Former Republican presidential hopeful Nikki Haley wrote “Finish Them!” on an artillery shell in Israel during a Memorial Day visit. Haley, who was the U.N. ambassador during the Trump administration, drew a heart on the missile, noting, “America [Loves] Israel Always!”
Haley performed the stunt during a tour with Danny Danon, Israel’s former ambassador to the United Nations and a member of the Israeli Parliament. Danon later shared a photo on X of their visit, which features both of them signing the shells. “This is what my friend, the former ambassador Nikki Haley, wrote today on a shell during a visit to an artillery post on the northern border,” Danon wrote, “The I.D.F. will win!”
Her visit came just days after an Israeli airstrike hit a camp for displaced Palestinians in Rafah, Gaza, killing at least 45 people and wounding hundreds more, according to the Gaza Health Ministry.
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It isn’t the first time Haley has used the phrase in regards to Israel’s offensive. “This is not just an attack on Israel, this is an attack on America, because they hate us just as much,” Haley said on Fox News, after Hamas’s October 7 terror attacks. “And I’ll say this to Prime Minister Netanyahu: Finish them. Finish them.” During her time as U.N. ambassador, in 2018, Haley stewarded the withdrawal of funding that assists millions of Palestinian refugees, saying, “There’s an endless number of refugees that continue to get assistance.” But, she continued, “more importantly, the Palestinians continue to bash America.”
In a 2017 U.N. Security Council meeting on the U.S.’s decision to move its embassy to Jerusalem, Haley said that Israel will never be “bullied into an agreement by the United Nations, or by any collection of countries,” before noting that “Palestinian and Israeli children both deserve a future of peace, one no more and no less than the other.”
There may once again be a leadership position for Haley in government should Donald Trump win in November. After months of decrying a potential Trump presidency on the campaign trail, Haley announced last week that she would, in fact, be voting for the man she called “unhinged,” “not qualified,” and unable to “win a general election.” Shortly after her endorsement, Trump told News 12 that “I think she’s going to be on our team because we have a lot of the same ideas, the same thoughts.”
To date, the war has resulted in the deaths of at least 36,615 people, including more than 15,130 children in Gaza and the West Bank, according to the Palestinian Ministry of Health. A significant number of casualties have been dealt by bombs provided by the United States, including those used in the recent strike on the displacement camp.
On Haley’s recent visit to Israel, she sat down with Ariel Kahana, a commentator for Israel Hayom, a newspaper owned by the Republican donor and staunch Israel supporter Miriam Adelson. “Israel, they’re the good guys,” Haley said. “And you know what I want Israelis to know? You’re doing the right thing. Don’t let anybody make you feel wrong.”