Arab states no longer “honestly” think about Israel in such negative terms, Nikki Haley told the AIPAC policy conference Monday, as the former United States Ambassador to the United Nations said she has “hope” that anti-Israel bias at the international body is in decline.
“I was meeting with a couple of Arab countries and we were talking about Yemen,” Haley recalled. “And one of them said, ‘I just don’t understand, why isn’t anyone calling out Hezbollah, why aren’t they sitting there saying something about what’s being done’ (…) because they were upset that the terrorist group was doing something that they shouldn’t be doing.”
In response, Haley said, she turned around and asked: “Well if you’re upset about that, what’s the difference between that and Hamas and Israel?” The Arab states, she noted, “were stunned, but when our meeting was over, they pulled me to the side and they said, ‘You know, you’re right. We know you’re right, but we have to do this for our constituents,’” Haley explained.
“They don’t honestly think that way,” Haley asserted. “It’s just they’ve done it for so long, they do what they think they’ve always had to do.”
In her remarks, the former ambassador also slammed the UN for its failure to confront Hamas in Gaza. “What’s interesting is at the U.N., I can guarantee you this morning it is radio silent,” Haley said about the latest barrage of rockets launched at Israeli communities from the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip.
“They are not saying anything about Hamas, they’re not saying anything about the lives lost, they’re not saying anything, but if it was any one of those countries, they’d be calling an emergency security council meeting,” Haley charged.
She said, however, that there was reason for hope “because in all these years, last year for the first time, the majority of the general membership of the UN voted for a resolution that acknowledged Hamas and acknowledged the terror that they were spreading and acknowledged how bad they were.”
Recalling the landmark vote, Haley said, “That was an amazing thing and what we have to make sure they know is Hamas is a terrorist group that needs to be stopped and we can’t ever be quiet about it.”
On Iran, Haley observed that the Islamic Republic has to be isolated “like we isolated North Korea, because they’re one in the same.”
“They’re suppressing their people; they’re building up their military weapons. I mean, we have to separate them and make them feel isolated and I think we did that by getting out of the Iran deal.” Haley also noted that European countries are beginning to realize that their policy on Iran is failing “and they’re going to have to come up with another option.”
Nikki Haley served as ambassador to the UN under President Donald Trump from January 2017 until December 2018.
[Photo: AIPAC ]