Nikki Haley threatens to cut funding to UN: ‘Don’t disrespect us’

US Ambassador to the UN Nikki Haley says the US will stand up for Israel and will not stand for being “disrespected” by UN countries.

She says she sometimes wonders why Israel, so unfairly treated for so long by the UN, remains a member of the organization. But, she says, she realizes it needs to stand up for itself.

“Israel must stand up for its own survival, but also stands up for freedom and dignity,” she says.

Haley says today’s resolution is an attack on the United States, and its right to exercise its own sovereign policy. It is the right of a nation to choose the location of its embassies, she says.

“I must also say today: When we make generous contributions to the UN, we also have expectation that we will be respected,” she says. What’s more, she says, the US is being asked to pay more than anyone else for the “dubious privilege” of being disrespected.

Haley warns that the resolution could cause the US to pull funding from the UN. Unlike many other nations, she notes, the US government is responsible to its citizens: “If our investment fails, we have an obligation to spend our investment in other ways.”

“The United States will remember this day,” she says, when it was attacked in the General Assembly for exercising its sovereignty.

“We will remember” this day, she says, when the US is again asked to make the largest contribution to the UN. And the US will remember, she adds, when other countries come to the US for help.

“America will put our embassy in Jerusalem,” she stresses. So today’s session will have no impact on that policy. But the vote, she notes, will make a difference in how Americans look at the UN and its component countries.