Remarks by U.S. Ambassador Nikki Haley at a U.N. General Assembly Meeting on a U.S. Draft Resolution to Condemn Hamas Terrorism

"Ladies and gentlemen, last Friday the General Assembly approved six resolutions condemning Israel in a single day. Six. In an average year, the UN votes against Israel 20 times. Over the years, the UN has voted to condemn Israel over 500 times. That's what an ordinary day at the UN looks like...

Over the years, Hamas has used several barbaric terrorist attacks. Initially, they used suicide bombers. In the 1990s and early 2000s, Hamas members armed with bombs boarded Israeli buses and entered Israeli restaurants and detonated themselves, killing hundreds of innocent civilians and injuring thousands more.

Since then, they moved toward firing rockets indiscriminately into Israel from Gaza. They have launched thousands of them in the last five years, including more than 400 in a two-day period just last month. Neighborhoods were targeted. A bus was hit by an anti-tank missile.

More recently, Hamas tactics have changed again, as it has adopted still more methods of killing Israeli civilians and damaging Israeli civilian property. They have launched flaming kites and balloons by the thousands, often with Nazi symbols on them, into Israeli civilian areas. This is the classic case of terrorism.

And yet, throughout all of this, the United Nations has never once passed a resolution condemning Hamas. Never. Over 500 resolutions condemning Israel and not one single resolution condemning Hamas. That, more than anything else, is a condemnation of the United Nations itself.

Today – in this moment – the United Nations can change that awful record.

The world is coming to recognize the dangerous and troubling rise in anti-Semitism around the globe. The UN Secretary-General has forcefully spoken out against it, as have many heads of state and parliaments around the world.

And yet, what the UN chooses to do today will speak volumes about each country's seriousness when it comes to condemning anti-Semitism. Because there is nothing more anti-Semitic than saying terrorism is not terrorism when it's used against the Jewish people and the Jewish State. There is nothing more anti-Semitic than saying we cannot condemn terrorism against Israel, while we would not hesitate for one minute to condemn the same acts if they were taken against any other country. I've watched countries that would never take such positions on their own come together here at the UN and abandon all sense of honesty, all sense of accuracy, and all sense of truth...

Before the General Assembly can credibly advocate compromise and reconciliation between the Palestinians and Israel, it must be on record unambiguously and unconditionally condemning Hamas terrorism. Regardless of what any country in this chamber today thinks a future peace settlement should look like, support for this resolution is an essential step to achieving it.

Peace must be built on truth.

I want to take a personal moment and ask my Arab brothers and sisters: is the hatred that strong? Is the hatred toward Israel so strong that you'll defend a terrorist organization, one that is directly causing harm to the Palestinian people? Isn't it time to let that go? For true peace and security in the entire region, isn't it time for both sides to let this go?..."