The mayor of Dearborn, Michigan, home to the largest concentration of Arab Americans in the US, has said that local police would arrest Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu if he stepped foot in the city.
Abdullah Hammoud shared his statement on X shortly after the International Criminal Court (ICC) issued arrest warrants on Thursday for Netanyahu, his former Defence Minister Yoav Gallant, and a senior Hamas leader in Gaza, Mohammed al-Deif.
The US is not beholden to the ICC because it is not a signatory to the Rome Statute, a treaty that established the court in 1998. There are 124 countries that are state parties to the Rome Statute, including Canada, the UK, and the European Union.
It does take a lot of guts to say what this mayor said. If every city would follow this example Netanyahu would not be able to visit the US anymore. The statement is moreso symbolic. One has to be the first to cross this bridge.