Every September, Midtown Manhattan grinds to a halt as motorcades ferry presidents, prime ministers, kings and dictators through Turtle Bay toward the United Nations General Assembly.
Which is precisely why Mayor Zohran Mamdani's recent promise to arrest Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu should he visit New York this September is so extraordinary.
Beyond being legally fanciful, the proposal misunderstands one of the United Nations' oldest and most important principles: New York serves as neutral ground where every world leader can address the world.
The United Nations has never been an exclusive club for democracies. Far from it. Less than half of its 193 member states are considered full democracies today. The institution has always welcomed presidents, monarchs, military rulers and dictators alike because diplomacy often requires engaging with unsavoury governments.
For decades, Manhattan has hosted some of history's most notorious autocrats.
Cuban leader Fidel Castro arrived in 1960 and delivered the longest speech in General Assembly history – four hours and twenty-nine minutes – using the rostrum to denounce the United States while complaining about his treatment in New York.
Nearly half a century later, in 2009, Libya’s Muammar Gaddafi made his first appearance after 40 years in power, speaking for 96 rambling minutes on everything from swine flu and the Iraq War to the assassination of John F. Kennedy.
Venezuela’s Hugo Chávez famously declared from the same podium in 2006 that George W. Bush had been "the devil", claiming the chamber still smelled of sulfur after the American president's speech.
In recent years, New York has continued welcoming leaders such as Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and successive Iranian presidents representing one of the world's most repressive regimes.
The UN General Assembly was never intended as a moral endorsement of those who attend. It exists because the alternative of a world in which adversaries refuse to speak at all can be far more dangerous.
Having spent two years representing Israel at the United Nations, I have no illusions about the institution's shortcomings. But I also saw firsthand why preserving New York as neutral diplomatic ground still matters.
The UN remains deeply flawed, from its obsessive focus on Israel to its repeated failures to confront authoritarian regimes and terrorism. Yet despite those failures, one founding promise remains worth preserving: to provide a diplomatic sanctuary where even bitter enemies can meet before conflicts spiral further.
That is what makes Mamdani's comments so misguided.
If Mamdani were genuinely concerned about welcoming alleged human rights abusers to New York, September would be his busiest month of the year. Dictators and military rulers responsible for crushing political dissent routinely address the General Assembly without serious objection from City Hall.
Yet it is Netanyahu, the elected leader of the Middle East's only liberal democracy, who has become the singular focus of his outrage.
Whether one supports or opposes Netanyahu's policies is beside the point.
The issue is whether New York should continue honouring the diplomatic compact that has underpinned the United Nations for more than eight decades. Once local politicians begin deciding which foreign leaders deserve diplomatic access and which do not, the city risks undermining the neutrality that has made it the world's diplomatic capital.
Every September, New Yorkers tolerate the road closures, traffic jams and security headaches because they are the price of diplomacy. They make possible the one annual gathering where rivals, allies, democrats and dictators alike share the same room.
In an increasingly fractured world, New York should remain the one place where every leader, however objectionable, can walk through the doors of the United Nations.
Jonathan Harounoff is an award-winning author, British journalist covering the Middle East, and Israel’s former international spokesperson at the United Nations
To get more from opinion, click here to sign up for our free Editor's Picks newsletter.