UNITED NATIONS — U.S. Ambassador to the UN Nikki Haley targeted the UN’s anti-Israel bias and weak stance on Iran and Hezbollah Tuesday — blasting the Security Council for not even saying the terror group’s name in its resolutions.
At a Security Council session on the situation in the Middle East, and in the wake of a controversy over heightened security measures at the Temple Mount in Jerusalem, Haley accused the Council of making the situation more complicated by obsessing over Israel while ignoring Hezbollah.
“But truth be told, the Security Council often makes the Middle East more complicated than it actually is. It obsesses over Israel,” she said, “and it refuses to acknowledge one of the chief sources of conflict and killing in the Middle East – that is, Iran and its partner militia, Lebanese Hezbollah.”
Mincing no words, Haley described Hezbollah as a “terrorist organization” that is not only seeking the destruction of Israel but has “the blood of hundreds of Americans and thousands of others on its hands.”
She called the idea that there are “two wings,” a political and a terrorist wing, to the Iran-backed group a “dangerous fiction.”
“Just because a terrorist group also promotes political candidates for office doesn’t make it any less a terrorist group,” she said.
Haley noted that the Lebanese terrorist group has been sending its troops into Syria and is responsible for “some of the bloodiest campaigns of a very bloody war.”
She then took up what has been a regular line of attack for Haley since she became UN ambassador — the UN’s double standard when it comes to Israel and its weakness in combating extremist groups.
She told the Council that Hezbollah has openly defied resolutions calling for it to disarm, and for Lebanon to control its territory, and accused the Council of choosing “to pretend that the status quo is acceptable for the people of Lebanon.”
“Remarkably, this Council cannot even bring itself to use the word ‘Hezbollah’ in recent resolutions or statements on Lebanon. Many here are happy to name Israel, time after time, but Hezbollah is somehow off limits,” she said. “It’s absurd. Worse than that, it’s dangerous.”
Haley’s remarks are the latest in a series of statements the former South Carolina governor has made that represent a dramatic change in stance from the Obama administration — where the administration largely played an uncritical role in New York.
However, the Trump administration — with Haley leading the charge — has floated sweeping cuts to the U.S. financial contribution to the UN, which has left UN officials spooked.
Haley has repeatedly blasted the UN for its anti-Israel bias and has threatened to remove the U.S. from the notoriously anti-Israel Human Rights Council unless it ends that bias and changes its membership — which includes Venezuela, Cuba and Saudi Arabia. In March she successfully demanded a report from a UN body that called Israel an “apartheid” state be withdrawn.
At the Security Council, the new ambassador has not been shy in making her feelings known on the UN’s inaction on various hotspots such as Syria and North Korea. She warned the Council that the U.S. was prepared to act alone on Syria a day before Trump ordered airstrikes against the site from where a chemical attack was launched by President Bashar Al-Assad.
This month, she clashed with Russian and Chinese representatives in the wake of a North Korean intercontinental ballistic missile test and again warned that if the Council chose inaction, the U.S. would again be prepared to act alone.
“If you are happy with North Korea’s actions, veto [a U.S. resolution]. If you want to be a friend of North Korea, veto it. But if you see this as a threat, if you see this for what it is — North Korea showing its muscle — then you need to stand strong and vote with the international community to strengthen sanctions on North Korea and if you choose not to, we will go our own path,” she warned.
Adam Shaw is a Breitbart News politics reporter based in New York. Follow Adam on Twitter: @AdamShawNY