U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Nikki Haley has announced her intention to resign at the end of the year.
Appearing Tuesday morning in the Oval Office alongside U.S. President Donald Trump, Haley said her accomplishments included combating anti-Israel bias in the United Nations.
According to media reports, her announcement has shocked White House staffers.
She told reporters she does not plan to run for president in 2020 and will support Trump’s reelection campaign.
Trump said he hopes to name a successor in two to three weeks.
Trump’s nominee to succeed Haley will require confirmation by the U.S. Senate.
Haley was beloved in the pro-Israel community, including at the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), which she addressed during its annual policy conference this year.
“We appreciate the strong leadership of @nikkihaley @USUN,” AIPAC tweeted, following Haley’s announcement. “Thank you for consistently standing up for America’s interest and our democratic ally Israel.”
In response to Haley’s announcement, American Jewish Committee also tweeted, “We will miss her fearless voice.”
In a phone interview, David Makovsky, a senior fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, said Haley’s rhetoric about the U.N. holding Israel to a double standard, coupled with her star quality, will make her difficult to replace in the eyes of Israel’s supporters.
“When someone like that leaves it clearly is something that is going to be a blow,” he said.
He said that her “articulate yet plain spoken [style]…became her signature approach, and I think she was consistent in the way she delivered that message and that drew many followers and she will be missed.”
Prior to her appointment to the U.N on Jan. 27, 2017, Haley, 46, served as the governor of South Carolina.
In a joint statement, Rabbi Marvin Hier, dean and founder of the Simon Wiesenthal Center (SWC), and Rabbi Abraham Cooper, associate dean of SWC, said, “We will miss this passionate and fearless foe of tyrants and friend of Israel.”
“As an accredited NGO at the United Nations we witnessed first-hand as Nikki Haley showed time and again – in word and deed – to be a passionate, fearless, and unflinching foe of tyrants like Iran’s Ayatollah and terrorists like Hamas and Hezbollah,” they said.
What Haley will do next is anybody’s guess, Makovsky said.
“My sense is she wants to earn some money in the private sector,” he said.
Updated 12:20 p.m. on Oct. 9.
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