Nikki Haley has better pro-Israel bona fides than President Trump. Here’s why it doesn’t matter
Former President Donald Trump (left) and Nikki Haley Photo by Getty Images / Forward Montage
Laura E. Adkins January 22, 2024
The New Hampshire primary is upon us, and the race is down to former President Donald Trump and the multi-hyphenate Nikki Haley.
Well, sort of. Let’s be super clear: The 2024 Republican primaries are and always have been pure political theater. Trump leads Haley in the polls by double digits and is going to win his party’s nomination by a landslide. And there’s a good chance he could win the presidential election come November, too.
When it comes to Israel, Trump has a complicated legacy: Despite sometimes empowering antisemites and tainting Israel in the eyes of many liberal Americans, his administration also took many pro-Israel moves (though most, it should be said, were either self-serving or largely symbolic). He recognized Jerusalem as Israel’s capital and managed to relocate the U.S. embassy there from Tel Aviv in 2018, and his administration kicked off the Abraham Accords, ushering in a new era of normalization between Israel and the broader Middle East.
His statements about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict since Oct. 7, however, have been mixed — mostly because he hasn’t the slightest idea what he’s talking about and always says the first thing to bubble up into his mind.
Once a prolific tweeter, Trump now usually posts the first draft of his free associative thoughts on his own outlet, Truth Social. A Univision interview in early November, however, also provides a characteristic sample of his thought process:
“There is no hatred like the Palestinian hatred of Israel and Jewish people. And probably the other way around also; I don’t know,” Trump said on Nov. 10. “You know, it’s not as obvious, but probably that’s it too. So sometimes you have to let things play out and you have to see where it ends.”
Trump is often pro-Israel in word and deed. But he is only ever reliably pro-Trump.
Nikki Haley, by contrast, is more measured. She is a traditional conservative — if by traditional you mean everything that the Republican party stood for before Trump’s hostile takeover in 2015. And she has boilerplate pro-Israel positions, like the vast majority of American politicians do.
Since Oct. 7, she’s tweeted about Israel and Hamas dozens of times. “A Haley administration will always have Israel’s back,” and “Hamas committed the worst kind of evil on October 7. Never forget,” she said in the two most popular ones, posted on Nov. 14 and 20, respectively.
Haley has been increasingly embraced in this cycle by moderates, if by moderates you mean Republicans who have grown tired of the lunatics running the insane asylum.
But unfortunately, most of their party’s voters have not.
In the American system of democracy, despite all the bloviation and bluster, the president has just two real jobs: Guide the direction of their party and represent the United States on the international stage. Trump did both poorly, one reason of many that led to his resounding defeat by Biden in the 2020 presidential election.
Haley would likely fill both roles better. But this time around, Republican voters just don’t seem to care.
Haley, though she holds positions at odds with those of most American Jews, who tend to overwhelmingly vote for Democrats, is at least stable, predictable and calm. But a President Haley isn’t what we’re going to get.
Like it or not, there’s a real chance that in January 2025, President Trump could be headed back to the White House. Those worried about the consequences should work to reelect his only real challenger, President Biden.
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