'It's important for America to understand that standing by Israel is fighting our enemies'
Days after saying she will vote for Trump, Nikki Haley's first stop is Israel. The former US ambassador to the UN wanted to see the crimes of Hamas with her own eyes, in order to warn Americans and the West.
Ariel Kahana
Israel Hayom
May 30, 2024
As the US ambassador to the UN (and even Americans don't know who held that position before or after her), she proved to be a true friend of Israel, one who shoots straight – about the UN, about international hypocrisy, about Arab states and the West, and about the real challenges facing the world. This honesty is coupled with a personal charm that blends toughness and pleasantness, smiles, and sharpness.
Haley (52), a mother of two and daughter of immigrants from India, has been married to Michael, a US Army officer who has been deployed around the world since 1996. She is credited for having made South Caroline thrive as governor, and at the start of Donald Trump's presidency in 2017, he appointed her as ambassador to the UN, where a close friendship was forged between her and then-Israeli Ambassador Danny Danon, who also taught her a lot about Israel and the biased attitude towards it in the glass building in New York.
Q: What made you such a staunch supporter of Israel?
"It's very organic. I was the first governor in America to pass BDS legislation to make sure that we did an anti-BDS movement. That was because it was just the right thing to do. When I got to the United Nations I actually didn't have a lot of knowledge on Israel, or a lot of knowledge on the challenges that they face. I had heard of them. But until you see it, and experience it..and in that first (Security Council) meeting I had on the Middle East, I went in expecting us to talk about challenges in the Middle East. And all they did one by one, every country was Israel bashing over and over and over again. And I couldn't believe what I thought, what I saw. And then all that did was tell me that these are a bunch of bullies while Israel is a bright spot in a tough neighborhood. Israel is constantly trying to survive. And I just keep watching it. And so then I would see, every time when Israel would get hit, everybody would run to Israel, and say, 'Oh, we're so sorry,' but when Israel hits back, the world is quick to go and criticize Israel. And it happens over and over again. And so every time it happens, I'm gonna keep calling it out because it's wrong. Because someone has to call it out."
In late 2018, after less than two years as ambassador to the UN, Haley resigned. The official reason was a desire to return to private life, but many believed she was preparing for a run for the presidency. She didn't do so in the 2020 elections, but instead waited until February 2023, when she announced she would challenge Trump for the Republican nomination for the White House, ahead of the November 2024 elections. Her early jump into the primary pool last year and her successful campaign brought her to a respectable second place, ahead of Ron DeSantis, Mike Pence, Vivek Ramaswami, and many other men who crashed fairly quickly. However, even she could not stand up to the Trump juggernaut, and in March 2024 she was the last to drop out of the race. After some rest, she decided to make her first stop in Israel, where she arrived this week. Danon initiated the visit and accompanied Haley throughout. On Monday, she visited Kibbutz Nir Oz, which took the worst hit among the Gaza border communities, with a quarter of its residents murdered in brutal ways or abducted to Gaza. Haley toured the charred houses for a long time, heard representatives of the kibbutz recount some of the atrocities, saw a charred baby crib and a teddy bear that had turned from red to black.
The sights are still heartrending. One of the women accompanying the tour stepped aside to cry, but not a muscle moved on Haley's face. She asked questions, sought to understand the details. The same was true when she heard testimony from a survivor of the Sderot massacre. She seemed very attentive, even if she did not outwardly radiate a storm of emotions. It was clear that the experience intensified what she already thought about the war, about Israel, about Hamas, and about the implications for the entire world.
Q: You followed the war from the start, but now that you're here, seeing things up close and hearing the testimonies. What additional impression did you get?
"Everything was magnified. So my sadness felt deeper. My anger felt stronger. My concern was greater. It was important for me to be able to tell Americans why they should care. Americans are very smart, they're unified with Israel, they really are, they do very much feel a bond with Israel. But they need to feel the pain of this. Because to go and see what I saw at the kibbutz – it's house after house after house and the detail that went into it, the brutality that went into it. whether it was murders or burning bodies alive, or, you know, all of the horrendous things that happen to young women, whether they were raped or mutilated or any of those things. Every one of those was horrific. Every one felt like a nightmare. But we have to acknowledge that it happened. Because when you acknowledge that it happened, then there are no excuses for why we don't hold the right people accountable."
Q: Why should it be important to Americans? They live their safe lives. Do you think it could happen in the US as well?"
"Look, we have an open border; our border is completely open. Anyone can come in, we don't vet, we don't do anything.It's not taken seriously. And that's the concern we have. We also know that when these Iranian terrorists, they say 'Death to Israel,' but what do they say next? 'Death to America.' We have to believe them. When they say this, they are saying this because they truly want to destroy all that is free, all that is democracy and the West. That's what they want to do. We can't help them do that. And that's why it's important for Americans to know, Israel is fighting America's enemies."
Q: Could an event like October 7 happen in America?
"We had 911 happen in America. And that was unthinkable for us. We thought we were untouchable. We didn't think something like that could happen. And we watched such an orchestrated plan happen. And so first you go through shock, how could this happen? Then you go through total sadness, especially in Israel, everyone knew each other, and then you get to anger.But the lesson in all of that is what do you do to make sure it doesn't happen again. The best way to make sure it doesn't happen again is to do it right the first time. And we know that as long as Hamas exists, it can happen again. That's why I've said from the very beginning you need to finish them once and for all."
Q: Iran is very close to acquiring a bomb. Even during your time as ambassador to the UN, and in fact for many years – maybe two decades – US administrations have imposed sanctions on Iran, but these have not been enough. Isn't it time to stop Iran's nuclear program by military force simply because there is no other choice?
"First thing you have to do is where everything is not being done, that should be done. So, if Iranian sanctions were put on, why aren't they being followed?"
Q: But are sanctions enough? We have tried that for many years.
"First, you have to follow the sanctions and enforce them. The second thing is I have said, I think that it's really important that we go after key IRGC members, and make them feel it, we have to start letting them feel what it's like to be weakened. And they haven't had that. I don't think we go into a full war in Iran. That's not what we're talking about. But we do need to send some messages. And that means if you have to take out some key IRGC members..."
Q: Take out, as in killing them?
"Finish them"
Q: "At the press conference you held earlier, you said something I heard for the first time – that Russia provided intelligence to Hamas. That's interesting."
"I think that we know that Russian intelligence was involved in helping Iran and Hamas do what they did. And I think that's very important that people know that, that this is, you know, Russia is trying to play both sides of the fence, they can't play both sides of the fence. Russian intelligence was used to learn about Israeli bases to learn what had happened, all of those things, they need to be held accountable for their part in this, they can deny it all they want. But the Russian intelligence was involved.
"The second thing is, Russia was struggling with Ukraine. They'd lost 87% of their fighting forces that started the war, they raised the draft age to 65. They did not win it in five days like they thought they were going to do. And so they were getting weaker. And how is it that all of a sudden, you've got this happen on October 7. And what happened, the world's eyes turned from Russia and Ukraine and started looking at Israel. It's the best birthday President Putin ever got. Because all of a sudden, it turned American, the West to now look at Israel, and stop looking at Ukraine."
The Russian Embassy in Israel shot back at Haley's comments and issued a statement this week, saying the following In an interview with Israel Hayom published on May 28, Ms. Haley, known for her long-standing 'love' for our country, decided to hammer into the heads of the Israeli public a 'version' she invented in the spirit of conspiracy theories about Russia's imaginary 'involvement' in the organization of the terrorist attack on Israel on October 7, 2023. Proof? Please: 'I think that we know...(!).'...Once again, an American politician is spreading ridiculous, blatant, and outright lies with absolutely no evidence. This is fake. [The] position of Russia regarding the October 7 tragedy has been repeatedly stated at all levels," the embassy attacked.
"You're the good guys"
Haley analyzes the international aspects of the wars in Gaza and Ukraine in a way few Western politicians do. In a Churchillian speech she delivered last week at the Hudson Institute, she warned that China, Russia, and Iran are observing the West's response to the two wars and will calibrate their future steps accordingly.
"If we don't help our friends beat Russia in Europe and Iran in the Middle East, then China will impose its will over Asia, and America itself will be in serious jeopardy," she said in the speech. "The times we live in look like the 1930s. Our economy is weak. Our country is divided. Our leaders fail adequately to stand up for our allies, even as our enemies target them and set their sights on us," she warned.
Q: Do you think we are close to a third world war?
"We shouldn't want that to happen. But what we should do is make sure that we get rid of the enemies. And that's why I think it's important for America and any freedom loving country to understand that standing with Israel is fighting our enemies. And that's the part that we have to understand. And that's the part the Arab community has to also admit. Iran is not just an Israel problem. Iran is not just America's problem. Iran is a world problem that we have to deal with."
Q: Interestingly, the Arab states are quiet, and the protests we have seen in Western countries such as the US, Britain, and France are not seen there.
There's a reason that the Arab countries are not taking any of the Palestinians because they don't know which ones are Palestinians. They don't know which ones are Hamas…there is something that needs to get out that is hugely important. You had 3000 Hamas terrorists come and invade that border. But thousands of Palestinian citizens also came, also did so many destructive things, and also helped with the murders that can't be overlooked. Because what that means to Israel's security, they don't know who they can trust and who they can. The rest of the world can't say, 'Oh, be nice to the Palestinians,' when these are some of the people who murdered their brothers and sisters. And the world needs to understand that you can't ask them to do that. That's an unfair ask to ask anyone in Israel to suddenly be able to go and put all of that aside to help the Palestinians. They don't know who to trust. That's not Israel's fault. That's the Palestinians' fault now. Now they have to show us how we can trust them again.
Q: I want to move to Biden's policy towards Israel. We do see military aid and shipments arriving from the US since the start of the war, but the President halted a delivery a couple of weeks ago, so the message is mixed. Is this the way the US should be treating Israel these days?
Republicans and Democrats need to understand that this is a war, we all need to make sure we finish. And if you're a friend, be a true friend. So if we want to be a friend to Israel, the best thing America can do is let Israel do its job and just support. We shouldn't be preaching to Israel, we shouldn't be telling them how to win the war, we shouldn't be telling them what they can or can't do. We should just be saying, 'What else do you need?' Bottom line? That's it. That's what I want to see America do: be a friend, a true friend, and make sure all the other countries that are aligned with us are true friends with Israel too."
Q: But the administration has not been doing that. Rather, it has been telling us what to do. For example, 'Don't enter Rafah, bring more and more humanitarian aid' – which goes to Hamas – and so on. What, then, should Israel do? Abide by what the administration says or choose the path of war as we see fit.
"Israel needs to tune out the noise and finish the job. We know that they have to go into Rafah. I know they have to go into Rafa because that's so much where the Hamas movement still is. For them not to go into Rafa is to lead the terrorists still in power. I also know that a lot of the aid that is going into Gaza is feeding Hamas, fueling Hamas using they're using it, and the Palestinians really aren't getting much of it. But this goes back to the fact that if the Palestinians want a better life, they need to get rid of Hamas. They need to change leadership; they need to understand that they are in this situation because of the leaders around them. This is not Israel's job to save the Palestinians, the Palestinians should want to save themselves by getting rid of the terrorists who are trying to control them who are using them as human shields."
Q: What do you think about President Biden not allowing entry into Rafah and not wanting, for example, Israel to encourage emigration from the Gaza Strip to other places in the world? Is it okay with you to allow Gazans to immigrate to other places?
"I think that the Arab countries if they are as concerned about the Palestinians, as they say, they should take them. I have always said, Where is Egypt in all of this? Where's Qatar in all of this? Where are Arab countries that supposedly really care? Why aren't they taking them? It's the same thing that happened when I was at the United Nations. And I cut aid to UNRWA. I cut aid to UNRWA, because I saw what was happening in the schools. I visited the schools, they weren't changing the teaching. They weren't changing the textbooks…we eliminated the funding to UNRWA, but the new administration sent that money back to UNRWA, and what happened? You see all those principals, teachers, everyone, they were actually Hamas terrorists, that were doing this, you see that the tunnels underneath and the data centers underneath, the electricity came from UNRWA schools…I'm going to ask again, are all of those Arab countries willing to fund UNRWA after that? Should UNRWA continue to even exist after that? It shouldn't. And so that goes back to the United Nations. That goes back to the ICC and the ICJ, why did you have strikes in Tel Aviv yesterday? Because when the ICC does that [goes against Israel], you just embolden the terrorists to do it again."
Q: Most Israelis agree with you. But we feel quite alone and we know the truth, unlike the international courts accusing us. So how should Israel react to the decisions against it?
"For the ICC to even mention Israel and Hamas in the same sentence is disgusting. And what I will tell you is there's a reason the United States doesn't give credibility to the ICC. But the ICC just showed the world again, why they don't deserve any credibility. That was immoral, the way they came out, and did that, you can't put the two side by side and say the same thing. I want the ICC, that everything that they have mentioned about Israel, now do Hamas? What are you [the ICC] going to say about the mutilations of those girls? What are you going to say about the rapes of those girls? What are you going to say about the fact that they still hold hostages? What are you going to say about the fact that they burned bodies alive and bragged about it? What are you going to say about the video that came out last week of the girl sitting there, and them [ Hamas] saying these would be good to get pregnant? That's what I want the UN to focus on. That's what I want the ICC to focus on. Israel – They're the good guys. And you know what, I want Israelis to know, you're doing the right thing. Don't let anybody make you feel wrong, because Israel is not wrong in this. There are a lot of countries in the world that are wrong because they're siding with the terrorists, and that needs to end. And we need to acknowledge the fact that the last thing Israel needs is for us to go stab them in the back when they're already down."
Q: So should countries who are signatories to the ICC's treaty obey its orders if it seeks to arrest Netanyahu or Gallant?
"Absolutely not. Because if they do that you're siding with the terrorists. There is no gray between Hamas and Israel. This is the difference between who started it, Hamas, and who's trying to finish it. If this had happened to any of those countries, any of them? I guarantee you, they would be doing the same thing and probably not as careful as Israel is to try and prevent loss of life."
Q: If you were in office now, what would you do as an American leader to the courts in The Hague?"
"They should be sanctioned. I think we should be sanctioning the ICC and ICJ at least from the American standpoint, and I have called on Congress to do that. It should sanction them because if they are going to start to make these kinds of rulings, to our friends, we should let them know that there's a price to pay when you do that. This should be problematic for any country who just witnessed what happened on October 7… I think it's a danger to Israel, but it's a danger to all of us where that could happen. And they could turn around and do the same thing to us."
Trump: Jabs and support
Throughout her public career, Haley has presented a somewhat different kind of politics. Humane, feminine, direct, without ego. She is not surrounded by hoards of security guards and insists people call her "Nikki." But none of this makes her any less tough than the men around her. Perhaps the opposite. In response to a sexist remark by Vivek Ramaswami in one of the debates, she retorted: "I Wear Five-Inch Heels", and I don't wear them unless you can run in them. I wear heels, they're not for a fashion statement, they're for ammunition." That line caught on fire on social media and has already entered the pantheon of American politics. This boldness was directed this past year also towards her main rival in the primaries, Trump. She did not excoriate him completely as senior Republicans who left the party because of him did, but she did not spare him criticism. "We can't have four more years of chaos, retribution, and drama... America needs a captain who will steady the ship, not one who will rock it," she said. She also jabbed Trump for his affinity for dictators like Vladimir Putin and Kim Jong Un, and hinted at Biden's advanced age his taking of documents from the White House she termed "irresponsible," yet Haley did not burn her bridges with Trump and described the prosecutions against him as "political."
Just recently she announced that she will still vote for Trump in the elections. This disappointed the Democrats. Haley is considered the unofficial leader of the anti-Trump faction in the Republican Party, and they had hoped she would pull votes their way, or at least remain neutral. The former ambassador was reluctant to discuss politics outside the borders of the US, but it appears she is now seeking to mend fences with the former president, who according to polls will likely be the future president as well.
Q: "You had some nice achievements in the primaries, so I wondered if in your view it was a once-in-a-lifetime experience, or if you might try again in the future. And in the same context, if Trump does indeed win the elections, do you see yourself as part of his administration? Many Israelis would certainly welcome such a possibility."
"I really haven't thought about whether there'll be another run or something like that, can't imagine it right now. Just because when you come off 13 or 14 months of strong campaigning and long days, it's not something…you know, I'm spending a lot of time regrouping with my family, my husband's back home from deployment. My son just graduated college. So that's really been what I've focused on. And look, I mean, I have said, who I will be voting for, I will vote for Trump. But the reason that I will is because we need a president who's going to have the backs of our allies and hold our enemies to account. We need a president that's going to really make sure that we have a strong economy with economic freedom, we've got to get our debt under control as well. And I just see everything else that's happened."
Q: Now that you are supporting Trump, I read that Democrats are accusing you of being inconsistent.
If I thought that Trump and Biden were great, I wouldn't have run. But the policies that I ran on are the same policies I'm voting on. And you can't walk away from an ally. You can't hold back weapons from an ally. You can't put America in danger because you're not standing with Ukraine or standing with Israel or making sure that we're protecting ourselves. And when it comes to the border in America, it's open, it needs to be closed. When it comes to helping and having the backs of our allies we need to do that. And I know that from a standpoint – it's not even close – that Trump would make sure that happens. And so that's who I'm voting for. That's what I said, you can look at my statement last week, it stands on its own. But right now I care about America. That's all I care about. I have no political endeavors. There's nothing I'm trying to do. There's nothing I want or I'm trying to push for. It's just because I think it's so important that we have to have a strong America. Because when America's weak, the world is less safe. Yeah. And we're seeing that play out."
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