Nikki Haley visits Western Wall, honored with mural, ahead of US-Israel conference

The former ambassador is widely respected in Israel for her support of the Jewish State during her time at the United Nations.

By World Israel News Staff

Nikki Haley, who won many admirers among Israel supporters in her nearly two full years as U.S. ambassador to the U.N. during the Trump administration, is in Israel as guest of honor at a conference on U.S.-Israel relations.

The “Israel Hayom Forum for US-Israel Relations,” sponsored by Israel’s largest daily, will take place Thursday night in Jerusalem.

Arriving in Israel on Wednesday, Haley headed to the Western Wall in Jerusalem where she prayed and placed a note in its crevices, a tradition at the site holy to Jews.

She tweeted an image of herself at the site with the words, “Giving thanks for the many blessings in my life…”

Haley was also flattered in an unusual way. A mural was painted of her and added to a series of likenesses of famous people in the Mahane Yehuda market in Jerusalem.

The murals are only seen at night as they’re painted on the shops’ metal security doors, which are closed at the end of the day. Most are painted by artist Solomon Souza.

The former governor of South Carolina became popular in Israel after calling out U.N. hypocrisy when it came to the Jewish State.

One of her first acts was to lobby for the removal from the U.N.’s website of a March, 2017 report accusing Israel of apartheid. U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres complied. “Guterres, no doubt wary of getting off to a wrong start with the Trump administration, pulled rank on the agency and the report was soon gone,” JTA’s Ron Kampeas reported.

“That such anti-Israel propaganda would come from a body whose membership nearly universally does not recognize Israel is unsurprising,” Haley said before the report was pulled down.

Among her other accomplishments was helping lead the Trump administration’s move to cut funding to UNRWA, which has been accused of perpetuating the Palestinian refugee crisis instead of solving it.

In December 2017, she nipped in the bud a U.N. Security Council Resolution seeking to condemn Trump’s recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital. “The U.S. will not be told by any country where we can put our Embassy,” she said. “What we witnessed here today in the Security Council is an insult. It won’t be forgotten.”

Her last act as ambassador was to push for a U.N. General Assembly resolution condemning the terror group Hamas. The resolution won a majority of 87 countries but failed to pass due to it requiring a two-thirds supermajority.

Still, the resolution was labeled  a partial success due to the large number who voted in its favor. It was the first time Hamas was singled out for censure by the international body.