The Trump administration’s Non secular Liberties Fee was wracked once more this week over anti-Israel sentiment, as a second affiliated particular person has exited whereas claiming it had been hijacked by a “Zionist political agenda.”
Sameerah Munshi, a Muslim member of a board that advises the fee, introduced late Thursday that she can be stepping down. Her purpose, she stated, was to protest the dismissal of commissioner Carrie Prejean Boller, who was ousted final month after she used a listening to on antisemitism to expound on her objections to Israel and Zionism.
“On this nation, folks of religion are having their free expression stripped away, and even their lives put in danger, due to their deeply held beliefs about Palestine, all for the sake of a Zionist political agenda,” Munshi wrote in a resignation letter she posted to Substack. “The elimination of a Catholic commissioner for expressing dissenting views grounded in her religion is the precise affront to free expression and non secular liberty that I spoke out in opposition to.”
Munshi posted her resignation to X simply earlier than 10 p.m. Thursday, hours after an attacker drove a automotive right into a Michigan synagogue whereas a preschool was in session. She didn’t point out the incident in her letter, which she stated as a substitute was timed to Prejean Boller’s formal ousting by Trump earlier that day.
The Council on American-Islamic Relations praised each Munshi and Prejean Boller on Friday for his or her “braveness.”
“Ms. Prejean Boller and Ms. Munshi fulfilled the fee’s acknowledged function by opposing all types of anti-religious bigotry and standing up for each individual’s proper to precise their spiritual beliefs, together with opposition to Israel’s genocide in Gaza,” the council stated in an announcement. “The fee is now clearly meant to guard Israel from criticism, to not defend spiritual freedom for the American folks.”
Munshi is a current Brown College graduate and onetime director of the Muslim group Coalition of Advantage. She was embraced by the Christian proper after publicly opposing a change in a Maryland public college system’s coverage permitting dad and mom to decide their kids out of curriculum, together with LGBTQ materials, that went in opposition to their spiritual beliefs. The coverage Munshi protested was ultimately taken to the U.S. Supreme Court docket, which dominated in favor of oldsters who had challenged the college.
Munshi’s biography on the fee’s web site was nonetheless energetic as of Friday. It states, “Sameerah has courageously spoken out in opposition to forcing kids to study radical gender ideology in faculties.”
Munshi had been outspoken for weeks about her assist of Prejean Boller, with whom she was ideologically aligned on Israel, after Prejean Boller’s remarks through the antisemitism listening to induced a firestorm.
Donald Trump and Carrie Prejean Boller attend a press convention at Trump Tower on Might 12, 2009 in New York Metropolis. (George Napolitano/FilmMagic)
Like Prejean Boller, Munshi can also be a follower of Candace Owens, the right-wing pundit who has embraced quite a few antisemitic conspiracy theories. She praised Owens’ dialog with Jewish pro-Palestinian tutorial Norman Finkelstein final fall, writing on Instagram that Owens had a “uncommon willingness to confront uncomfortable truths head-on,” and instructed future company for Owens to interview.
Munshi has been aligned with Prejean Boller for the reason that fall, when Prejean Boller approached her after Munshi testified to the fee in favor of public faculties’ rights to protest Israel. “Carrie has been great. We’ve turn into fairly good pals at this level, and we’ve shared so much,” Munshi instructed Center East Eye.
On her Instagram earlier than final month’s antisemitism listening to, Munshi wrote that the 2 of them had pushed the fee to ask “honest witnesses” to the listening to that might have mirrored their very own views, together with Finkelstein, left-wing Israeli tutorial Miko Peled, anti-Zionist rabbi Yaakov Shapiro, and David Spevak, an American Jewish activist and descendant of Holocaust survivors who has in contrast Jewish summer season camps and cultural applications to the Hitler Youth.
After Prejean Boller’s efficiency on the listening to, throughout which she instructed Jewish witnesses that her Catholic religion compelled her to oppose Israel and Zionism, Munshi defended her from blowback from Jewish teams and the Trump administration. The Wall Avenue Journal wrote in an editorial that the 2 “left collectively and seemed to be texting amid the listening to,” showing to allege collusion in Prejean Boller’s line of assault.
“Christian views and beliefs had been focused as ‘antisemitic’ for merely expressing issues concerning the ongoing conflation between criticism of the state of Israel and anti-Jewish animus,” Munshi wrote on her Substack in February. “Throughout the listening to, an try was made by a group of ‘Israel First’ actors to redefine antisemitism to incorporate all criticism of Israel, smear many involved residents as bigots, and even gatekeep what counts as ‘actual’ Judaism by confining it to Israel-first Jews.”
Trump established the Non secular Liberties Fee final yr, with the order’s textual content stating that it might “supply numerous views on how the Federal Authorities can defend spiritual liberty for all Individuals.” Munshi was considered one of three Muslims on the fee and the one Muslim lady; all three had been chosen to serve in an advisory capability, quite than as full commissioners.
In her resignation letter Munshi additionally stated she was resigning in protest of the Trump administration’s battle with Iran, which she wrote was being completed “on the urging of a genocidal state.”
“I assist America over Israel, and sadly meaning I can’t assist Trump or this authorities,” Munshi continued.
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