U.S. Ambassador the U.N. Nikki Haley. Photo courtesy of the U.S. Mission to the UN
Another Middle East briefing was delivered to the powerful United Nations Security Council focusing on the Israel-Palestinian conflict, but United States Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley said it was “very incomplete” because it left out a key threat not just to the region, but the world: Iran. “While this Council remains focused on the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians, it ignores other very serious conflicts in the Middle East,” said Haley on Monday.
“One has in recent months come to the doorstep of Europe and the United States. That is the continued evidence of increased international terrorist activity by the Iranian regime… Iranian malign behavior does not just target one country, it targets us all.”
Haley, whose comments were published by the US Mission to the UN website, proceeded to list not one but two foiled Iranian terror attacks in Europe in recent months that targeted political opponents. She also noted that Iran backed an attack against a US consulate in Iraq and has supported violence against Israel, a fact among many that recasts Israel’s war with terrorists in Gaza as not just another dispute.
“You also cannot escape the fact that the group responsible for the rocket attacks [against Israeli civilians]— Palestinian Islamic Jihad—is an Iranian supported group. The PIJ is yet another terrorist proxy that Iran calls on to stoke violence and instability in the region,” said Haley.
The US representative argued that these acts of malignant behavior are not isolated incidents for the Iranian regime.
“These attempts to murder their political opponents on foreign soil reflect the true nature of the Iranian regime. These attacks are precisely the sort of behavior that led the United States to re-impose sanctions against Iran,” said Haley. “…Our European allies are increasingly finding proof of that in their own front yards. We must unite in our efforts to stop this behavior before it reaches more innocent people across the world.”
The report that preceded Haley’s remarks wasn’t even complete in its discussion of the Israel-Palestinian conflict, according to the American diplomat. Haley clarified that while the comments from UN Special Coordinator for the Middle East Peace Process Nickolay Mladenov did mention the violence in Gaza, his call for “both sides” to show restraint “misses the mark.”
Haley contrasted the Israeli barrage on military targets in Gaza with the more than 400 rockets and mortars that were “fired indiscriminately from Gaza into Israel.” “Even if you accept Hamas’ excuse that it launched its missiles in response to an Israeli covert operation, you cannot escape the fact that the Gaza militants 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,” said Haley. “…Fact: There is only one side that attacks indiscriminately. One side that targets civilians. One side that terrorizes to achieve its objectives.”
Israeli Ambassador to the UN, Danny Danon, praised Haley on Twitter for her words. “Thank you to Ambassador @nikkihaley for, once again, revealing the #truth that there is no such thing as ‘two sides to the conflict,’ there is Hamas that fires missiles at civilian populations, and there is #Israel that protects its citizens. Thank you for standing by Israel!” he tweeted.
Haley, who is leaving her post at the end of the year, concluded her comments on Monday with a call for compromise from both sides. However, she noted that “compromise can only begin with a clear, honest, and complete appraisal of the facts on the ground.”
Without that, she said the monthly discussion at the UN Security Council is “doomed to fail in its objective of helping to achieve peace.”
(By Joshua Spurlock, www.themideastupdate.com, November 19, 2019)