Haley blasts Sanders over J Street speech: ‘Just when you thought he couldn’t get any more radical’

“Unreal,” the former U.N. ambassador tweeted. “Why isn’t every other Dem pres candidate saying he’s wrong?”

By World Israel News Staff 

Former U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley has blasted 2020 presidential hopeful Sen. Bernie Sanders, saying that he “outdid himself” on Monday in expressing how “radical” his policies would be if he were to win the White House.

“Just when you thought Bernie Sanders couldn’t get any more radical, he outdid himself,” tweeted Haley.

“He wants to take money we give to Israel to defend itself from terrorists, and give it to Gaza, which is run by terrorists?? Unreal,” the former ambassador added, challenging the other Democratic presidential contenders by asking: “Why isn’t every other Dem pres candidate saying he’s wrong?”

Haley was responding to comments by Sanders at a J Street conference in Washington, in which he said that his “solution is, to Israel, if you want military aid you’re going to have to fundamentally change your relationship to the people of Gaza.”

The Vermont senator proposed that “some of the $3.8 billion should go right now to humanitarian aid in Gaza.” As he has in the past, Sanders referred to the government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as “racist.”

“It is not anti-Semitism to say that the Netanyahu government has been racist. That’s a fact,” he told the J Street audience.

Haley served as ambassador to the U.N. in 2017 and 2018, using the motto that there was “a new sheriff in town” who would no longer accept an anti-Israel bias at the world body.

The Gaza Strip is ruled by Hamas, classified as a terror organization by the U.S. and other countries.

The Hamas Gazan regime overthrew the Palestinian Authority (PA) in 2007, two years after Israel withdrew from the enclave and handed over full control to the self-rule PA, which was formed as a result of talks between Israeli and Palestinian negotiators.

Gazan terrorists have been firing rockets at Israel, sometimes on a massive scale.

Then-Defense Minister Avigdor Liberman resigned from the Netanyahu cabinet last November, ultimately leading to April’s early parliamentary election, complaining that the prime minister’s military response to the air attacks from Gaza was not sharp enough.

For his part, Netanyahu has opted to cooperate with Qatar, Egypt, and the U.N. by refraining from stronger military strikes against terrorists to allow for efforts to improve socio-economic conditions for Gazan residents.