Samira Munshi, the only Muslim woman serving on US President Donald Trump’s religious freedom committee, has announced her resignation, saying she is stepping down “in protest”.“Munshi shared the announcement on X, where the post quickly gained popularity. In the message, she explained that she was working as a presidential appointee and advisor to the White House Religious Freedom Commission.He said his resignation was motivated by “the injustice and oppression of this administration at home and abroad.” The post also included a Substack essay where he explained in detail the reasons behind his resignation.In her essay, Munshi said she was stepping down “in protest” against two developments which she described as extremely disturbing.The first was the removal of Commissioner Carrie Prejean-Bolar, which she said was due to her beliefs about Palestine.The second was what he called the government’s illegal war against Iran, which he argued was “carried out without explicit constitutional or congressional authorization.”Munshi also alleged that some members of the commission “mocked my faith and treated my community with hostility.”Despite this, he said that he had initially accepted the appointment in 2025 in the hope of remaining “the voice of reason”.Munshi claimed that the rights of American Muslims are being ‘sidelined’ and their existence is being met with hateful rhetoric aimed at ‘advancing a particular political agenda’. He also revealed that his family, both Christian and Muslim, came to America ‘fleeing religious discrimination and persecution’, which shaped his commitment to religious freedom and his belief in America as a safe haven for ‘people of all faiths’. However, he found that the commission was motivated by ulterior motives. He claimed that people of faith with deeply held beliefs about Palestine were being stripped of their free expression and their lives were being put in danger ‘for the sake’ of the Zionist political agenda. Here, he cited the example of the removal of Prejean Boller, saying that the commissioner’s faith-based stance was an affront to free expression and religious freedom. He also condemned the unlawful killing of children and civilians in Iran by the Trump administration ‘at the insistence of a genocidal state’. He said, “Not only is the American public against this aggression, but our tax dollars are funding the same violence we oppose, against both innocent Palestinians and now Iranians.” Finally, she boldly said that she was not resigning because of ‘fear or intimidation’ from anyone associated with the Commission, the government or any interest group. However, he attributed this to the injustice of the commission members. “I support America over Israel, and unfortunately that means I can’t support Trump or this government.”Munshi supported Prejean-Bolar, who revealed on Thursday that the President, who appoints all commissioners, had fired her for her stance against the genocide carried out by Israel in Gaza and her response to those who call her anti-Semitic for her anti-Zionist views. His dismissal followed a viral clip of his heated exchange at the commission’s February meeting, where he insisted that Catholicism and Zionism are not compatible. Additionally, Munshi, who was the director of the Institute for Religious Freedom, shared with Middle East Eye that she began feeling alienated from the program as early as September 2025, when she testified to the commission that it was a constitutionally protected right to prevent Israel’s killing of Palestinians in schools. “After I testified about Palestine, I stopped receiving witness lists before each hearing, so I don’t know whether it was a coincidence, whether it was organizational, just a miscommunication on their part, or whether they really held it against me because of the testimony I gave,” she described. 72,136 Palestinians were killed in Israel’s war on Gaza. According to Reuters, as of March 9, Iranian state media reported the death toll in the Iran versus US–Israel war to be 1,270. While the Americans are opposing the Israel-Hamas war from 2023, they are completely against the war with Iran. According to a CNN poll conducted by SRSS, nearly 6 in 10 Americans disapprove of the US decision to take military action in Iran.