Nikki Haley tells AIPAC conference that Arab states themselves don’t believe in their anti-Israel campaign anymore.
By Benjamin Kerstein, Algemeiner
The Arab states themselves don’t believe in their diplomatic campaign against Israel anymore, former ambassador to the U.N. Nikki Haley told pro-Israel lobbying group AIPAC’s annual policy conference on Monday.
Receiving by far the most enthusiastic reception from the audience of any of the day’s speakers, Haley, who was noted for her staunch defense of Israel during her tenure, quickly pointed out that the response of the U.N. to Monday morning’s Hamas missile attack that leveled an Israeli home and wounded seven was “radio silence.”
Asked why this is the case, and why the U.N. regularly condemns Israeli retaliation but not the terrorism that caused it, Haley replied, “What I’ve learned is that, at the U.N., it’s just been this way for so long that they do that.”
However, she said, even Israel’s staunchest opponents are aware of the hypocrisy of this practice.
“I was at this meeting with a couple of Arab countries and we were talking about Yemen,” she recounted. “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, all of the things that are happening,’ because they were upset that that terrorist group was doing something that they shouldn’t be doing.
“And I turned around and I said, ‘Well if you’re upset about that, what’s the difference between that and Hamas and Israel?’ They 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 stated.
“That’s what they’re doing this for, for sound bites for their constituents,” she asserted. “They don’t honestly think that way. It’s just they’ve done it for so long, they do what they think they’ve always had to do.”
When asked what she felt were her greatest accomplishments as ambassador, Haley replied, “Still being alive today. Surviving the U.N.”