Speaking to the Israeli-American Council Conference in Washington, D.C. on November 4, 2017, U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Nikki Haley said the following:
"It's no secret that the UN is a hostile place for Israel. But what I saw just before I became the U.S. Ambassador was a shameful period in which the United States became a part of that hostility.
It was last December, almost exactly a month before my confirmation, when the United States stood by and allowed – some would say encouraged – the Security Council to pass Resolution 2334.
Resolution 2334 branded Israel as a violator of international law. It was a cowardly act; and a real low point for America at the UN.
To me, Resolution 2334 wasn't about the settlements issue. The United States and Israel have long had our differences on the settlements. And that's ok. Friends can have disagreements and still be friends.
What happened with 2334 was a betrayal of our friend in the very forum that has been one of its cruelest and most hostile foes. America was far from being a friend to Israel on that day.
I was still governor of South Carolina, but I came away from the passage of Resolution 2334 certain of one thing: As long as I was U.S. Ambassador, such an act of betrayal would never happen again.
From time to time, the general public gets a taste of what the UN is like from shameful acts like the passage of 2334. But I have to tell you, most people really have no idea how ridiculous it is, because they don't experience it themselves.
I experienced it first-hand at one of my first UN Security Council meetings in February. The situation in the Middle East looked like this: Bashar Assad was in the middle of his bloody war against his own people; ISIS controlled large swaths of Iraq; Hezbollah was building an arsenal of war in Lebanon; Iran was testing ballistic missiles.
But in its monthly meeting on the Middle East, the Security Council didn't talk about any of that. Instead, it spent the overwhelming majority of its time talking about Israel – and not in a very nice way.
I came out of that meeting ashamed of the UN. I vowed then and there that the days of standing by passively while Israel is bashed at the United Nations were over.
And just as soon as I said that, the UN began to test our resolve.
First, the Secretary-General announced that he was appointing a former Palestinian prime minister to a high position in the UN system.
While we had no particular problem with that individual, I reminded the Secretary-General that neither the U.S. nor the UN recognizes a Palestinian state.
I said that the U.S. did not support the signal sent by the nomination, especially when it has been so hard to get Israelis chosen for UN positions. The nomination was pulled.
Next, the UN Economic and Social Commission for Western Asia produced a report calling Israel an apartheid state.
So we went to the Secretary-General again and asked him to withdraw the report. To his credit, he did. As an added bonus, the author of the report resigned the next day.
These were tests of our determination to change the culture at the UN – tests I'm proud to say we passed...
So it's a new day at the UN. Slowly, but surely, we are chipping away at the anti-Israel culture.
As you probably saw, about three weeks ago the United States withdrew from the UN's Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, better known as UNESCO.
For the United States, it was a good call, and honestly, after we'd considered UNESCO's pattern of extremely political and one-sided decisions, it was an easy call.
Another of the most viciously anti-Israel parts of the UN is the so-called Human Rights Council. It is notorious for singling out Israel for condemnation, while it welcomes some of the world's worst human rights violators as members.
Right now, we're dealing with the after-effects of a Human Rights Council resolution that called for the creation of a database of companies operating in Israeli settlements.
We need to be clear: This is a BDS blacklist, plain and simple. The United States has been opposed to this list from the very start. We have not and will not contribute any information to its creation.
We are working closely with the High Commissioner to try and ensure the list is not made public. It goes well beyond the mandate of what the Human Rights Council or any UN office should be doing. We will need to work to defeat this at all levels of government.
We've also developed a reform agenda that will address the more systemic issues within the Human Rights Council.
Earlier this month, the Democratic Republic of the Congo was elected to the Council. This country uses rape as a weapon of war and recruits children as young as seven as soldiers.
Our reforms will help keep human rights abusers like Congo, South Sudan, Venezuela, and Cuba off the Human Rights Council.
Our reforms would also put an end to the notorious Agenda Item Seven, which is the part of the Council that's devoted exclusively to bashing Israel.
We've made clear that the Human Rights Council will either adopt these reforms or the United States will leave and fight for human rights in other forums.
We don't want to walk away, but we're ready to if these changes are not made. We only want to be part of the Human Rights Council if it is true to its name..."