The American mission assigned to the United Nations is supposed to reflect the positions of the administration in general, and the approach of the State Department in particular toward Israel and the Israeli-Arab conflict. Indeed, such was the case in the 1956 Sinai War. During that rather dark period in Israeli history, then-US Ambassador to the UN, Henry Cabot Lodge Jr., aptly conveyed the hostile views of then-President Eisenhower and his administration to Israel's pre-emptive campaign on the Egyptian front.
Amid this oppositionist backdrop, the "guarantees" Eisenhower promised in his address to the UN General Assembly, after the Sinai crisis had ended, regarding Israel's right to open shipping routes, was mere lip-service lacking any modicum of specific commitment to Israel's national security.
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In other instances, US ambassadors fully carried out the directives of the secretary of state, even when these directives contradicted the views of the White House. Case in point, after President Harry Truman adopted the UN Partition Plan for Palestine of November 29, 1947, which granted international legitimacy to the establishment of an independent Jewish state in the historic land of Israel, then-US Ambassador to the UN Warren Austin, addressing the Security Council on March 5, 1948, sought to rewind history. Under the auspices of then-Secretary of State George Marshal, who worked behind Truman's back and in complete contradiction to the president's position, Austin proposed freezing the partition plan and instead establishing a UN-sponsored trusteeship (which would have allowed Great Britain to continue ruling the territory indirectly). The scheme was foiled, however, by the White House, but illustrated the eagerness of the State Department – whose view of the Middle East was shaped by its powerful "Arabist faction" – to spearhead oppositionist and harmful initiatives against the Jewish population in British mandate Palestine and later against the sovereign State of Israel.
The more recent situation, meanwhile – in which State Department officials and American ambassadors to the UN have operated in a bubble seemingly detached from the diplomatic objectives determined by their country's leaders – has merely been a fleeting episode. To be sure, the more common modus operandi, for better and worse, has been one of complete symbiosis among American policy-makers. On the critical end of this spectrum were Andrew Young, who between 1977 and 1979 served as President Jimmy Carter's faithful representative in the UN; and Susan Rice, who from 2009 to 2013 echoed President Barack Obama's oppositionist approach to Israel on the global stage, particularly pertaining to the Palestinian arena.
On the positive end of this spectrum, for example, Arthur Goldberg (US ambassador to the UN between 1965 and 1968) accurately conveyed President Lyndon Johnson's support for defensible borders. His contribution to the wording of UN Resolution 242 was just one layer in a comprehensive array of initiatives in support of Israel. The same can be said for John Bolton (America's UN ambassador from 2005 to 2006), who tirelessly championed the notion that Israel and the United States were in the same fight against terror, globally and regionally.
And yet, Donald Trump's envoy to the UN these past two years, Nikki Haley, uniquely rose above her predecessors. Her diplomatic initiatives provided a clear and eloquent expression of the 45th president's favorable policies toward Israel. Her courageous battles in a UN still predominantly hostile to Israel, and the manner in which she positioned herself as the tip of the spear on the front-line of this diplomatic battle, marked a truly special contribution in the realm of American-Israeli relations.
Indeed, whether it was taking aim at global and regional terrorist groups such as al-Qaida, ISIS, Hamas, Hezbollah or Tehran; strident opposition to the nuclear deal with Iran; refusal to accept the one-sided and biased approach toward Israel within the UN and its various bodies organizations, such as UNESCO and the Human Rights Council; and standing firm in the face of the belligerent and often violent discourse from enemies and adversaries, while tearing off their masks of indignant hypocrisy – Haley was a beacon of warm, glowing light.
