On Tuesday, President Donald Trump’s pick for U.S. ambassador to the United Nations said that she believes Israel has a “biblical right” to the occupied West Bank, parroting a view held by extremist Zionists on Israel’s illegal occupation of the Palestinian territory.
In her Senate confirmation hearing, Elise Stefanik refused to answer a question from Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-Maryland) about whether or not she supports both Israeli and Palestinians’ right to self-determination. She said that Israel is a “beacon of human rights” in the Middle East, despite Israel’s documented slaughter of tens of thousands of civilians in Gaza in the past year and numerous rulings against it in the International Court of Justice (ICJ) for human rights violations.
Then, Van Hollen said, “I’m rarely surprised by answers in my office, but I did ask you whether you subscribe to the views of Finance Minister [Bezalel] Smotrich … who believes that Israel has a biblical right to the entire West Bank. And, in that conversation, you told me that yes, you share that view. Is that your view today?”
“Yes,” Stefanik replied, after expressing confusion over who Smotrich is. The belief in a supposed “biblical right” to Palestine is central to Zionism, an ideology effectively calling for Israelis to drive Palestinians out of Palestine and colonize the territory. It is an ideology held widely by Trump’s team.
“If this president is going to succeed at bringing peace and stability to the Middle East … it’s going to be very difficult to achieve that if you continue to hold that view that you just expressed,” Van Hollen said.
Smotrich, one of the most extremist members of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government, is overseeing the de facto annexation of the West Bank. He has previously called for Israel to carry out an invasion like the Gaza genocide in the West Bank, and in November, ordered preparations for all-out annexation of the Palestinian region in preparation for the Trump administration.
Indeed, earlier on Tuesday, Israel launched a major military raid in Jenin, in the West Bank, labelled by Netanyahu as a “large-scale” incursion into the region just two days after the Gaza ceasefire began. Israeli forces have killed at least nine Palestinians and wounded 35 in the raid, according to the Palestinian Ministry of Health.
As part of the escalated attacks, Israel closed roads across the West Bank and tightened checkpoints in the region, even further restricting Palestinians’ movement in the area. The raid comes amid already escalated Israeli violence by soldiers and settlers in the West Bank.
Elsewhere in the hearing, Stefanik indicated that she would have a hostile relationship toward the UN, with her and many senators repeatedly claiming, without evidence, that the international body has had a bias against Israel amid the genocide.
“How would you describe the attitude of the United Nations as a whole toward Israel?” one senator asked later in the hearing.“I would say it’s antisemitic,” Stefanik said, levying an accusation often used by Zionists against people who criticize Israel’s actions — even as, at one point, Stefanik denied that Elon Musk had performed a Nazi salute that has been widely celebrated by neo-Nazis.
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