Trump’s election as ambassador to the UN hailed by the Israeli minister as a ‘warrior against anti-Semitism’
TEL AVIV – The Trump administration will do more than its predecessor to combat the tidal wave of hatred against Jews triggered by the Hamas massacre on October 7, 2023, Israel’s Diaspora and Anti-Semitism Minister Amichai Chikli told Fox News Digital.
Chikli noted that once confirmed, the new US ambassador to the United Nations, former Representative Elise Stefanik, RN.Y., will enter one of the epicenters of the global attack on the Jewish people and their state.
“We saw Stefanik at a hearing on campus anti-Semitism in Congress,” he said, noting that once she is confirmed as a senior member of the Trump administration, she will be “stationed in one of the most hostile arenas: the UN,” Chikli added that “Warrior against anti-Semitism, we are very happy about her appointment.”
ŠTEFANIK PRAISES THE MANAGEMENT OF THE GRILLING FACULTY AT THE SENATE CONFIRMATION HEARING
Former Rep. Elise Stefanik, nominee for U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, attends a confirmation hearing before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on January 21, 2025. (Tierney L. Cross/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
In December 2023, Stefanik received high praise during a congressional hearing on the explosion of anti-Semitism at American universities. She asked the presidents of Harvard University, the University of Pennsylvania and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology whether calling for genocide against the Jews violated their rules of conduct.
A year later, Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson published the US House of Representatives Staff Report on Anti-Semitism, compiled by six congressional committees.
Chikli told Fox News Digital four effective measures to combat this phenomenon: “Enforce strict compliance with Title VI to prohibit discrimination and address anti-Semitism on campus; deny federal funding to institutions that boycott Israel or tolerate anti-Semitic behavior; require universities to disclose foreign contributions and tightening government oversight and ending financial and tax exemptions for groups and universities that propagate anti-Semitism or support terrorist-related activities.”
Anti-Israel demonstrations continued on Tuesday in New York on the Columbia University campus. (AP/Yuki Iwamura)
“This report by the Speaker of the House shows that this [Trump] administration is very committed to combating anti-Semitism,” Chikli said.
In her new role, Stefanik also vowed to fight anti-Semitism in Turtle Bay, which she described as a “hotbed of anti-Semitism.”
“Even before the barbaric terrorist attacks by Hamas on October 7, the UN has continuously betrayed Israel and betrayed America, acting as an apologist for Iran and their terrorist proxies,” Stefanik said in November after her nomination.
During her Senate confirmation on Tuesday, she said the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA), the conduit for international aid to the Palestinians, should be “at the bottom of the list” of organizations to receive US funding.
In January 2024, then-President Joe Biden suspended funding UNRWA after Israel released evidence that agency staff participated in the October 7 massacre.
Israeli Diaspora Minister Amichai Chikli (Shahar Azran/Getty Images/File)
According to Chikli, UNRWA effectively serves as Hamas’s education system, which in turn makes it an engine for fueling anti-Semitism throughout Gaza and the Palestinian Authority territories in the West Bank, known to Israelis as Judea and Samaria.
“It takes a village to raise a child, and it takes a village to raise a terrorist. And if you put a child in UNRWA schools, you can be sure they will graduate with the mindset of a terrorist,” Chikli told Fox News Digital.
NEW REPORTS CLAIM UNRWA WORKS WITH TERRORISTS, LEARNS TO HATE WHEN AGENCY HITS BACK AT CRITICS
“[Palestinian children] they will learn to admire the suicide bombers, the Hamas Nukhba terrorists who killed innocent people. They go to schools named after terrorists, with textbooks that include math problems about how many Israeli soldiers have been attacked or how many stones have been thrown at them,” he continued.
“This is why it is crucial to ensure that UNRWA is closed,” he added.
In October, the Israeli parliament banned UNRWA from operating in the Jewish state. The law enters into force on January 30.
Philippe Lazzarini, High Commissioner of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Middle East, holds a press conference in Jerusalem on October 27, 2023. (Mostafa Alkharouf/Anadolu via Getty Images)
Spokesman for Israel Opposition leader Yair Lapid told Fox News Digital that “the government and the international community had 90 days to find alternatives to UNRWA.”
He declined to say whether Lapid was in contact with the Trump administration to discuss plans “the day after” after UNRWA ceases operations.
In August, UNRWA High Commissioner Philippe Lazzarini confirmed the likely involvement of at least 19 UNRWA staff in the October 7 massacre, saying that “the evidence – if verified and corroborated – could indicate that UNRWA staff members and may have been involved in the attacks.”
A general view of the United Nations building in New York, NY on Tuesday, September 19, 2023. Traffic is increased this time of year as the United Nations General Assembly hosts leaders from around the world. (Julia Bonavita for Fox News Digital)
He later confirmed that at least nine UNRWA staff had been dismissed following an internal investigation.
UNRWA Communications Director Juliette Touma told Fox News Digital that “we are committed to staying and serving [aid] in the occupied Palestinian territories, including the Gaza Strip, the West Bank and East Jerusalem, until we can.”
“UNRWA has the strongest systems compared to other United Nations agencies when it comes to upholding the principle of neutrality in terms of the programs we run and our staff,” she said.
Asked if the organization had drawn up a plan for ongoing operations after the Israeli ban went into effect, she said: “We haven’t.”
Ayelet Samerano son, Yonatan, was kidnapped by a terrorist who also allegedly worked for UNRWA on October 7, 2023. A video of the terrorist dragging Yonatan’s lifeless body into a car went viral.
Memorials at the site of the October 7 Hamas terrorist attack on the Supernova music festival near Kibbutz Re’im, Israel, Monday, May 27, 2024. (Kobi Wolf/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
“I will not let it go. I am putting strong pressure on the government to implement the law, which was passed in the Knesset,” Samerano told Fox News Digital. “I didn’t know UNRWA before, but then I researched and found many documents proving that it was involved in terror. The fact that they were involved in taking hostages on October 7 and keeping kidnapped Israelis in their homes and buildings means there is no reason to this organization continues to exist.”
“We must ensure that UNRWA will be replaced by another organization that will help the people of Gaza and ensure that terror does not infiltrate them,” she continued. “People outside of Gaza and interested in real peace must teach a new curriculum that will create opportunity for the people of Gaza, not terror.”
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Israel’s ambassador to the UN, Danny Danon, told Fox News Digital that Stefanik is “a staunch ally of Israel and the Jewish people.”
“She leads with moral clarity and a strong commitment to justice and truth,” he said. “I look forward to working with her at the UN, where the demonization and distortion of Israel is out of control.”
