GOP Republican presidential candidate Nikki Haley, known for her hawkish foreign policy positions as U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations during the Trump administration, has rejected calls for a ceasefire in the 2023 Israel–Hamas war, saying that the “best way to save people in Gaza is to eliminate Hamas.” Haley’s call for the eradication of Hamas aligns with the position of American far-right groups and the Biden administration.
While campaigning in New Hampshire, Haley wrote on X: “The Palestinians are the ones rejecting a two-state solution because they want a one-state solution. They don’t want Israel to exist.”
In her comment, Haley seems to make no distinction between the general Palestinian population and Hamas, a recognized terrorist group that’s on record as wanting to end Israel’s existence. Not all Palestinians, however, support the Hamas ideology.
One might expect a former UN Ambassador to know that in 2012 the Palestinian leadership sought and received UN non-member observer status for the State of Palestine on the 67 lines. They haven’t just accepted a two-state solution, they made a binding intl commitment to it. https://t.co/mp5cgrR7fj
— Matt Duss (@mattduss) January 19, 2024
Matt Duss, Executive Vice President of the Center for International Policy and former foreign policy advisor to Senator Bernie Sanders (2017-22), takes up that distinction in responding to Haley. Duss separates the Palestinians who are living under Hamas rule in Gaza from the Hamas leadership and its Israel intolerance. Duss writes:
“One might expect a former UN Ambassador to know that in 2012 the Palestinian leadership sought and received UN non-member observer status for the State of Palestine on the 67 lines. They haven’t just accepted a two-state solution, they made a binding intl commitment to it.”
When the State of Palestine received non-member observer status in 2012, according to the United Nations: “The Assembly also affirmed its determination to contribute to the attainment of a peaceful settlement in the Middle East that ends the occupation that began in 1967 and fulfills the vision of two States: an independent, sovereign, democratic, contiguous and viable State of Palestine, living side by side in peace and security with Israel on the basis of the pre-1967 borders.”
Note: While Haley was the U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations (January 2017-December 2018), Duss was the president of the Foundation for Middle East Peace, which lists one of its top five priorities as “Enabling Palestinians to remain in Palestine.”
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