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UN envoy to UN nominee voted to defund UNRWA

January 21, 2025 at 7:49 pm

Representative Elise Stefanik, a Republican from New York, speaks to members of the media ahead of a campaign event with former US President Donald Trump, not pictured, at Madison Square Garden in New York, US, on Sunday, October 27, 2024 [Adam Gray/Bloomberg via Getty Images]

Elise Stefanik, President Donald Trump’s candidate for US ambassador to the UN, pledged Tuesday to serve the interest of the American people, Anadolu Agency reports.

“If confirmed, I will work to ensure that our Mission to the United Nations serves the interest of the American people, and represents American President Trump’s ‘America First Peace Through Strength’ foreign policy”, the Congresswoman from the state of New York said at her confirmation hearing before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

She said it has “never been more critical” for the US to lead with strength and moral clarity as the world faces security challenges, ranging from China, Russia, North Korea and Iran.

“This is especially important regarding our most precious ally, Israel,” she said.

Stefanik said the US is the “largest contributor” to the UN, and she pledged to work to ensure the agency is using US tax dollars to advance American interests.

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“As a member of Congress, I also understand deeply that we must be good stewards of US taxpayer dollars. The US is the largest contributor to the UN by far. Our tax dollars should not be complicit in propping up entities that are counter to American “interests, anti-Semitic or engaging in fraud, corruption or terrorism,” she said.

There’s ‘anti-Semitic rot’ within UN

Asked how she would deal with the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA), Stefanik said she was one of the parliamentarians who voted to defund the Agency.

UNRWA has been hindered from doing its job since last January, when Israeli accused 12 of the thousands of its employees in the Gaza Strip of being involved in the 7 October Hamas attack on Israel.

Amid a probe of the claims, at least 16 countries, including the US, paused or suspended funding to the Agency, and its aid work for Gaza’s famine-stricken population has suffered.

Israel has repeatedly equated UNRWA staff with Hamas members in efforts to discredit them, providing no proof of the claims, while lobbying hard to have UNRWA closed as it is the only UN agency to have a specific mandate to look after the basic needs of Palestinian refugees. If the agency no longer exists, argues Israel, then the refugee issue must no longer exist, and the legitimate right for Palestinian refugees to return to their land will be unnecessary. Israel has denied that right of return since the late 1940s, even though its own membership of the UN was made conditional upon Palestinian refugees being allowed to return to their homes and land.

“We should never tolerate any US taxpayer funds going towards terrorism. … I fully support the President’s commitment to defunding and I’m proud to have voted for that in the Congress,” she said.

Her hearing was one day after Trump signed an executive order to suspend US foreign assistance programs for 90 days pending a review of consistency with his policies.

Stefanik claimed that there is an “anti-Semitic rot” within the UN.

“There are more resolutions targeting Israel than any other country, any other crisis, combined,” she said, adding that the US needs to be a “voice of moral clarity” on the Security Council and at the UN at large for the world to hear “the importance of standing with Israel”.

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