel is waging a just war against Hamas, a genocidal terrorist organization that perpetrated the worst attack on the Jewish people since the Holocaust."
He accused Khan of making a "false moral equivalence between the leaders of Israel and the henchman of Hamas. This is like creating a moral equivalence after September 11th between President Bush and Osama Bin Laden, or during World War II between FDR and Hitler. What a travesty of justice. What a disgrace," Netanyahu said.
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President Joe Biden also characterized Khan's move as "outrageous."
"The ICC prosecutor’s application for arrest warrants against Israeli leaders is outrageous. And let me be clear: whatever this prosecutor might imply, there is no equivalence — none — between Israel and Hamas. We will always stand with Israel against threats to its security," Biden said in a statement.
Democratic Sen. John Fetterman of Pennsylvania, who has been an unabashed supporter of Israel's right to wage war in response to last year's attack, also criticized the ICC.
"Requesting arrest warrants for both Israel and Hamas leaders suggests there is a moral equivalence between them—there is none and it’s disgusting to suggest otherwise. The ICC's credibility is now in shambles and they have only themselves to thank," Fetterman declared in a tweet.
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A senior Kremlin official indicated this week that any effort to arrest Russian President Vladimir Putin would amount to an act of war and warrant a blizzard of missile strikes.
Former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev, who now serves as deputy chairman of Russia's security council, made the threat repeatedly in response to the International Criminal Court's issuance of an arrest warrant for Putin last week for war crimes.
The ICC issued warrants of arrest on March 17 for Putin and for Maria Alekseyevna Lvova-Belova, the Russian president's commissioner for children's rights. Both individuals are accused of the war crime of unlawfully deporting children from occupied areas of Ukraine to the Russian Federation and are believed to bear individual criminal responsibility.
ICC Chief Prosecutor Karim Khan suggested that these acts "demonstrate an intention to permanently remove these children from their own country."
One hundred twenty-three countries have signed on to the Rome Statute and are therefore legally bound to implement the decisions of the ICC, based in the the Hague in the Netherlands.
The U.S., China, India, and Russia are not among the ICC's 123 member states.
In addition to not being party to the Rome Statute, the U.S. has a Bush-era law on the books authorizing the use of military force to liberate any American or citizen of a U.S.-allied country being held by the Hague.
Ireland, among the nations obliged to enforce the warrant, has confirmed that it would arrest the Russian president in the unlikely event he sets foot on the island. Canada and Germany similarly welcomed the ICC's decision.
Not all signatories will respect the warrant, however. While his nation signed the statute in 1999, Hungarian Cabinet Minister Gergely Gulyas indicated that the arrest warrant is not binding in his nation.
The ICC's decision to indict Putin came nearly one year after the U.S. Senate unanimously passed a resolution condemning Putin as a war criminal.
Reuters reported that the resolution, introduced by Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), implored the ICC to follow suit.
Sudan's former President Omar al-Bashir and Libya's Muammar Gaddafi were the only other leaders indicted by the ICC while still in power.
Mykhailo Podolyak, adviser to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, suggested on Twitter that Putin's status as an accused war criminal means there will be no further negotiations with the current Russian elite; no return of the Russian Federation to world politics in its prewar status; and no lifting of sanctions so long as the "face of Putin" represents Russia.
In a video posted to Telegram on Wednesday, Medvedev said, "Let's imagine — obviously this situation which will never be realized — but nevertheless let's imagine that it was realized: The current head of the nuclear state went to a territory, say Germany, and was arrested," reported DW.
"What would that be? It would be a declaration of war on the Russian Federation," said Medvedev. "And, in that case, all our assets — all our missiles etc. — would fly to the Bundestag, to the chancellor's office."
Medvedev issued a similar threat on Twitter Friday, stating Putin's arrest in Germany, for instance, would be "casus belli, the unequivocal declaration of war against the Russian Federation! In that case, Russia would be forced to attack Berlin, and its means of destruction will rain on the Bundestag, the Chancellery, the Ministry of Defense and other key centres of decision-making. Mr. Scholz has picked himself a truly great team! Poor Germans …"
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Days earlier, Medvedev intimated that the Hague could be on the receiving end of hypersonic missiles should the Russian president be arrested.
"I’m afraid, gentlemen, everyone is answerable to God and missiles," the security official wrote on Telegram. "It’s quite possible to imagine how a hypersonic Oniks fired from a Russian warship in the North Sea strikes the court building in the Hague. It can’t be shot down, I’m afraid."
The ICC condemned Medvedev's threats, stating, "The Presidency of the Assembly regrets these attempts to hinder international efforts to ensure accountability for acts that are prohibited under general international law."
DW reported that Russia has opened its own criminal investigation into the ICC's Karim Khan. Putin's Investigative Committee alleges Khan possibly ran afoul of Russian law, accusing an innocent person of a crime and "preparing an attack on a representative of a foreign state enjoying international protection, in order to complicate international relations."
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Trump can demonstrate his commitment to our national sovereignty by attacking an institution that poses a direct threat to it: the International Criminal Court.
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