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Right-Wing Catholic Off Trump Religion Panel After Israel-Gaza Remarks at Antisemitism Event
"I will not be bullied," said Carrie Prejean Boller. "I have the religious freedom to refuse support for a government that is bombing civilians and starving families in Gaza, and that does not make me an antisemite."
Feb 11, 2026
A conservative Catholic was expelled from President Donald Trump's so-called Religious Liberty Commission this week over remarks at a hearing on antisemitism in which she pushed back against those who conflate criticism of Israel and its genocidal war on Gaza with hatred of Jewish people.
Religious Liberty Commission Chair Dan Patrick, who is also Texas' Republican lieutenant governor, announced Wednesday that Carrie Prejean Boller had been ousted from the panel, writing on X that "no member... has the right to hijack a hearing for their own personal and political agenda on any issue."
"This is clearly, without question, what happened Monday in our hearing on antisemitism in America," he claimed. "This was my decision."
Patrick added that Trump "respects all faiths"—even though at least 13 of the commission's remaining 15 members are Christian, only one is Jewish, and none are Muslim, Hindu, Buddhist, or other religions to which millions of Americans adhere. A coalition of faith groups this week filed a federal lawsuit over what one critic described as the commission's rejection of "our nation’s religious diversity and prioritizing one narrow set of conservative ‘Judeo-Christian’ beliefs."
Noting that Israeli forces have killed "tens of thousands of civilians in Gaza," Prejean Boller asked panel participant and University of California Los Angeles law student Yitzchok Frankel, who is Jewish, "In a country built on religious liberty and the First Amendment, do you believe someone can stand firmly against antisemitism... and at the same time, condemn the mass killing of Palestinians in Gaza, or reject political Zionism, or not support the political state of Israel?"
"Or do you believe that speaking out about what many Americans view as genocide in Gaza should be treated as antisemitic?" added Prejean Boller, who also took aim at the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) Working Definition of Antisemitism, which has been widely condemned for conflating criticism of Israel with anti-Jewish bigotry.
Frankel replied "yes" to the assertion that anti-Zionism is antisemitic.
Prejean Boller also came under fire for wearing pins of US and Palestinian flags during Monday's hearing.
"I wore an American flag pin next to a Palestinian flag as a moral statement of solidarity with civilians who are being bombed, displaced, and deliberately starved in Gaza," Prejean Boller said Tuesday on X in response to calls for her resignation from the commission.
"I did this after watching many participants ignore, minimize, or outright deny what is plainly visible: a campaign of mass killing and starvation of a trapped population," she continued. "Silence in the face of that is not religious liberty, it is moral complicity. My Christian faith calls on me to stand for those who are suffering [and] in need."
"Forcing people to affirm Zionism as a condition of participation is not only wrong, it is directly contrary to religious freedom, especially on a body created to protect conscience," Prejean Boller stressed. "As a Catholic, I have both a constitutional right and a God-given freedom of religion and conscience not to endorse a political ideology or a government that is carrying out mass civilian killing and starvation."
Zionism is the movement for a homeland for the Jewish people in Palestine—their ancestral birthplace—under the belief that God gave them the land. It has also been criticized as a settler-colonial and racist ideology, as in order to secure a Jewish homeland, Zionists have engaged in ethnic cleansing, occupation, invasions, and genocide against Palestinian Arabs.
Prejean Boller was Miss California in 2009 and Miss USA runner-up that same year. She launched her career as a Christian activist during the latter pageant after she answered a question about same-sex marriage by saying she opposed it. Then-businessman Trump owned most of Miss USA at the time and publicly supported Prejean Boller, saying "it wasn't a bad answer."
Since then, Prejean Boller has been known for her anti-LGBTQ+ statements and for paying parents and children for going without masks during the Covid-19 pandemic.
The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) commended Prejean Boller Wednesday "for using her position to oppose conflating criticism of Israel with antisemitism and encourage solidarity between Muslims, Christians, and Jews," calling her "one of a growing number of Americans, including political conservatives, who recognize that corrupted politicians have been trying to silence and smear Americans critical of the Israeli government under the guise of countering antisemitism."
"We also condemn Texas Lt. Gov. Patrick’s baseless and predictable decision to remove her from the commission for refusing to conflate antisemitism with criticism of the Israel apartheid government," CAIR added.
In her statement Tuesday, Prejean Boller said, "I will not be bullied."
"I have the religious freedom to refuse support for a government that is bombing civilians and starving families in Gaza, and that does not make me an antisemite," she insisted. "It makes me a pro-life Catholic and a free American who will not surrender religious liberty to political pressure."
"Zionist supremacy has no place on an American religious liberty commission," Prejean Boller added.
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Billionaire Adelson Vows $250 Million to Fund 'Four More Years' of Trump
"I will give," said the Republican mega-donor with a smile.
Dec 17, 2025
Billionaire Miram Adelson on Tuesday night suggested the legal obstacles for President Donald Trump to serve an additional term in office after 2028 are not insurmountable as the far-right Republican megadonor vowed another $250 million to bolster a run that experts say would be unlawful and unconstitutional on its face.
Adelson, a hardline Zionist who, along with her now deceased husband, Sheldon Adelson, has given hundreds of millions to US lawmakers who back a strong relationship between the US and Israeli governments, was sharing the podium with Trump during a Hanukkah candlelighting event at the White House when she made the remarks.
With a reference to Harvard law professor Alan Dershowitz, Adelson said they had discussed "the legal thing of four more years"—something Trump has repeatedly gestured toward and many of his backers have called for—and told Trump, “So, we can do it, think about it.”
A chant in the crowd then broke out for "For four more years!" as Adelson whispered something in Trump's ear.
“She said, ‘Think about it, I’ll give you another $250 million,’” Trump then said into the microphone. "I will give," Adelson said with a smile.
Watch the exchange:
Adelson: I met Alan Dershowitz.. he said.. four more years. We can do it. Think about it.
Crowd: *chants four more years*
Trump: She said think about it, I’ll give you another 250 million pic.twitter.com/eOc7Zazyns
— Acyn (@Acyn) December 17, 2025
For Trump's 2024 presidential campaign alone, Adelson gave at least $100 million to support the Republican candidate with Super PAC she established, according to federal filings.
In his remarks on Tuesday, Trump credited Adelson with providing him $250 million overall—"directly and indirectly"—during his 2024 bid.
"When someone can you $250 million, I think that we should give her the opportunity to say hello," Trump said, when introducing her. "And Miriam, make it quick, because $250 million is not what it used to be."
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Top Dem Speechwriter Says Young Jews' Empathy for Gaza Shows Holocaust Education Has Backfired
"Holocaust education is too successful, it made the kids anti-holocaust while Israel is trying to do one," quipped one prominent critic.
Nov 19, 2025
A speechwriter for prominent Democrats including former President Barack Obama and presidential candidates Hillary Clinton and John Kerry faced widespread outrage this week after video emerged of her blaming Holocaust education for young Jews' empathy for Palestinians in Gaza and revulsion at Israel's genocidal war there.
Earlier this week, Sarah Hurwitz—who was also a senior speechwriter for former First Lady Michelle Obama and other Democrats—spoke at the opening plenary of this year's Jewish Federations of North America general assembly in Washington, DC. The event featured speakers including Free Press staff writer Olivia Reingold, who implicitly attempted to absolve Israel from blame for the Gaza famine by noting that 12 of the at least 463 Palestinians who starved to death had preexisting health conditions.
"There have been huge shifts in America on how people think about Jews and Israel, and I think that is especially true of young people," Hurwitz said during the panel discussion, noting the rise of social media as a primary source of news and information.
"Today, we have social media," she added "Its algorithms are shaped by billions of people worldwide who don't really love Jews."
Hurwitz continued:
It's also this increasingly post-literate media. Less and less text, more and more videos, so you have TikTok just smashing our young peoples' brains all day long with video of carnage in Gaza. And this is why so many of us can't have a sane conversation with younger Jews, because anything we try to say to them, they are hearing it through this wall of carnage. So I wanna give data and information and facts and arguments and they are just seeing in their minds carnage, and I sound obscene.
"I think, unfortunately, the very smart... bet we made on Holocaust education to serve as antisemitism education, in this new media environment, I think that is beginning to break down a little bit, because Holocaust education is absolutely essential," Hurwitz asserted.
"But I think it may be confusing some of our young people about antisemitism, because they learn about big, strong Nazis hurting weak, emaciated Jews," she added, "...so when on TikTok all day long they see powerful Israelis hurting weak, skinny Palestinians, it's not surprising that they think, 'Oh, I know, the lesson of the Holocaust is you fight Israel, you fight the big powerful people hurting the weak people.'"
Reaction to Hurwitz' remarks ranged from incredulity to anger.
"I am almost literally speechless," American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee nation legal director Jenin Younes said on X. "She's decrying the fact that kids' takeaway from Holocaust education has been that we must protect helpless people from powerful people killing them. The real lesson from the Holocaust, it seems, is that Israel must be able to commit genocide if it wants to."
Argentinian economist Maia Mindel also took to X, writing that it is "extremely grim that a substantial number of very influential people seem to think that the lesson from the Holocaust isn't 'mass murder of civilians based on their ancestry so your nation can take their land is wrong' but rather, 'Fuck you, got mine.'"
Jewish Currents editor-at-large Peter Beinart wrote on X that "the level of condescension" in Hurwitz's commentary "is quite remarkable."
Writer Bryce Greene lamented: "We're at the point where Israels supporters are now claiming that the Holocaust was not bad because it was the powerful attacking the weak."
"No, that would be the wrong lesson from the Holocaust," he added. "According to them it was only bad because Jews were the victims. Real sick shit."
Independent journalist Ahmed Eldin said on X that "Zionism is so morally bankrupt it sees empathy as a design flaw."
Eldin wrote Wednesday on his Substack that "Hurwitz didn’t slip up—she said the quiet part out loud and exposed the Zionist project for exactly what it is."
"She even admitted that, amidst the carnage, she sounds 'obscene,'" he noted. "That admission, said almost accidentally, is the closest thing to honesty her worldview will allow: The problem is not the violence of Zionism itself, but the visibility of it. Zionism, as she inadvertently revealed, depends not on morality but on opacity. The ideology requires not less brutality, but simply fewer witnesses."
Moving on to Holocaust education, Eldin wrote:
According to Hurwitz, Holocaust curricula have “backfired” because they taught young people that “you fight the big powerful people hurting the weak people.” In her telling, this universal ethical principle—this most basic moral intuition—is the problem.
The implication is staggering: the “correct” lesson of the Holocaust, she seems to believe, is not “never again for anyone,” but “never question Israel.” What outrages her is not the suffering of Palestinians but the possibility that young people are recognizing it as suffering.
"A world that is witnessing and seeing Palestinians as human is a world in which Zionism cannot function," Eldin concluded. "A world that sees the violence cannot romanticize the ideology producing it. Once people witness the truth, the mythology cannot be resuscitated and the propaganda cannot be rehabilitated."
"Israel may be able to flatten Gaza’s buildings, but it cannot rebuild the ignorance it once relied upon," he added. "The truth is already out, the narrative collapse well underway, the mask irretrievably gone."
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