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Source: https://usun.state.gov/remarks/8528
Haely: "The U.S. Has No Moral Duty to Be Neutral between Right and Wrong"
(U.S. Mission to the UN) UN Ambassador Nikki Haley - UN Ambassador Nikki Haley told the Christians United for Israel Summit on July 23: "We respect everyone's right to peacefully protest. But no one should be fooled about the role of Hamas. Many of the protesters in Gaza are anything but peaceful. If they were peaceful, there would be no burning tires, there would be no Molotov cocktails, there would be no flaming swastika kites flying into Israel burning thousands of acres of land. And of course, if this was a peaceful movement, there would not be hundreds of rockets fired from Gaza into Israel." "Like any country would do, Israel has responded to the violence at its border. What is so stunning is the international reaction to all of this. Think about it. If there were tens of thousands of people looking to attack your border fence, and you had a terrorist group providing guidance on how best to kill innocent civilians inside your country once the border fence was broken, what would you do? What would the United States do? What would any country do?...Israel has acted with more restraint than just about any other country would under those same conditions. It's true." "The United States has no moral duty to be neutral between right and wrong. On the contrary, we have a moral duty to take sides, even when that means standing alone. Being silent has never been something I was good at....The top Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat - bless his heart - recently had some advice for me. He told me I just needed to 'shut up.' I responded by saying, 'Mr. Erekat, I will always be respectful, but I will not shut up.'" "[At the UN] our approach on Israel is tied together by one major idea. The idea that runs through all of it is the simple concept that Israel must be treated like any other normal country. We demand that Israel not be treated like some sort of temporary provisional entity or pariah. It cannot be the case that only one country in the world doesn't get to choose its capital city." "It cannot be the case that the Human Rights Council has a standing agenda item for only one country. It cannot be the case that only one set of refugees throughout the world is counted in a way that causes the number to grow literally forever. It cannot be the case that in an organization with 193 countries, the United Nations spends half of its time attacking only one country." "Our demand for fairness for Israel is actually a demand for peace. The UN's bias against Israel has long undermined peace, by encouraging an illusion that Israel will go away. Israel is not going to go away. When the world recognizes that, then peace becomes possible. It becomes possible because all sides will be dealing with realities, not fantasies. Fantasies encourage absolutist demands. When realities are accepted, then compromise becomes possible. When the reality of Israel's existence is accepted, both sides will become freed to achieve a durable peace."