Haley Slams Anti-Israel Bias at the United Nations

The Trump administration will not stand for anti-Israel bias at the United Nations, the president-elect’s pick for ambassador to the international body vowed Wednesday.

The pledge from South Carolina governor Nikki Haley comes amid intense bipartisan backlash over a December U.N. Security Council resolution that describes the West Bank and East Jerusalem as occupied Palestinian territory and condemns Israeli construction in those areas. That resolution passed with an abstention from the Obama administration.

“I will not go to New York and abstain when the U.N. seeks to create an international environment that encourages boycotts of Israel,” Haley said during her confirmation hearing before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. “In fact, I pledge to you this: I will never abstain when the United Nations takes any action that comes in direct conflict with the interests and values of the United States.”

“Nowhere has the U.N.’s failure been more consistent and more outrageous than its bias against our close ally Israel,” she continued. “In the General Assembly session just completed, the U.N. adopted twenty resolutions against Israel and only six targeting the rest of the world’s countries combined.”

Haley questioned whether the United States is receiving returns on the taxpayer dollars it provides to the organization, considering its tendency to condemn Israel while skimping on human rights abuses in Syria, Iran, and North Korea.

“We contribute 22 percent of the U.N.’s budget, far more than any other country,” she said. “But we must ask ourselves: What good is being accomplished by this disproportionate contribution? Are we getting what we pay for?”

After the passage of the U.N. resolution in December, Trump criticized the organization, saying that it has potential but “is not living up.”

“When do you see the United Nations solving problems? They don’t. They cause problems,” Trump said.

“If it lives up to the potential, it’s a great thing,” he continued. “If it doesn’t, it’s a waste of time and money.”

The president-elect also lambasted anti-Israel bias at the U.N., saying that Israel is treated “very, very unfairly.”

“We cannot continue to let Israel be treated with such total disdain and disrespect,” he tweeted. “Stay strong Israel, January 20th is fast approaching!”


South Carolina senator Lindsey Graham, who introduced Haley Wednesday, has put forward legislation to cut U.S. funding to the United Nations until the December resolution is repealed.

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