After years of encountering disproportionate anti-Israel criticism and bias at the United Nations, the United States “will not turn a blind eye to this anymore,” new United States Ambassador to the UN Nikki Haley said on Thursday.
Haley described her first meeting of the UN Security Council:
The Security Council is supposed to discuss how to maintain international peace and security. But at our meeting on the Middle East, the discussion was not about Hizballah’s illegal build-up of rockets in Lebanon. It was not about the money and weapons Iran provides to terrorists. It was not about how we defeat ISIS. It was not about how we hold Bashar al-Assad accountable for the slaughter of hundreds and thousands of civilians. No, instead, the meeting focused on criticizing Israel, the one true democracy in the Middle East. I am new around here, but I understand that’s how the Council has operated, month after month, for decades.
Haley proclaimed that the U.S. is “determined to stand up to the UN’s anti-Israel bias,” and will not “repeat the terrible mistake” of failing to veto anti-Israel resolutions, like the Obama Administration did last year with Security Council Resolution 2334, which criticized Israeli construction in eastern Jerusalem and the West Bank.
“Incredibly, the UN Department of Political Affairs has an entire division devoted to Palestinian affairs,” she pointed out. “Imagine that. There is no division devoted to illegal missile launches from North Korea. There is no division devoted to the world’s number one state-sponsor of terror, Iran.”
The focus on Israel does nothing to advance the possibility of peace between Israel and the Palestinians, Haley said. She reiterated that the Trump administration’s support for peace efforts that are “negotiated directly between the two parties.”
Haley said that she tried to get the Security Council to condemn a recent terror attack in Israel, but the statement was blocked. “The Security Council would not hesitate to condemn an attack like that in any other country. But not for Israel,” she said. “And that’s downright shameful.”
Because of its obsessive focus on Israel, the UN was failing in its responsibilities, she stated.
Israel exists in a region where others call for its complete destruction and in a world where anti-Semitism is on the rise. These are threats that we should discuss at the United Nations as we continue working toward a comprehensive agreement that would end the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
Outside of the UN, though, Haley observed, things are improving for Israel, which “is building up new diplomatic relationships. More and more countries recognize how much Israel contributes to the world. They are recognizing that Israel is a beacon of stability in a troubled region, and that Israel is at the forefront of innovation, entrepreneurship, and technological discovery.”
This is not the first time Haley has made her views known about the UN’s treatment of the Jewish state. At her confirmation hearing last month, she called the UN’s anti-Israel bias “outrageous.”
[Photo: unwatch / YouTube ]