Newly elected US President Donald Trump has selected New York Congresswoman Elise Stefanik as his ambassador to the United Nations. It has chosen an ally with little foreign policy experience and staunch pro-Israel positions to represent Washington at the international organization.

“Elise is an incredibly strong, tough and smart America First fighter,” Trump said in a statement on Monday.

Since the start of Israel’s war on Gaza in October 2023, Stefanik has supported bills targeting pro-Palestinian student camps established last spring in protest against the war, calling on his governments to cut economic ties with Israel or companies they say to support, to break the war. .

Stefanik increased her name recognition in December 2023 after she aggressively went after several university presidents during a hearing on anti-Semitism, which focused on the pro-Palestinian protests taking place on American campuses. These protests were labeled anti-Semitic by some US lawmakers, including Stefanik, because they were critical of Israel. Although there are not as many as in the spring, the protests are ongoing.

Stefanik repeatedly claimed during the hearings that the slogans “from the river to the sea” and “globalize the intifada” amounted to calls for genocide.

Once the Senate confirms her nomination, she will succeed U.S. Ambassador Linda Thomas-Greenfield, who has held the position for the entire Biden administration.

Stefanik will take over the role amid Israel’s war on Gaza and Russia’s war on Ukraine.

Over the past year, Thomas-Greenfield has vetoed several UN attempts to broker a ceasefire in Gaza, with the US increasingly isolated internationally due to its fervent support of Israel and its war efforts.

During Trump’s first term 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 organization, UNESCO, accusing them of having anti-Israel bias.

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Given her pro-Israel stance, Stefanik will likely take a similar approach to her leadership.

Since the start of Israel’s war on Gaza, Stefanik has attacked the UN and accused it of anti-Semitism for its criticism of the Israeli bombardment of Gaza.

According to the Palestinian Health Ministry, Israeli forces have killed more than 43,000 Palestinians since the start of the war so far. However, this count does not include those still buried under the rubble of Gaza.

In July, the British Medical Journal, The Lancet, said it was “not unlikely 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 urged blocking Washington’s support for the UN agency for Palestinian refugees, known as Unrwa.

She worked as a domestic policy adviser under President George W. Bush’s administration and became the youngest woman elected to Congress in 2014.

During her time in Congress, she worked on and supported several pro-Israel measures, including a bill to effectively ban U.S. citizens and companies from providing information to foreign countries and international organizations that “have the effect of furthering the boycott of Israel” . The bill targeted the Palestinian-led Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement.

She also supported a letter calling on US President Joe Biden to halt the transfer of Mohammed al-Qahtani from Guantanamo Bay to Saudi Arabia, despite him having been cleared for transfer and not charged with a crime.