Trump’s UN Ambassador Pledges To End ‘Israel-Bashing’
MEP: The U.S. envoy to the United Nations condemned the global body in an address to a pro-Israel lobby group on Monday, pledging to end its perceived “Israel-bashing.”
Speaking at the annual American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) conference for the first time as President Donald Trump’s U.N. envoy, Nikki Haley called a December resolution criticizing Israeli settlement construction—allowed to pass by the Obama’s administration’s abstention—as a “kick in the gut” to Americans.
“For anyone who says you can’t get anything done at the U.N., they need to know there is a new sheriff in town,” she continued. “I’m not there to play games and what I wanted to make sure of is that the United States started leading again.”
Haley has embarked on her role at the U.N. criticizing the body for its ”bias against our close ally Israel” in light of complaints from Netanyahu’s government that it is unfairly treated in the global arena.
When one of the body’s agencies, the U.N. Economic and Social Commission for Western Asia (ESCWA), released a report earlier this month that denounced Israel for creating what it called an “apartheid regime” over the Palestinians, Haley applied the pressure that saw that agency’s chief, Rima Khalaf, resign.
In February when the U.N. Secretary General Antonio Guterres sought to appoint former Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad as the body’s envoy to Libya, Haley moved to block the appointment.
“For too long, the U.N. has been unfairly biased in favor of the Palestinian Authority to the detriment of our allies in Israel,” Haley said. “Going forward, the United States will act, not just talk, in support of our allies.”
In one of the Obama administration’s final policy moves towards an Israeli government with who relations had become increasingly strained, it abstained on Resolution 2334, which called for an end to Israeli settlement building. Following the vote, Haley’s predecessor Samantha Power said that the resolution “reflects the facts on the ground.”
