Former US Ambassador to the UN Nikki Haley. Photo: Reuters / Mike Segar.
Former US Ambassador to the UN Nikki Haley accused Canada on Thursday of making a “deal with the devil” by recently voting in favor of an anti-Israel General Assembly resolution.
Speaking at the annual UN Watch gala in New York City, Haley said Canada was “trading its integrity for a seat on the Security Council” with its turn against the Jewish state.
“Two weeks ago, Canada surprised Israel’s friends by voting for a North Korean resolution that challenges the legitimacy of Israel,” Haley noted. “This is a resolution that Canadian governments for years have voted against.”
Haley — an ex-South Carolina governor and potential future Republican presidential candidate — also described a “culture of bullies” at the UN, and said the global intergovernmental body was “time and again” failing to “live up to its charter.”
She called the UN Security Council’s regular meeting on the Middle East a “monthly Israel bashing session.”
“If we want to talk about security in the Middle East, we should talk about Iran or Syria or Hezbollah or Hamas or ISIS or the famine in Yemen,” Haley pointed out. “There are about ten major problems facing the Middle East, and Israel doesn’t have anything to do with any of them.”
She also criticized the UN Human Rights Council, where an array of human rights-violating nations — such as China, Cuba, Egypt, Qatar, Nigeria, Somalia, Pakistan, and Saudi Arabia — currently hold sway, and a number of others — including Venezuela, Mauritania, Sudan and Libya — are set to join in January.
“Many encouraged us to remain on the council because the United States, they said, provided the last shred of credibility the Human Rights Council had,” Haley recalled. “And that was precisely why we decided to leave. The United States should not lend any credibility to this cesspool of political hypocrisy and corruption.”
Watch an excerpt from Haley’s remarks below:
