Biden’s Pick For US Ambassador To The UN Pledges To Combat Anti-Israel Bias

Linda Thomas-Greenfield, who has been picked by the Biden administration to represent the US at the United Nations, stated in her address on Wednesday that she would strive to combat the anti-Israel bias throughout her term in the esteemed position.

“I look forward to standing with Israel, standing against the unfair targeting of Israel, the relentless resolutions proposed against Israel unfairly,” said Linda Thomas-Greenfield at her nomination hearing in front of the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee. “I look forward to working with Israel to develop a strategy with them for engaging with countries that would appreciate having Israel’s expertise to support their development efforts.”

Source: Yahoo News

Against the backdrop of seemingly friendly relations with Palestine and the notion of a 2-state set-up which the Biden administration would much rather focus on, the diplomat expressed hope that those countries that have normalized ties with Israel under the Abraham Accords—the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Sudan, and Morocco—“will also see some opportunities to be more cooperative at the U.N. and more supportive of Israel’s presence there.”

Moving on with her address, Thomas-Greenfield also touched upon the contentious issue of Iran, wherein she said that the Biden administration will strive towards preventing the country from gaining a nuclear weapon. “We’ve seen a tremendous amount of backtracking since the United States withdrew from the 2015 Iran nuclear deal,” she said.

Source: NPR

Thomas-Greenfield said America would work with its allies and other members of the U.N. Security Council to “ensure that we hold Iran accountable.”

The leading diplomat also expressed opposition to the BDS movement against Israel, saying that it is “unacceptable” and “verges on anti-Semitic,” and “it’s important that they not be allowed to have a voice at the U.N., and I intend to work against that.”

She also spoke about a plan to rejoin the U.N. Human Rights Council and the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, or UNESCO. The United States withdrew from the UNHRC in June 2018 after then-U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley cited the world body’s bias against Israel as one of the primary factors for the withdrawal.