AIPAC 2017: Trump will ‘not allow’ anti-Israel UN resolutions

The Trump administration will not allow a repeat of last year’s United Nations Security Council resolution condemning Israel for its settlements, U.S. Ambassador Nikki Haley told AIPAC.

“Never again do what we saw with resolution 2334 and make anyone question our support” for Israel, Haley said Monday at the annual American Israel Public Affairs Committee conference, where she earned the warmest reception of any speaker with an extended standing ovation.

The Obama administration allowed through the anti-settlements resolutions in December as one of its last acts, triggering bitter recriminations from Israel’s government.

Haley described her determination to help steer the course of the United Nations and its agencies from anti-Israel bias, noting her intervention keeping Salam Fayyad, the former Palestinian prime minister, from becoming the body’s envoy to Libya, and in getting U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres to withdraw a U.N. affiliate’s report likening Israel to an apartheid state.

Haley was one of a number of speakers at AIPAC who drew a sharp contrast at the conference between President Donald Trump’s administration and his predecessor, Barack Obama.

“We had just done something that showed the United States at its weakest ever,” she said of the resolution.

AIPAC has striven to promote bipartisanship as a theme this conference, seeking to heal wounds with Democrats opened over divisions with Obama over settlements and the Iran nuclear deal. But Republican speakers have not been able to resist digs at Obama.

“What I wanted to make sure of was that the United States was leading again,” Haley said. “I wear high heels. It’s not for a fashion statement, it’s because if I see something wrong I will kick it every single time.”

Paul Ryan, the U.S. House of Representatives speaker, also spoke Monday evening, saying Obama had “damaged trust” with Israel.

“President Donald Trump’s commitment to Israel is sacrosanct,” he said.

Ryan described the Iran nuclear deal, which swapped sanctions relief for Iran’s rollback of its nuclear program, as an “unmitigated disaster.” But like Vice President Mike Pence, who spoke Sunday, he stopped short of proposing dismantling the deal, as Republicans consistently had during last year’s campaign. Instead, Ryan endorsed AIPAC-backed bipartisan legislation that would increase non-nuclear-related sanctions on Iran for testing nuclear missiles and backing terrorism and other disruptive activity.

The top two foreign operations officials in the House struck a bipartisan note, appearing together Monday to back AIPAC’s bid to stop Trump’s proposed cuts to foreign assistance.