'Almost diabolical': Haley criticized for 'ugly lies' after claiming 'the left justifies the beheadings'
By: David Badash (Alternet. org)
S E E D E D C O N T E N T
Former Trump UN Ambassador Nikki Haley, now polling in third place for the Republican presidential nomination, is claiming that "the left" is supporting "the beheadings" of Israeli children and the "1200" Israelis slaughtered by Hamas terrorists.
No elected Democrat has endorsed the terror attack on Israel, and Democrats have strongly supported Israel in the wake of the attacks. Republican 2024 presidential frontrunner Donald Trump Wednesday night "appeared to mock Israel," and "launched personal attacks against" Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, according to The Times of Israel.
In social media posts on her personal Facebook and X accounts promoting her Wednesday interview on Fox News, Haley wrote:
"I don't know how the Left justifies the beheadings. I don't know how the Left justifies 1,200 people dead. I don't know how the Left justifies the torture. That's between them and God. I don't understand it and I don't want to understand it."
Those words largely mirror her remarks to Fox News' Steve Doocy, who had targeted U.S. Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-MI) for, he alleged, not answering a question a Fox News reporter asked her. Congresswoman Tlaib has denounced the Hamas terror attacks as "war crimes," and has also said, "the collective punishment of Palestinians right now is a war crime," according to the Detroit Free Press.
In her remarks to Fox News, Haley used the words "progressives," and "the far left" in place of "the left," which she wrote on social media hours after her interview.
Haley is being criticized for her remarks.
"Stop it," urged John Sipher, a former CIA station chief in Moscow. "Sometimes the politics of stupidity is really out of place."
"This is an incredibly ugly statement," wrote civil rights attorney Andrew C Laufer. "The 'left' is as appalled as anyone else."
Attorney and Christian conservative Heath Mayo said, "Nikki: Hamas is not the Left. It is not leadership to equate your political opponents with Hamas. It doesn't unite the country like we need. And here's the thing: we ARE united. There is broad bipartisan agreement in support of Israel. Why are you trying to politicize that?"
Journalist, Neiman Fellow, and Davidson College professor Issac Bailey responded, writing, "When people running for president flatly and proudly spread ugly lies designed to pit people against each other at a time as sensitive as this, it's almost diabolical."
On Thursday, The Times of Israel reported, "Former US president Donald Trump on Wednesday appeared to mock Israel for failing to anticipate the weekend Hamas onslaught and for not going on the offensive against Hezbollah amid several deadly clashes along its northern border. He also launched personal attacks against Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, whom he accused of 'letting him down,' and Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, whom he called a 'jerk.'"
"His comments stood in sharp contrast to the full-throated support given to Israel by serving US President Joe Biden and his officials, who have expressed steadfast backing of the country as it reels from the brutal massacres committed by Palestinian terrorists in Gaza border communities over the weekend."
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As she creeps ever so slightly closer to Trump ( a snails pace) Haley will become more and more MAGA.
Is she aware that Trump just praised Hezbollah?
Are you aware how stupid it is to accuse Haley of "inching closer to Trump" for attacking people for being soft on Hamas the day after you attacked Trump for this?
Try and keep a narrative for more than 12 hours.
Please show me where I accuse Haley of anything.
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Amazing that experienced politicians still make gratuitous and stupid remarks.
Come on Nikki, you need to win voters, not alienate them.
She's supposed to be smarter than that
I imagine she believes her statements will win over a certain portion of voters. And we have seen plenty of comments here in the last week or so that tend to support that belief.
No doubt, but it seems stupid to go negative. Win over voters through positive statements rather than feeding the bias and delusions of low-information voters.
Exactly. She should take a lesson from Joe and his Maga, Ultra Maga, Super Maga, Extreme Maga and New and Improved Maga rhetoric and just change Maga to Woke.
Or is it OK when Joe does it because he has "truth" on his side?
As for Nikki I think she is taking a few examples and making a broad statement with it. Hey, maybe she is channeling her inner Biden.
“…take a lesson from Joe and his Maga, Ultra Maga, Super Maga, Extreme Maga and New and Improved Maga…”
What in the world are you talking about?
I do not see how alienating voters is ever a good tactic. It does not matter who does it or what party they belong to.
Going negative against a certain group not only alienates that group (which likely would not vote for you anyway) but it has a ripple effect into voters who might consider voting for you. Although for some bizarre reason this does not seem to happen with Trump.
Emotive partisan jabs, IMO.
She might also be angling for the chance to be Trump's running mate. If she can't win the nomination to the big chair, she might be looking to curry favor with the candidate she sees as the likely winner. He laps this shit up.
If so, she will lose all respect from me.
Yet, you accept that Haley would in all likelihood accept and wholeheartedly support the ticket if Trump picked her...
Where do you get that from?
Sandy offered a hypothetical situation. My response started with “if so”.
Perhaps I am wrong but my observed opinion is that Haley wants to have one foot in the real world while still appealing to the MAGA. She is still about "Half-a-MAGA". Her nature is pleasant, but insincere. Perhaps if she came out more forcefully against Trump I'd feel differently, but she has not. I saw her being interviewed and she was plainly avoiding candidness. No good for a candidate...
You hate it but you know in your heart of hearts that Trump will most likely be the gop candidate. Haley would, in my opinion, be his best running mate pick. Do you believe she would accept if asked?
This is how I see her. She's hedging her bets. Be mostly pleasant to appeal to the never-Trumpers of all parties, but work in a jab here and there to appeal to Trump and his base.
Of course. She is not "never trump".
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Well, it all depends on "if" something happens.
Some tend to use that as an out to not take an absolute stance on something....
like actually going to vote for Biden no matter what the "if" is.
I do not know, JBB. Nowadays, I do not expect rational decisions by most GOP members. So all I can say is that I would hope that her character is such that she would refuse any role in a Trump administration. But if she chose to accept V.P. for Trump I would not be shocked, just disgusted.
What, specifically, are you talking about? At what point in time did Biden accept a position in a Trump administration?
Surely (maybe not) you understand that the act of a presidential candidate taking a V.P. position does not cause me to lose respect for the candidate. That my loss of respect would be strictly due to accepting a position in a Trump administration.
Do you understand? Will the 'hypocrite' allegation now be withdrawn?
What a stupid comment!
A conditional stand deals with unknowns. If someone identifies the various possibilities and weighs in on each possibility, that is taking a stand with substantial supporting details.
Not sure what this is supposed to mean. My stated position is that I will vote for Biden IF Trump is the GOP nominee and has a chance to win. If that is not the case, my vote will likely not go to Biden.
You respect Nikki Haley?
You do not??
If Haley were the nominee, would you NOT vote for her?
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Yes, Jim, I am quite aware of that.
You did not even read my comment did you?
Here, read it this time:
I highlighted in blue the critical parts of my post.
Laughable but nothing new from you.
You have stated over and over that you would vote for Biden if Trump were the republican nominee. You have also stated over and over that it is said and done that Trump will be the nominee.
So in essence, because you believe Trump will be the nominee, you will vote for Biden.
With your logic, there is no "if". You are declaring an absolute.
My post stands.
That's not the question he asked. Typical that you would reply with a deflection question.
He asked you if you respect Nikki Haley.
Are you going to answer?
Correct.
Wrong. I have stated that Trump is almost certainly going to be the nominee. The adverb 'almost' is part of the sentence. It leaves open the possibility that Trump could withdraw or be forced out for some legal or constitutional reason.
No, my position remains that IF Trump is the nominee and has a chance to win, I will vote for Biden.
This is not complicated. Spend a moment to understand what I have been saying.
You need to work on either logic or English.
Your post was (and is) foolish.
Read instead of asking utterly stupid questions.
This is the post Greg replied to:
Now apply just a tiny bit of logic and see if you can comprehend that for her to lose my respect she must first have my respect.
See? Another feeble gotcha failure for you.
Further, I have stated repeatedly on this forum that I would vote for Haley over Biden (given current circumstances). Turn down the partisan confirmation bias so that you can benefit from the full bandwidth of information presented.
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My post stands. You have shown by your posts that you will vote for Biden.
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Seems you are not watching Joes speeches
Sometimes I have to wonder if some people don't get paid by how many times they can use partisan in a sentence. You don't think anyone but a partisan notices Joes preoccupation with all things MAGA, much of it less than truthful?
I find that the petty, chickenshit criticism usually comes from a partisan.
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That proves that you have no clue what you are talking about.
If Haley or Christie or even Hutchinson is the nominee, who will I vote for?
Pointing out the hypocrisy of people complaining about Haley pandering to a group of voters yet giving "The great uniter" a free pass is anything but petty, chickenshit criticism to anyone that is not a partisan.
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She still needs to win over Republicans, first. I don’t think her comments here will jeopardize that goal .
Not so sure about that. There are (at least there were) Rs who do not have a blind hatred for anything outside of the GOP; those who dislike the partisan nonsense and care more about the issues.
Further, she needs to win over independents too.
Until now I thought that she could have been the GOP's most sensible hope (only because they had previously damned Liz Cheney) but the ignorance of that generalization against "the left" sure changed my mind about her.
She was just careless with her words. It is difficult to always make every sentence narrowly focused and crystal clear.
My comment is that she cannot afford to be careless; not in today's hyper-divisive political environment where every misstep is subject to ridiculous hyperbole and spin.
That comment she made about the left accused them of a universality of attitude, and surely a vast majority of "the left" are a lot more supportive of Israel than they are of the Palestinians and for sure of Hamas. IMO what America needs these days is a unifying POTUS, not one who is apt to cause even greater division than already exists.
I agree. Who is that?
Pogo?
You base that comment on what?
Grammar lesson: The use of the word "surely" made the comment a matter of opinion, not fact. My opinion is based on all the news stories I've watched and read and the majority of articles/seeds comments about the matter posted on this site.
At least she's getting called out on it and not just by the left
I do think Haley deserves fairness and accuracy from her critics. So do the rest of us who hear the criticism and are expected to form opinions from it.
So, to be fair and accurate, she never said Hamas is the Left, the Left is Hamas, or anything like that. She said support for them was coming from our Left.
That’s actually true, if you’re willing to see blaming Israel for the violence as supporting Hamas.
Why should anyone be willing? If someone forgets to lock their door and an intruder comes in and murders everyone, does that mean that the person who left the door open supported the intruders? For goodness sake, there are a lot of people within Israel that are blaming their government for what happened on the 7th. Do you think they are Hamas supporters?
Your intruder analogy doesn’t quite work. The situation in Israel is too different. It’s more like if I shot the intruder, and yet people blamed me for his death because I have nice stuff and left my door open.
Depends on the reasoning. The people Haley is referring to see Israel as oppressor and the Palestinians - represented by Hamas - as helpless victims pushed to their absolute limits. Thus, they blame Israel for the violence. I think this reflects a very limited knowledge of the region’s history.
My sense is that most Americans, while having a basic human sympathy for ordinary Palestinian people, recognize that Israel is trying to exist peacefully, but terrorists won’t let them.
Lol. Altnernet.
of course the left has justified the atrocities. Every post from left wing professors celebrating “decolonization in action”, every politician participating in marches for genocide, every time they say they have “ no choice” or rationalize their decision to murder kids, they are justifying terrorism.
open your eyes.
What is a March for genocide?
What Democrats took part?
People like you are dragging this country into hysteria.
When your city officials appear at a demonstration and sing songs calling for the extermination of Israel.
e like you are dragging this country into hysteria.
The irony. People like you have have been screaming "Nazi" for not using the right pronouns and now spend all their time rationalizing actual Nazi atrocities.
Hilarious when those same people call us Nazi and antisemite for the past 7 years, but go all fan boy when Hamas ruthlessly kills what could possibly be thousands of innocent Israelis.
You are hallucinating again.
Again...
Haven't been paying attention to the leftist protests throughout the country, have you?
Guaranteed none of them are conservatives.
Will Nikki Haley and others use this crisis to score political points? Of course. But the objection is disingenuous. Here is the first straw man:
So, “the left” is obviously very general and non-specific, but this writer moves to defend “elected Democrats.” That’s not what Haley said.
Even the term “Palestinians” is vague. Do they mean Palestinians generally, or just Hamas in particular? Considering that the Palestinian people voted for Hamas - knowing what they are - Are they truly separable?
No, it’s not, but in the US, support for Palestinians has come largely from the Left. The fact is there have been many voices from the political Left in support of the Palestinians.
Support can take many forms and an assessment of it can be highly subjective. There has been much fretting over how Israel is responding or may respond in the future. There have also been many suggestions that Israel is responsible for violence inflicted upon it by Hamas because Israel somehow drove them to it, inevitably.
Within this paradigm, Palestinians generally are characterized as benevolent people who have no objection at all to living in peace alongside Jews in Israel. We would have peace in the Middle East, but for oppressive Jews in Israel.
This can be seen as support for Hamas, but like I said, it’s subjective. People will disagree on this point. Casually redefining who we are talking about or cherry picking words and phrases is not going to be a convincing refutation of these support accusations.
This conflict, by its very nature pushes people to one side or the other. Riding the fence is not going to work. Nuance will have a difficult day. When you condemn one thing, you will be seen as supporting the other.
Even implying that the over half of Americans who are politically left of herself somehow justify the Hamas murder of innocent Jewish civilians is exactly the kind of talk that incites hatred and violence. The problems in the Middle East are not a left or right issue here and all American politicians making political hay over this are being despicable! They all need to grow up and learn to unite us instead of divide us. Has Haley ever tried to do that?
President Biden and his administration are standing with Israel! Those sayings otherwise aren't listening or know they are lying...
We are all guilty, from time to time, of referencing the Right or Left (or some other group) as if they were monolithic in their ideology. I think it’s clear from her later statements that she knows it would have been more fair to reference “some on the Left.”
We sure see it frequently on these pages.
There are good people left, right and middle with legit arguments about the causes and blames for the continuous endless ceaseless interminable senseless madness of The Children Of Abraham! They cannot live together, and they cannot just kill all of the others...
Not that lots of those Godly people don't say that is their solution.
The thing is, they did live together for centuries. In most places where Islam spread, during the Middle Ages, Jews and Christians were respected as People of the Book.
It has become a common misconception to think of the current strife as being ancient, but really, it is barely a century in the making.
Absolutely correct, the misinformation is rampant, some out of completed ignorance, others shape their history to reinforce their political, and social beliefs.
The Crusades didn't happen? The "Palestinian Situation" was bad long before we were born and has not gotten any better...
The Crusades in the Holy Land represent 200 years out of 2,000.
You can look at many areas and show that people have fought over it from time to time, but the context of the Crusades and the modern Levant are completely different. The players are different, their roles are different, and their motivations are different.