Haley Wants Iran, Not Israel, at Core of UN's Middle East Agenda

"After her first UN Security Council meeting on the Middle East in February, U.S. Ambassador Nikki Haley knocked the organization's 'anti-Israel bias.' On Thursday, Haley will try to turn the spotlight from Israel to Iran, the latest target of the Trump administration's tough talk.

Haley, who holds the rotating presidency of the United Nations' top decision-making body for April, wants to use a monthly meeting on 'the situation in the Middle East, including the Palestinian question' to tackle Tehran's role in Yemen and Syria and its support for Hezbollah, topics she sees as more central to the theme of Middle East peace.

'Incredibly, the UN Department of Political Affairs has an entire department devoted to Palestinian affairs,' Haley said after the February meeting. 'There is no division devoted to the world's No. 1 state sponsor of terror, Iran.'...

But getting the 15-member Security Council to change its focus will be tough... The Security Council has kept an often critical focus on Israel for years, and Arab nations -- including U.S. allies in the region -- would resist shifting that emphasis.

The council has been receiving monthly reports highlighting the 'Palestinian question' since 2000 and holding a debate on the topic each quarter since 2010. Plus, quarterly reports on Israel's expansion of housing settlements are now required under a resolution critical of the U.S. ally. Former President Barack Obama allowed the council to pass that measure in the closing weeks of his administration by having the U.S. abstain rather than exercise its veto power..."