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| US Ambassador to the United Nations, Nikky Haley |
The modern state of Israel that was created by the UN is now viewed as a pariah on the world stage to all but the Americans. But even American views about Israel are not all glowing - depending upon how conservative or liberal one’s political views are.
Conservative Republicans are generally in the ‘glowing’ camp. Liberal Democrats like to say that their support for Israel is as strong as ever. But I don’t see them that way. What was once strong unequivocal support by Democrats (much stronger than Republican support in the early years of Israel’s existence) has become conditional. The left leaning Democrats now see Israel as a sort of wayward teenage son who is rebellious and refuses to listen to the ‘sage’ advice of his ‘parent’ – the United States.
As such liberal Democrats rarely say anything good about Israel. What you hear most is that Israel impedes the ‘peace process’ because of their settlement policy in the West Bank (Judea and Samaria). This parrots the Palestinian narrative. The liberal left always focuses on the Palestinian suffering at the hand of the Israel occupation with rarely a word about Israel’s security needs at the hand of Palestinian terrorists. Europe is happy to always be first in line to criticize Israel along those lines.
Liberal Democrats love pointing out that we (the US) are out of step with the rest of the world. As if they had the moral high ground. While they say this as a crticism, I see it as a matter of pride. Becuase it is the US taking the high moral ground despite it not being the popular view.
Were the UN to vote on a resolution to create a Jewish State in Palestine today, it would surely fail. Thankfully it was voted upon right after the Holocaust where the world’s collective guilt about the 6 million Jews that were slaughtered in Eurpoe by Nazi Germany. In some cases with their help!
Liberal Democrats love pointing out that we (the US) are out of step with the rest of the world. As if they had the moral high ground. While they say this as a crticism, I see it as a matter of pride. Becuase it is the US taking the high moral ground despite it not being the popular view.
Were the UN to vote on a resolution to create a Jewish State in Palestine today, it would surely fail. Thankfully it was voted upon right after the Holocaust where the world’s collective guilt about the 6 million Jews that were slaughtered in Eurpoe by Nazi Germany. In some cases with their help!
The US has always defended Israel in the UN against all the attacks by the Arab states and the left leaning Europeans. Including the Obama administration. (Until their very last days when they changed course.)
Even though the left leaning Obama administration had always supported Israel, it was never enthusiastic. Israel’s right leaning Netanyahu government was extremely disliked. As noted, Israel was cast as the US’s ‘bad boy’ son, refusing the sage advice of a wise and exasperated ‘parent’ urging them to stop misbehaving (read: stop building settlements and oppressing the Palestinians). Much like the parents that loved their son but see as rebelling against them.
This attitude is reflected by the liberal Hollywood script writers on politically themed TV shows. Madam Secretary (a TV show about a female Secretary of State in a liberal administration) is a case in point. Whenever Israel is mentioned it is almost always in an exasperated tone. Never a word about Israel’s contributions to the world. Israeli government officials are all depicted in unsympathetic terms - as sly, self centered, and arrogant. The support for Israel depicted is of a begrudging sort! The viewing public can only be influenced negatively about Israel when watching shows like this.
But along came Nikky Haley. She has changed everything. The bully pulpit that is the UN had mostly served to paint Israel in the most negative terms with hardly a dissenting peep from anyone there. True, the US had always defended Israel. But not always convincingly and often with a heavy dose of criticism about settlements mentioned at some point.
It is so refreshing to hear Nikky Haley defend Israel in such glowing terms. And calling out all the international bias her predecessors did little about. Every time she speaks, my admiration for her increases. We no longer hear the refrain ‘settlements are an obstacle to peace’. We instead hear Haley speaking of Israel in glowing terms. As she did in her most recent comments defending the President’s right to declare Jerusalem the capital of Israel and America’s right to chose where its embassy should be. It was done in the context of a biased UN resolution condemning that recognition. Here is some of what she said right after vetoing it.
What is troublesome to some people is not that the United States has harmed the peace process – we have, in fact, done no such thing. Rather, what is troublesome to some people is that the United States had the courage and honesty to recognize a fundamental reality. Jerusalem has been the political, cultural, and spiritual homeland of the Jewish people for thousands of years. They have had no other capital city. But the United States’ recognition of the obvious – that Jerusalem is the capital and seat of the modern Israeli government – is too much for some.
First, some have threatened violence on the street, as if violence would somehow improve the prospects of peace.
Now today, buried in diplomatic jargon, some presume to tell America where to put our embassy. The United States’ has a sovereign right to determine where and whether we establish an embassy. I suspect very few Member States would welcome Security Council pronouncements about their sovereign decisions. And I think of some who should fear it.
I could not be more proud of what my country just did through its UN representative. The entire text of 2 speeches is available in the Times of Israel. A video of the speech vetoing that resolution follows.