LAS VEGAS, Nevada — Former U.N. Ambassador and South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley warned the annual leadership summit of the Republican Jewish Coalition on Saturday that former President Donald Trump might not be pro-Israel in future.
Haley addressed growing doubts among some pro-Israel voters who have recoiled at Trump’s attacks on Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, whom Trump resents for acknowledging President Joe Biden’s victory in 2020.
While Trump had been a pro-Israel president, Haley said, his future policy direction was unclear.
“We all know what Trump did in the past. The question is: what will he do in the future?”
She also slammed President Biden for his policies in the Middle East, despite his recent pro-Israel rhetoric in the wake of the October 7 attack by Palestinian terrorists from Hamas.
“His actions haven’t always matched his words,” she said. “If you stand with Israel, you don’t cozy up to Iran.”
She declared: “What’s happening in Israel is a clear-cut case of good and evil. It doesn’t get clearer than freedom-loving people defending themselves against barbaric terrorists.” And while Biden had said some of the right things, his effort to rehabilitate Iran were part of the problem.
Haley called out those demanding “restraint” and a ceasefire in the conflict as Israel started to destroy Hamas. “Tune out the noise. It’s not enough to say ‘never again’. We have to eliminate the terrorists so that they can never do it again.”
The U.S. served its own interest when it sided with good over evil — and not just in Israel, she said. Ukraine, she said, was facing evil in the form of Russia’s ongoing invasion. “We should give Ukraine what it needs to kick Russia out of its country.”
There were differences in both cases, she said, but the similarities outweighed them. She noted for example, the partnership of Russia and China in both cases.
The wars were not just about Ukraine’s security, or Israel’s security, she said: “This is profoundly about America’s security.”
“Mark my words: Those who would abandon Ukraine today are at risk of abandoning Israel tomorrow.”
Haley added that it was “shocking” that Democrats and Republicans “fail to understand the nature of the threats we face.” She hinted at Vivek Ramaswamy and former President Donald Trump, going on to address the latter directly.
She closed by addressing the Hamas terror attack, calling it a personal crisis of faith, after decades of praying “Never again.”
She said that she believed Israel would come back even stronger than before: “No one can destroy what God has blessed.”
Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News and the host of Breitbart News Sunday on Sirius XM Patriot on Sunday evenings from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. ET (4 p.m. to 7 p.m. PT). He is the author of the new biography, Rhoda: ‘Comrade Kadalie, You Are Out of Order’. He is also the author of the recent e-book, Neither Free nor Fair: The 2020 U.S. Presidential Election. He is a winner of the 2018 Robert Novak Journalism Alumni Fellowship. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.