South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley, Trump’s nominee for UN ambassador. Photo: Facebook.

The US “must let Israel know we are an ally and will be an ally,” President-elect Donald Trump’s nominee to serve as America’s next UN envoy said at a Senate confirmation hearing on Thursday.

The passage by the UN Security Council last month of an anti-settlement resolution — which was enabled by a US abstention — was a “terrible mistake” and will make an Israeli-Palestinian peace deal “even harder to achieve,” South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

The Obama administration’s decision to abstain from the Security Council vote “not only sent a bad signal to Israel, it told the entire world that we don’t stand with anyone,” Haley said.

Furthermore, the abstention made Israel and America “more vulnerable.”

The Security Council, Haley said, has an “obsession with Israel…so it is up to us to talk about the fact you can’t have boycotts against a country that is just trying to protect its people.”

“There is no good, fair, honest on why they continue to pick on Israel,” she continued.

Haley also declared, “I will not go to New York and abstain when the UN seeks to create an international environment that encourages boycotts of Israel. In fact, I pledge to you this: I will never abstain when the United Nations takes any action that comes in direct conflict with the interests and values of the United States.”

On the question of the potential relocation of the US Embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem — a Trump campaign pledge — Haley said she “absolutely” supported such a move.

Haley expressed backing for a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and noted, “We need to let the two [parties] resolve this themselves.”

In a statement released on Wednesday, Israeli Ambassador to the UN Danny Danon said, “We thank Ambassador-designate Haley, a true friend of Israel, for her unequivocal support and her clear statement regarding the UN’s discrimination against Israel. We look forward to working together with her to undo the damage done by the shameful Security Council resolution, and to lead towards a new era at the UN which includes real reforms that will put an end to the biased obsession with Israel.”