President Donald Trump’s choose to be the United States ambassador to the United Nations has turn out to be the most recent administration nominee to specific the assumption that Israel has “biblical” dominion over the occupied West Financial institution.
Elise Stefanik’s touch upon Tuesday got here throughout her affirmation listening to earlier than the Senate Overseas Relations Committee, the place she additionally pledged to additional Trump’s “America First” mission.
“If confirmed, I stand able to implement President Trump’s mandate from the American folks to ship America First, peace-through-strength nationwide safety management on the world stage,” she mentioned throughout her opening statements.
If confirmed as ambassador, Stefanik defined she would audit US funding for the UN and its constellation of businesses. She would additionally search to counter China’s affect on the worldwide organisation and bolster Washington’s staunch help for Israel.
But it surely was her views on the West Financial institution that signalled the starkest distinction between the Trump administration and that of his predecessor, President Joe Biden.
Stefanik was definitive when requested if she shared the view of far-right Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich and former Nationwide Safety Minister Itamar Ben Gvir that Israel has a “biblical proper to the complete West Financial institution”.
“Sure,” she replied through the change with Democratic Senator Chris Van Hollen.
When pushed if she supported self-determination for Palestinians, Stefanik sidestepped the query.
“I consider the Palestinian folks deserve so a lot better than the failures that they’ve had from terrorist leaders,” she mentioned. “In fact, they deserve human rights.”
A wider shift
During the last 4 years, the Biden administration offered resolute help for Israel on the UN. It repeatedly vetoed UN Safety Council resolutions calling for a ceasefire to cease Israel’s conflict in Gaza.
Nonetheless, the administration had been keen to face as much as its “ironclad” ally on the difficulty of Israeli settlements within the occupied West Financial institution. Such settlements are thought of unlawful below worldwide regulation.
Stefanik’s feedback had been the most recent indication that the incoming Trump administration would take a really completely different tack.
Trump’s first time period noticed a surge in settlements, along with his administration eradicating a four-decade-long US coverage that recognised the growth into the West Financial institution as unlawful.
Upon taking workplace on Monday, Trump cancelled Biden-era sanctions on far-right Israeli settler teams and people accused of violence towards Palestinians.
Trump’s choose to be the US ambassador to Israel, Mike Huckabee, has additionally supported Israeli settlements within the West Financial institution, citing the Bible as justification. In a 2017 interview with CNN, as an illustration, Huckabee argued that the Palestinian territory didn’t exist in any respect.
“There isn’t a such factor as a West Financial institution. It’s Judea and Samaria,” he mentioned, utilizing a biblical identify.
And in 2008, when he was campaigning for the presidency, Huckabee asserted that the Palestinian id itself was a fiction.
“I should be cautious about saying this, as a result of folks will actually get upset. There’s actually no such factor as a Palestinian,” Huckabee, who has not but confronted a affirmation listening to, mentioned on the time.
‘Standing with Israel’
Stefanik has lengthy been one in every of Trump’s most ardent defenders within the US Home of Representatives.
In December 2023, nevertheless, she rose to a brand new degree of prominence together with her viral questioning of three college leaders from Harvard, MIT and the College of Pennsylvania, urgent them over alleged “anti-Semitism” on campus. Two of the three presidents resigned within the aftermath.
Critics have mentioned her accusations helped spur different college leaders to crack down on pro-Palestinian protests on campus, out of worry of public backlash.
In her opening deal with at Tuesday’s affirmation listening to, Stefanik hailed herself as “the chief in combating anti-Semitism in greater schooling”, citing her 2023 interplay with the college presidents.
“My oversight work led to the most-viewed testimony within the historical past of Congress,” she mentioned. “This listening to with college presidents was heard world wide and seen billions of instances.”
Responding to questions from bipartisan lawmakers, Stefanik pledged to proceed — and lengthen — the US legacy of help for Israel on the UN. The US is one in every of 5 everlasting members of the UN Safety Council and subsequently wields veto energy.
She repeated the US place that Israel is unfairly focused by the UN, decrying what she known as “anti-Semitic rot” inside the organisation.
The US at the moment pays about one-fifth of the UN’s common finances, a daily level of ire for Trump.
On Tuesday, Stefanik promised “a full evaluation of all of the UN sub-agencies” to ensure “that each greenback [goes] to help our American pursuits”.
She added she would oppose any US funds going to the UN Aid and Works Company for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA).
Laws handed by the US Congress final yr bans funding via March 2025 for the company, which humanitarian teams say gives irreplaceable help to Palestinians in each the West Financial institution and Gaza.
In her listening to, Stefanik additionally defended Israel, regardless of criticisms from UN experts that its strategies in Gaza are “in line with genocide”.
“It’s a beacon of human rights within the area,” Stefanik mentioned of Israel.
Stefanik’s listening to got here simply hours after former Senator Marco Rubio, Trump’s choose for secretary of state, grew to become the primary member of the incoming administration to be sworn in.
