Washington’s ambassador to the United Nations on Wednesday slammed efforts to boycott Israel, saying that they bear “no connection to any reasonable definition of justice.”
Nikki Haley condemned the anti-Israel Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) campaign at a UN event called Ambassadors Against BDS, which was organized by the Israeli mission to the UN, the World Jewish Congress, and numerous Jewish organizations, The Times of Israel reported.
During her keynote address, Haley equated the BDS campaign with efforts to delegitimize Israel at the UN, observing that both “seek to deny Israel’s right to exist.”
“And how tragic is it that of all countries in the world to condemn for human rights violations, these voices choose to single out Israel,” Haley said. “We should boycott North Korea. We should sanction Iran. We should divest from Syria. Not Israel. It makes absolutely no sense. And it has no connection to any reasonable definition of justice.”
Israeli ambassador to the UN Danny Danon also spoke at the event, which he said contained “a simple message for those who seek to harm the Jewish state and the Jewish people. We will keep fighting until we eliminate BDS completely, from the campuses to the UN, and we will keep fighting until anti-Semitism is finally defeated.”
His comments were echoed by Natan Sharansky, the head of the Jewish Agency and a former Soviet prisoner of conscience. In his remarks, Sharansky denounced the hypocrisy of human rights bodies that single out Israel for condemnation, as well as efforts to create tensions between feminism and Zionism, which birthed the only Mideast nation where “there are no honor killings, no shaming of women by rape, where the rights of people are protected.” He also credited the late President Ronald Reagan with bringing “moral clarity” to the international stage by denouncing evil, particularly regarding the abuses perpetrated by the former Soviet Union, and thanked Haley for showing similar “moral clarity” by standing up for Israel at the UN.
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