US President-elect Donald Trump has picked New York Congresswoman Elise Stefanik as his ambassador to the United Nations, choosing an ally with little foreign policy experience and staunch pro-Israel views to represent Washington at the international organisation.
“Elise is an incredibly strong, tough, and smart America First fighter,” Trump said in a statement on Monday.
Since the Israeli war on Gaza began in October 2023, Stefanik has supported bills targeting pro-Palestinian student encampments that were erected this past spring in protest against the war, calling on their administrations to cut economic ties with Israel or companies they say support the war.
Stefanik increased her name recognition in December 2023 after aggressively going after several university presidents during a hearing on antisemitism, which focused on the pro-Palestinian protests taking place on US campuses. Those protests were labelled as antisemitic by some US lawmakers, including Stefanik, on the basis that they were critical of Israel. Though there are not as many as in the spring, protests are ongoing.
Stefanik repeatedly asserted during the hearings that the slogans “from the river to the sea” and “globalise the intifada” were tantamount to calls for genocide.
New MEE newsletter: Jerusalem Dispatch
Sign up to get the latest insights and analysis on
Israel-Palestine, alongside Turkey Unpacked and other MEE newsletters
Once the Senate confirms her nomination, she will succeed US ambassador Linda Thomas-Greenfield, who has held the position for the entire Biden administration.
Stefanik will take over the role amid the Israeli war on Gaza and the Russian war on Ukraine.
Over the past year, Thomas-Greenfield vetoed several attempts at the UN calling for a ceasefire in Gaza, with the US becoming more isolated internationally due to its fervent support for Israel and its war efforts.
In Trump’s first mandate as US president, he chose Nikki Haley as his UN ambassador. Like Stefanik, Haley was a pro-Israel politician and used her position to withdraw the US from the UN Human Rights Council and its cultural agency, Unesco, accusing them of having anti-Israel bias.
US elections 2024: How is the Middle East reacting to Donald Trump’s victory?
Read More »
Given her pro-Israel stance, Stefanik will likely approach her leadership similarly.
Since the beginning of Israel’s war on Gaza, Stefanik has attacked the UN and accused it of antisemitism for its criticism of Israel’s bombardment of Gaza.
Israeli forces have so far killed more than 43,000 Palestinians since the war began, according to the Palestinian health ministry. However, this tally does not include those still buried under Gaza’s rubble.
In July, the British Medical Journal, The Lancet, said it was “not implausible to estimate that up to 186,000 or even more deaths could be attributable to the current conflict in Gaza” due to direct and indirect deaths.
The UN estimates that 70 percent of those killed in Gaza are women and children.
Last month, Stefanik called for a “complete reassessment” of US funding for the UN, and she has pushed for blocking Washington’s support for the UN agency for Palestinian refugees, known as Unrwa.
She worked as a domestic policy advisor under President George W Bush’s administration and became the youngest woman to be elected to Congress in 2014.
During her time in Congress, she worked on and supported several pro-Israel measures, including a bill to effectively bar US citizens and companies from providing information to foreign countries and international organisations that “have the effect of furthering” the boycott of Israel. The bill targeted the Palestinian-led Boycott, Divestments, and Sanctions movement.
She also supported a letter calling on US President Joe Biden to stop the transfer of Mohammed al-Qahtani from Guantanamo Bay to Saudi Arabia, despite him being cleared for transfer and not being charged with a crime.
