Haley Defies U.N. Over Resolution Condemning Israel, Condemns Hamas

On Wednesday, once again, U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley fearlessly spoke the truth about the Israel-Palestinian conflict, squarely putting the blame for the conditions in Gaza on the terrorist group that runs the area: Hamas.

Haley spoke before the U.N. General Assembly voted for a resolution introduced by Algeria, Turkey and the Palestinians that condemned Israel for “excessive, indiscriminate force by the Israeli forces” against the Palestinians.

Haley, who attempted to include an amendment that would have condemned Hamas, started by noting that the “Special Session on the Situation In Gaza” was only being held to vilify Israel, pointing out that over 146 peaceful Nicaraguans have been killed by their own government in the past two months as they protested, that thousands of peaceful Iranian protestors have been arrested, with over 25 dead, that the world’s worst humanitarian crisis was going on right now in Yemen, with millions are at risk for starvation, and in Burma, almost a million innocent people have been driven from their homes in a campaign of ethnic cleansing. Yet the UN was not interested in talking about that.

Why the focus on Gaza? Haley asked. She answered, “What makes Gaza different for some is that attacking Israel is their favorite political sport. That’s why we’re here today.”

She ripped the resolution being offered, noting, “It is totally one-sided. It makes not one mention of Hamas, who routinely initiates violence in Gaza. Such one-sided resolutions at the UN do nothing to advance peace between Israel and the Palestinians. Everyone recognizes that. But advancing peace is not the goal of this resolution.”

She pointed out the UN was doing a disservice to the people of Gaza, asserting, “It feeds a narrative to the desperate people of Gaza that their leaders are not responsible for their predicament. It stokes hatred. It sacrifices honesty, accuracy, compromise, and reconciliation in favor of the advancement of a narrow political agenda,” and adding, “I wish everyone supporting this one sided resolution would put as much energy into encouraging President Abbas to come to the negotiating table, as you do to falsely imply to your people back home that you’re doing something.”

Haley correctly noted, “Israel withdrew completely from Gaza in 2005. Hamas has been the de facto government in Gaza since 2007. This strip of land along the Mediterranean coast has enormous potential. And yet, after 11 years of Hamas rule, Gaza has electricity for only a few hours a day. It has enormous unemployment and poverty. It is a haven for terrorist activity. At what point will the UN actually hold accountable those who are in charge of Gaza and running it into the ground?”

Haley commented that the resolution holds Hamas completely unaccountable for most of the recent unrest, entirely blaming Israel. Then she went after Hamas:

It is Hamas and its allies that have fired over a hundred rockets into Israel in the past month, hoping to cause death to as many civilians and as much destruction as possible. It is Hamas that has used Palestinian civilians as human shields at the boundary fence, seeking to incite violence and overrun the border. It is Hamas that refuses to cooperate with the Palestinian Authority to unite in the pursuit of peace. It is Hamas that calls for the destruction of the state of Israel within any borders. And yet the resolution before us not only fails to blame Hamas for these actions, it fails to even mention Hamas. This is the dangerous, counter-productive decision the General Assembly is about to take.

She said, “The United States is offering an amendment that provides a small step in the direction of balance. Our amendment rightly condemns Hamas’s indiscriminate firing of rockets into Israeli civilian communities. It accurately condemns the diversion of aid and resources from civilian needs into military infrastructure, including terror tunnels used to attack Israeli citizens. It justly expresses our grave concerns about damage done to border crossings that are hindering the delivery of desperately needed food and fuel to the people of Gaza. This is a modest amendment that reflects the minimum truth of what is going on in Gaza. It is the least that any self-respecting international organization or nation can do for the cause of peace.”