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Nikki Haley, a favorite of the pro-Israel establishment, is the first Republican to challenge Trump
(JTA) — Nikki Haley, the former South Carolina governor who became a pro-Israel favorite during her two years as the Trump administration’s ambassador to the United Nations, announced her bid for the presidency, becoming the first Republican to challenge the former president ahead of 2024.
In a video released Tuesday, Haley did not name Donald Trump, but alluded to him as a polarizing figure, emphasizing her efforts as governor at tamping down racial tensions and also suggesting that the Republican Party was alienating moderate Americans.
“We turned away from fear toward God and the values that still make our country the freest and greatest in the world,” Haley said, describing her 2015 decision to remove Confederate flags from state properties after a racist gunman murdered nine Black worshippers in a Charleston church. “We must turn in that direction again. Republicans have lost the popular vote in seven out of the last eight presidential elections. That has to change.”
Singling out her removal of the flags stands in her contrast with Trump, who has made a point of upholding resistance to the removal of Confederate moderates. Haley also leans in the 3.5-minute video into her roots as the child of Indian immigrants, another distinction from Trump, who has embraced anti-immigrant movements and has garnered the support of white supremacists. Trump announced his third run for the presidency in November.
Haley, as a governor with a national reputation, was already on the pro-Israel radar when Trump in 2017 named her as his first ambassador to the United Nations. Heading into the job, she consulted closely with pro-Israel groups and forged a close alliance with Israel’s delegation to the body.
Soon she was at the forefront of reversing decades of U.S. policy at the United Nations, preventing the hiring of Palestinians for top jobs, scrubbing Israel-critical reports, quitting the U.N. Human Rights Council and influencing Trump’s cutting of funding to UNRWA, the body providing relief to Palestinian refugees and their descendants.
That profile soon made her a star at conferences of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, where she consistently drew crowds and applause. It was at an AIPAC conference, in fact, when she coined her personal motto: “I wear high heels. It’s not for a fashion statement, it’s because if I see something wrong I will kick it every single time.”
Haley quit her ambassadorship at the end of 2018, but increased her pro-Israel profile. She used an appearance at the 2019 AIPAC conference to announce the establishment of her advocacy group, Stand for America, the first substantive sign she was running for president. She is a star speaker at the Republican Jewish Coalition and used the RJC platform in 2021 to chide AIPAC for what she said was an overemphasis on bipartisanship.
She has also cultivated Trump’s Jewish daughter, Ivanka, and her husband, Jared Kushner, who led Middle East diplomacy under Trump. Kushner’s father Charles has raised funds for her.
Haley used a version of her motto in her video Tuesday, in a way that could be read as a warning to Trump, who takes no prisoners in deriding opponents: “I don’t put up with bullies. And when you kick back, it hurts them more. If you’re wearing heels.” Haley notably called Trump a bully when in 2016 she backed a rival, Marco Rubio, for the GOP presidential nomination.
Haley’s relationship with Trump is characterized by wariness: Effusively praising him at times and then criticizing him. She seemed to cut him off entirely after the deadly Capitol insurrection by his supporters in 2021. “He went down a path he shouldn’t have, and we shouldn’t have followed him, and we shouldn’t have listened to him,” she told Politico the day after the riot. “And we can’t let that ever happen again.”
Within weeks, as it became clear that the GOP was not yet quitting Trump, Haley tried to make any talk of her differences with him the fault of the “liberal media.” “Strong speech by President Trump about the winning policies of his administration and what the party needs to unite behind moving forward,” she said on Twitter in March 2021 after Trump’s first post-presidency speech. “The liberal media wants a GOP civil war. Not gonna happen.”
Haley scores in the single digits in polling and announcing early is one way of getting her out in front; right now, Trump’s most formidable challenger, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, has yet to announce, although that has not stopped Trump from criticizing DeSantis almost daily.
Haley can count on pro-Israel money, but even there she has rivals. Mike Pompeo, the former Secretary of State who is also likely to announce a presidential bid, devoted a chunk of his recent autobiography to minimizing Haley’s role in the Trump administration, including in Trump’s Middle East policy. Pompeo accused Haley of plotting with Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump to replace Mike Pence as vice-president. Pence, who has broken with Trump, is also considering a presidential run and his deep ties in the pro-Israel community.
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Stop Platforming Bigotry and Hate: We Can’t Build Bridges with Destructionists
US Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY). Photo: Mike Jourdan/Flickr.
A society that cannot distinguish between a critic and a destructionist is a society in the process of dismantling itself.
For decades, the leaders of Western institutions — universities, legacy media, and political think tanks — have operated on the Liberal Consensus Model. This model assumes that every stakeholder, no matter how radical, ultimately wants a seat at the table to negotiate a better version of the status quo.
But we are currently witnessing the total collapse of this assumption. Institutions are mistaking a siege for a negotiation.
The “Destructionist” does not want a seat at the table; they want to use the wood for kindling. When an institution offers a “bridge” to someone whose starting premise is the dismantling of liberal democracy or the erasure of a people, they aren’t practicing “inclusion.” They are providing a tactical ramp for an assault.
This is not a “Left” or “Right” problem; it is a vulnerability of the center. Across the political spectrum, we see the same mechanics of “laundering” at work — where moderate leaders trade their institutional credibility for access to a radical’s megaphone.
On the left, we see the normalization of figures like Hasan Piker. When the “Pod Save America” crew or politicians like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) treat Piker as a “bold youth voice,” they are signaling that his destructionist starting points — such as supporting the eradication of Zionism — are within the bounds of a reasonable democratic coalition.
They frame it as “outreach,” failing to realize that they are importing eliminationist rhetoric into the heart of the mainstream.
On the right, the rot is equally visible in the laundering of Tucker Carlson. When Kevin Roberts, President of the Heritage Foundation, or politicians like Vice President JD Vance defend Carlson even as he platforms Holocaust revisionists and Nazi apologists, they are breaking a decades-old covenant. By framing Carlson’s descent into conspiratorial bigotry as “challenging the establishment,” they are laundering a brand of hatred that was rightly ostracized from the movement generations ago.
In both cases, these “bridge-builders” suffer from a form of institutional narcissism: the belief that their own empathy or political utility is powerful enough to transcend a destructionist ideology. They believe they can negotiate a floor plan with an arsonist who has already lit the match.
It is common to lump these figures in with Joe Rogan, but the distinction is critical for understanding where our accountability must lie.
Rogan is a private citizen having a public conversation. While he causes undeniable material harm by uncritically platforming bigoted views –and we should absolutely pressure him to do better — he is fundamentally only representing himself.
Conversely, we must hold the Ezra Kleins, the Jon Favreaus, and the Heritage Foundations to a far higher standard because they represent institutions. When a gatekeeper stops guarding the gate on behalf of an institution, the gate ceases to exist. Rogan is a symptom of a culture that finds fire interesting; these institutional leaders are the architects who were supposed to be building the firewalls. Their failure is not just an error in judgment; it is professional malpractice.
The solution is not state-censorship, but a renewal of communal self-respect. We must re-learn the lesson of how we defeated the KKK: we didn’t “win the debate” at a shared seminar; we made the white hood socially disqualifying.
The path forward requires a two-fold strategy:
1. Enforce “Social Jail”
We must return to a model of principled ostracization. If your starting point is the destruction of a people or the subversion of the democratic covenant, you belong in “social jail.” This is not “cancel culture” — which often offers no path back — but a boundary. Social jail allows for repair. When an individual renounces the destructionist framework and demonstrably accounts for the harm they’ve advocated through public renunciation and restorative action, the door can be reopened. But until then, the line must be held.
2. Critical Friction vs. Laundering
Journalists and pundits must stop acting as facilitators. If they choose to engage with these figures, the “friendly engagement” model must be replaced with hostile exposure. You can interview an arsonist about why he likes fire, but you don’t hire him as a fire safety consultant.
The standard defense for this laundering is the phrase: “I don’t agree with everything he says.”
In the context of eliminationist bigotry, this is not a defense; it is a confession of moral cowardice — or at best, professional dereliction. To be a journalist or a civic leader is to have the courage to name the “tripwire.” If you platform a bigot, you have a professional obligation to state, explicitly, which of their hateful taboos you oppose. If you refuse to name the bigotry — if you treat it as a mere “difference of opinion” — you are not conducting an interview; you are providing a sanitation service.
We have spent years building bridges with people who are committed to destroying them. We have watched as they used those bridges to infiltrate our schools, our media, and our political parties.
It is time to stop being the architects of our own demise. If we cannot say “No” to those who wish to see our foundations destroyed, our “Yes” to progress and our democratic system will eventually mean nothing at all. We must stop exhausting our moral vocabulary on minor transgressions so that we have the collective clarity required to name the destructionists for what they are.
It is time to stop building the bridge and start holding the line.
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78 Years Later, the Palestinian Authority Still Dreams of Israel’s Demise
Lebanese President Joseph Aoun meets with Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas at the presidential palace in Baabda, Lebanon, May 21, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Mohamed Azakir
As Israel celebrates the 78th anniversary of its Independence, the Palestinian Authority (PA) and its government-run media continue to promote the ideology that Israel has no right to exist and is a temporary “occupation” that will soon vanish.
Here are some examples that Palestinian Media Watch (PMW) has documented recently:
PA Jerusalem District Spokesman Ma’arouf Al-Rifai: “Ever since Allah created this land, we have continued to live here and defend it, we are the spearhead on defending these holy sites.
The occupation [i.e., Israel] is ultimately destined to disappear.” [emphasis added]
[Official PA TV, Individuals, Jan. 31, 2026]
Palestinian National Council member Dr. Shafiq Al-Talouli: “This state [i.e., Israel] is revealing the true face of the occupation that has stolen Palestine since 1948, and which relies on the same ideology of carrying out forced expulsion, and which strives through the use of force, committing massacres, starvation, and the like to remove the Palestinian people from its land.” [emphasis added]
[Official PA TV, Topic of the Day, Nov. 6, 2025]
Official PA TV programs, interviews, and documentaries repeat the ideology that Israel’s existence is temporary:
Official PA TV Israeli affairs “expert” Nizar Nazzal: “Palestine is the compass, and here the empires crashed down. Whether it was the Mongols, the Crusaders, or others. Therefore, these empires [i.e., Israe] too, here on the land of Palestine, will crash down.” [emphasis added]
[Official PA TV, Topic of the Day, Jan. 20, 2026]
The PA tells its people that Israelis, deep down, agree that Israel is doomed:
Official PA TV narrator: “Even in the depths of the Israeli public, there is an understanding that their presence here is temporary. The dual citizenship of the soldiers and settlers is not just a coincidence but rather an escape plan ready to be executed if the balance of powers changes.”
Jurist Sufian Siyam: “The Israeli knows in his subconscious mind that his existence on this land is temporary. …In 2006, there was an Israeli soldier named Gilad Shalit. We were surprised to discover later that Gilad Shalit has French citizenship … Israeli soldier Edan Alexander [a hostage captured and released during Hamas’ Oct. 7 war] has American citizenship. Why do the Israeli soldiers and Israeli civilians insist on having another citizenship besides Israeli citizenship? Because deep in his heart, his grandfather before him and his son after him knew that his existence on this land is temporary.” [emphasis added]
[Official PA TV, Time Without Ceasefire, Jan. 28, 2026]
Whether from PA officials or its state media, the message to Palestinians remains constant: Israel has no right to exist, Israel is temporary, Palestinians are permanent, and time will erase the Jewish State.
At the same time, the PA continues to demand Western governments fund this culture of hate and rejectionism while choosing to look the other way.
The author is a contributor to Palestinian Media Watch, where a version of this article first appeared.
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PA Libel: Jewish Scripture Says Non-Jews Are ‘Pigs in the Form of Humans to Serve the Jews’
Palestinians shout slogans at the compound that houses Al-Aqsa Mosque, known to Muslims as Noble Sanctuary and to Jews as Temple Mount, following clashes with Israeli security forces in Jerusalem’s Old City April 15, 2022. REUTERS/Ammar Awad
In addition to its eliminationist rhetoric, the Palestinian Authority (PA)’s brainwashing of its people is ongoing and effective.
Palestinian Media Watch regularly documents that ordinary Palestinians echo the antisemitic and Nazi-like statements by PA leaders and officials. The PA portrays Jews as being “arrogant by nature,” and planning to “subjugate the entire world.” Palestinian citizens adopt and repeat these teachings.
Accordingly, anti-Israeli activists spread the libel that the Jewish Talmud teaches that non-Jews are “pigs in the form of humans [created] to serve the Jews”:
Anti-Israeli activist in the Jordan Valley Ayman Ghraib: “The colonialism began in the [Jewish] religious schools where the colonialists [i.e., Jews] were educated to hate the Arabs and Palestinians and everything that is not Jewish.
We have obtained booklets that contain an exact quote from the Talmudic text — that non-Jews are pigs that God created in the form of humans to serve the Jews … In their religious books it is written that Allah created this [olive] tree for the Jews … and if they cannot enjoy its fruits, they should burn it.” [emphasis added]
[Official PA TV, Crops, April 6, 2026]
The Talmud contains no such statement about non-Jews being pigs.
Even as Palestinians falsely accuse Jews of dehumanizing non-Jews, the PA itself portrays Jews as sub-human.
In the words of PA leader Mahmoud Abbas’ advisor, Jews are “grazing herds of humanoids … apes and pigs.” Recently, a Palestinian in Lebanon expressed a similar view, saying Jews are “pigs and donkeys”:
Lebanese singer and actor Abd Asqoul: “The enemy [Israel] is very stupid. He does not understand that it is impossible, regardless of what will be, there is something that lives inside us [Palestinians] … But this pig is not just a pig, he is a donkey who does not understand.
He thought my identity is a few papers and flour, and it escaped him that I am from the seed of heroes. .. My identity is land and rock and the sand of the beaches with shells and the blue color in their waters, from Rosh Hanikra [i.e., on Israel’s northern border] to proud Umm Al-Rashrash [i.e., Eilat, Israel’s southern border].” [emphasis added]
[Official PA TV, The Creativity of the Refugee Camp, Jan. 20, 2026]
The Palestinian Authority’s antisemitism also portrays Jews as the “enemy of humanity.” A Palestinian academic and former PA deputy minister stressed this recently, specifying that Jews are not only the “enemy” of Palestinians, but of all “humanity”:
Bethlehem University political science lecturer and former PA Deputy Minister of Jerusalem Affairs Sa’id Yaqin: “Jerusalem … is also the strongest symbol in this conflict, which is being waged with this enemy [i.e., Israel]. This is the enemy of humanity and not of the Palestinian people.” [emphasis added]
[Official PA TV, March 14, 2026]
The author is the Founder and Director of Palestinian Media Watch, where a version of this article first appeared.