Nikki Haley denounces UN and Hamas at Nova massacre site
Nikki Haley, former US presidential candidate and Ambassador to the UN visited southern Israel on Monday, touring the sites of Hamas massacres, meeting with the families of hostages, and briefings in northern Israel about the Hezbollah threat.
Former US presidential candidate and ambassador to the UN Nikki Haley visits Kibbutz Re’im on May 27, 2024. Photo by Yoav Dudkevitch/TPS-IL
“Going to the concert site, all I could think of was my kids, because my kids could have been at that concert,” Haley said at Kibbutz Re’im, the site of the Nova music festival massacre. “Where there were a lot of kids who should have been having fun, listening to music, loving their life, out of nowhere they heard gunshots, they saw parachutes coming in, and the next thing they knew, it was sheer terror.”
A memorial at the site of the festival has emerged as a pilgrimage point for Israelis to process their grief and for visiting foreigners to show solidarity. The all-night rave, attended by 3,500 people on the grounds of Kibbutz Re’im, became a killing field where 364 people were massacred and 40 others were taken hostage. Of all the locations attacked by Hamas on October 7, the highest death toll was at the music festival.
Answering a question from The Press Service of Israel about the UN response to the war fueling global antisemitism, Haley said, “I think that if you look at antisemitism, it comes in different forms. I think when the United Nations doesn’t call out antisemitism for what it is, you see the global community start to do it.”
She noted that the US has seen a wave of antisemitism in pro-Palestinian demonstrations on college campuses.
“All everybody’s saying is you should feel safe. And that’s not too much to ask. And right now, the rising antisemitism is making many people feel unsafe. And that’s unacceptable in free countries. And Israel’s a free country, America’s a free country, the United Nations is not a free country. But it doesn’t mean that our democracy and freedom shouldn’t be standing up and saying ‘It’s not the Israelis or the Jewish people we should be condemning,’” Haley said.
It was an emotional visit for Haley, who wiped tears as survivors shared their stories.
“We have heard from the courage of one survivor, who will be traumatized for the rest of her life. And the reason she has chosen to speak is because people are denying what she experienced at that concert site,” Haley said.
“While she was hiding, she heard girls being raped, dismembered and mutilated, men being dismembered and mutilated. She heard screams and then shots and then she heard nothing. Over and over again for hours. And to come out and see her friends, her Israeli brothers and sisters, murdered and dismembered and killed- that’s her life. That will be the rest of her life.”
Haley was accompanied by MK Danny Danon, who was Israel’s UN Ambassador and worked closely with Haley.
Asked about several European countries planning to formally recognize Palestinian statehood, Haley responded that the move rewarded terror and warned that recognition would further embolden Hamas.
“When the friends of Israel back off, the terrorists move in. That’s a fact. This war would have been over of we have done what we were supposed to do from the beginning. America should do everything we can to support Israel in this process, because Israel is doing the hard work for us,” Haley insisted.
At least 1,200 people were killed, and 252 Israelis and foreigners were taken hostage in Hamas’s attacks on Israeli communities near the Gaza border on October 7. Of the 125 remaining hostages, 39 are believed dead.
