Haley discusses Israel situation during stop in Sheffield

SHEFFIELD — Former South Carolina Governor and candidate for the Republican nomination for President Nikki Haley made a campaign stop in Sheffield on Saturday evening as part of her tour of Iowa. Haley served as President Trump’s ambassador to the United Nations.

She says when it comes to the Middle Eastern conflict, there’s three priorities — supporting Israel, eliminating Hamas, and doing everything we can to bring our hostages home. Haley says any refugees from the ongoing war should be the responsibility of countries closer to Gaza.  “What we need to do now is understand a lot of this is stall tactics, just making this about getting food and water in there. If the Arab countries aren’t willing to take them, you’ve gotta be careful. Any aid that’s going in there is going to Hamas. So you’re not feeding the people there, you’re feeding the Hamas fighters, you’re giving water to the Hamas fighters, so that’s the problem with accepting any aid there in Gaza is that it’s not really going to the people that need to have it. You really have to call on the pro-Hamas countries to take these people. That’s Qatar, that’s Iran, that’s Turkey. If they take them, then you have a better situation, but they’re not even talking about aid, so that’s the problem.”

Haley says everything should be done to free the hostages, even if it means using special forces.  “The Israelis and the Americans have an idea of what to do. They know where the hostages are. We have good fighters that know how to go find them, and I think they are going to do everything they can to bring them home safely. It’s what we do in any situation, and I trust the military on this.”

Haley says the United States should 100% be behind Israel.  “I think Israel knows exactly what they are going to do. We should support Israel, we should eliminate Hamas, and we should do whatever it takes to get the hostages in. We absolutely should support Israel, because when they were dragging those bodies through the streets of Gaza, what were they saying? They were saying death to Israel, death to America. These are the same terrorists that want to destroy us. We need to make sure we eliminate Hamas and see the bigger picture that this is about Russia, China and Iran, united in an unholy alliance because they want to destroy the west. Anyone that doesn’t see that is going to make massive mistakes and not protect the American people.”

Haley spoke to a crowd of about 150 supporters at the Ridge Stone Golf Club in Sheffield.