Former U.N. Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley, who is running for the Republican presidential nomination, slammed fellow GOP candidate Vivek Ramaswamy for saying he would cut aid to Israel by 2028 if he were elected president.
Israel receives nearly $4 billion a year in military aid from the U.S., but nearly all of it — with the exception of loan guarantees, which don’t cost the American taxpayer anything — is used for credits that are sent directly from the Pentagon to U.S. weapons manufacturers. In addition, Israeli intelligence works closely with the U.S. gathering intelligence not only in the Middle East but also in Russia, Central Asia, and other foreign countries.
Speaking to podcast host Russell Brand, Ramaswamy said he would expand the historic Abraham Accords — which cemented relations between Israel on one side and the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Morocco, and Sudan — and broker peace between Israel and countries such as Qatar, Oman, and Indonesia, and then cut U.S. aid to Israel. Qatar has funded Israel’s arch-enemy Hamas, which has called for Israel’s destruction and had also funded the Taliban and Islamists in Syria.
If the Abraham Accords can be strengthened, Ramaswamy said, the military aid to Israel “won’t be necessary in order to still have the kind of stability that we’d actually have in the Middle East by having Israel more integrated in with its partners.” While the “relationship with Israel has advanced American interests,” he said, it should not get special treatment.
Haley pushed back on Ramaswamy’s position in a statement Monday.
“Vivek Ramaswamy is completely wrong to call for ending America’s special bond with Israel,” Haley said in a statement. “Support for Israel is both the morally right and strategically smart thing to do. Both countries are stronger and safer because of our iron-clad friendship. As president, I will never abandon Israel.”
Haley noted that Ramaswamy had also suggested that he would abandon Taiwan to Communist China if America were no longer reliant on Taiwan for semiconductors. Ramaswamy told radio host Hugh Hewitt last week, “I’m being very clear: Xi Jinping should not mess with Taiwan until we have achieved semiconductor independence, until the end of my first term when I will lead us there. And after that, our commitments to Taiwan, our commitments to be willing to go to military conflict, will change after that, because that’s rationally in our self-interest.”
“This is part of a concerning pattern with Vivek,” Haley said. “Between abandoning Israel, abolishing the FBI, and giving China to Taiwan, his foreign policy proposals have a common theme: they make America less safe.”
📥 INBOX: @NikkiHaley Condemns Ramaswamy’s Israel Views, Reaffirms U.S.-Israel Bond pic.twitter.com/Yr62qLxQp7
— Ken Farnaso (@KLF) August 21, 2023
As U.N. Ambassador for the Trump administration, Haley maintained steadfast support for Israel, defiantly standing against the nations constantly singling Israel out for harsh criticism.
Speaking with Clifford D. May at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD) Summit in August 2018, Haley stated, “I knew that there was a bias against Israel, but I hadn’t really put a lot of thought into it until I attended the first session. And when I saw, literally, how abusive all of those countries were being to Israel in a way that was pathetic, really, I had no choice but to get up and say, ‘This is completely wrong.’ It’s like that kid in the schoolyard that gets bullied, and everybody’s bullying the kid just because they think it makes them stronger. I wasn’t gonna stand for that. And so I came out and said we are not going to condone this anti-Israel bias. We started to make sure that the ‘Israel bashing sessions,’ as I call them, that they have once a month, we now try and talk about — they’re supposed to be sessions on the Middle East, not sessions on Israel. And so now we’re actually making them talk about other areas in the Middle East and how we’re dealing with those—”
“There are some other problem areas in the Middle East, last I heard,” May interjected.
Haley fired back, “And you would not know it if you were at the U.N. And so we’re starting to do those things. And now, frankly, they’re scared to say anything negative about Israel because they don’t want me to yell at them.”