Haley Rejects Moral Equivalency in Security Council Session on Mideast

U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Nikki Haley blasted away at the conventional language of diplomacy which typically calls for “all parties to exercise maximum restraint” in the Mideast conflict.

The use of the phrase in a briefing to the Security Council by Special Coordinator to the Middle East Peace Process Nickolay Mladenov prompted Haley to point out that the underlying assumption is completely wrong.

“Fact: There is only one side that attacks indiscriminately [Hamas]. One side that targets civilians. One side that terrorizes to achieve its objectives,” Haley said.
“Even if you accept Hamas’s excuse that it launched its missiles in response to an Israeli covert operation, you cannot escape the fact that the Gaza [terrorists] targeted civilians in response. Their actions were not actions of a nation exercising self-defense, but of a terrorist group seizing a pretext to kill civilians,” she argued.

Furthermore, Haley accused Mladenov of a serious omission: that the Palestinian Islamic Jihad allied with Hamas in Gaza was an Iranian proxy.

“The PIJ is yet another terrorist proxy that Iran calls on to stoke violence and instability in the region,” Haley charged.

By not correctly framing the narrative and failing to include Iran in his report, Mladneov’s statement missed its mark, she said.

But she said she did agree with Mladenov on one thing: “Both sides must work to resolve the conflict in the Middle East. Neither side can get everything it wants. Both sides must compromise. And compromise can only begin with a clear, honest and complete appraisal of the facts on the ground.”