One year ago, President Obama engaged in one of the most pathetic foreign policy stunts of his presidency when he instructed his UN ambassador to abstain from a vote condemning Israeli settlements. The U.S. sat out the vote and allowed the rest of the fanatical, Arab-driven United Nations to have their way with our closest Middle Eastern ally. At the time, President-elect Donald Trump vowed that he would never abandon Israel on the world stage in this embarrassing way, and he went a long way towards proving that on Monday in what could be seen as the bookend to that Obama-era vote.
The other members of the UN Security Council took exception to President Trump’s decision last week to recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel, and they made their feelings known in a vote to demand that Washington change course. All 14 members of the Council (besides the U.S.) – including stalwart U.S. allies like France and Britain – voted for the resolution in defiance of the Trump administration’s wishes. A weaker president (like, say, the one we just rid ourselves of) might have felt compelled to back down, to give in, and to tell Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, “Hey, look, we tried, but there’s nothing we can do.”
Not Trump. The Security Council’s betrayal only inspired further defiance and Trump sent Nikki Haley out there to show the world – friends and foes alike – that when the president said “America First,” he damn well meant it. The U.S. under Trump doesn’t take its marching orders from anyone, not even our most trusted allies. Haley vetoed the resolution and gave a stunning speech that rocked the UN building with reverberations of power and freedom.
“What is troublesome to some people is not that the United States has harmed the peace process – we have, in fact, done no such thing,” Haley said. “Rather, what is troublesome to some people is that the United States had the courage and honesty to recognize a fundamental reality. Jerusalem has been the political, cultural, and spiritual homeland of the Jewish people for thousands of years. They have had no other capital city. But the United States’ recognition of the obvious – that Jerusalem is the capital and seat of the modern Israeli government – is too much for some.
“Today, buried in diplomatic jargon, some presume to tell America where to put our embassy,” she continued. “The United States’ has a sovereign right to determine where and whether we establish an embassy. […] The United States will not be told by any country where we can put our embassy.”
Boom! Put that in your pipe and smoke it, Useless Nations.
Our allies who voted for this resolution should be ashamed of themselves, and if they weren’t, then they weren’t listening closely enough to Haley’s speech. Our favorite part was where she called the other Security Council members out on their (lack of) financial assistance to the Palestinians:
“The United States has done more than any other country to assist the Palestinian people,” she said. “By far. Since 1994, we have given over $5 billion to the Palestinians in bilateral economic assistance, security assistance, and humanitarian assistance. The United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestinian Refugees operates schools and medical facilities throughout the region. It is funded almost entirely by voluntary contributions. Last year, the United States voluntarily funded almost 30 percent of UNRWA’s budget. That’s more than the next two largest donors combined. And it’s vastly more than some of the members of this Council that have considerable financial resources of their own.
“I’ll be blunt: When the American people see a group of countries whose total contributions to the Palestinian people is less than one percent of UNRWA’s budget – when they see these countries accuse the United States of being insufficiently committed to peace – the American people lose their patience,” she concluded.
This was a defining moment for the U.S. on the world stage, a defining moment for the Trump presidency, and a defining moment for our relationship with Israel. After watching Barack Obama apologize for our country as a matter of foreign policy, we no longer fear being proud of the greatest nation in the world – no longer afraid to flex the muscles of our unquestioned dominance over the planet’s military and economic atmosphere.
THIS is the America we should be, and THIS is the meaning of making America great again.
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