Representative Elise Stefanik’s performance at a Senate hearing this week seems to have secured her nomination to be America’s next ambassador at the United Nations. Once arriving there, she has vowed that some Turtle Bay’s agencies will be defunded — including one that is reportedly helping Hamas hide hostages in Gaza. 

A strong supporter of Israel, Ms. Stefanik made clear she intends to increase the presence of American officials at what she terms the “antisemitic” UN, and to cut the budgets of Turtle Bay bodies seen as not serving American interests. Of those, she specifically named the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestinians, which Hamas is using to hold Israeli hostages, according to a Tuesday report.

Since being nominated by President Trump as UN ambassador, Ms. Stefanik has made a point of posting on her X account a count of the days Israeli hostages are held in Gaza captivity. Now, the three female hostages who were released on Sunday are telling debriefers that they have at times been held in Unrwa-run camps that are built to shelter Gaza civilians, according to Israel’s Channel 13 television. 

“This is a serious allegation, and we call on those who have information on this to share it formally with Unrwa or other parts of the UN, so that we can investigate it further,” a spokesman for Secretary-General Guterres, Farhan Haq, tells the Sun. “It is unclear at this stage whether the shelters were among those that had been abandoned during the fighting.”

Yet, similar allegations of Unrwa’s cozy relations with Hamas and other terrorist organizations are routinely dismissed by officials. A Geneva-based NGO, UN Watch, recently issued a report that meticulously detailed such relations. Prior to making the findings public, UN Watch’s director, Hillel Neuer, asked to meet Unrwa’s chief, Philippe Lazarrini, to discuss the findings.

Mr. Lazarrini declined. “I don’t want to engage” with UN Watch, Mr. Lazrrini told the Sun. “For what? For which purpose? The purpose is not to address issues. The purpose is to amplify the negative campaign” against Unrwa, he added.

Refusing to even discuss serious allegations is one reason Congress, as well as legislators in other contributing countries, cut monetary and other support for the UN’s Palestinian aid agency.

Ms. Stefanik, one of the architects of the congressional motion, told senators that Mr. Trump supports defunding the agency. “It was Hamas’s leader Sinwar carrying an Unrwa teacher passport,” she said, adding that an Unrwa office lied just above the Hamas data center, and that there were even “individuals within Unrwa who participated in the terrorist attack against Israel on October 7.”

Other UN and American agencies can replace Unrwa in delivering aid to needy Palestinians, Ms. Stafanik said, noting that more anti-Israel resolutions are enacted at the UN annually than against all other countries combined. “The UN is an antisemitic organization,” she said, and “the world needs to hear about the importance of standing with Israel.”

Ms. Stefanik is “a staunch ally of Israel’s and of the Jewish people,” Israel’s UN ambassador, Danny Danon, tells the Sun, adding that she “leads with moral clarity and a strong commitment to justice and truth.” He said he is looking forward to working with her at the UN, “where the demonization and distortions about Israel are out of control.” 

Once the youngest woman to be elected to the House of Representatives, Ms. Stefanik, an upstate New York native, has become one of the most active members of Congress. She served on a large number of top committees, and rose to be the no. 3 Republican in the House. During Tuesday’s hearings, senators of both parties commended her attention to detail and mastery of UN-related issues.

America and its allies need to have much more representation within the UN’s echelons, where now Communist China and other American foes dominate, she said, adding that in UN documents “we have seen China trying to insert their specific language, which is counter to our values.” Therefore, she said, “we need to have very strong Mandarin expertise and really keep a close eye on that.”  

While senators were mostly sympathetic, some went on the attack against Ms. Stefanik as well. Senator Murphy of Connecticut demanded she renounce what he said was a “Nazi salute” by Elon Musk. Senator Van Hollen of Delaware wanted to know if she agreed with the most right wing Israeli ministers who “believe that Israel has a biblical right to the West Bank.”

Ms. Stefanik’s terse answer — “yes” — was greeted with social media outrage. Yet, Judea and Samaria are known to Israelis as the biblical birthplace of Judaism. Many take umbrage at exclusively associating that belief with politicians that some of them consider extremist.  

“Senator,” an Israeli writer, Haviv Rettig Gur, wrote in response to Mr. Van Hollen, “a great many Israelis have been willing over the years to divide this land with the Palestinians — but not because they didn’t believe it was part of their historic homeland.”