Adelson has said that her heart is in Israel and that she got "stuck" in America after meeting her husband. Adelson is a financial supporter of the
Zionist Organization of America, the
Yad Vashem Holocaust museum and memorial in Jerusalem, and various U.S. groups that fundraise for the
Israeli military. Adelson backed Trump's January 2021 pardon of
Aviem Sella, an Israeli spy who had fled the US in 1987 after being indicted on counts of espionage against the US government. Adelson has been an influential voice in calling for deals with
Hamas that facilitate the release of
Israeli hostages taken during the
October 7 attacks. Following the attack, she published an op-ed in
Forbes Israel and
Israel Hayom, where she stated that "radical Muslim and
Black Lives Matter activists, ultra-
progressives and career agitators...should be dead to us". Adelson and her husband cut off contact with
Benjamin Netanyahu and his wife,
Sara, around 2019. Adelson has interpersonal strife with Sara, whom she believes has undue influence over the political decisions of Benjamin and regards as being psychologically ill. Adelson testified at
Benjamin Netanyahu's 2024 corruption trial that Sara Netanyahu exerted pressure on her to provide her with gifts and favorable media coverage.
Involvement in Birthright Israel Adelson is a prominent supporter of
Birthright Israel, a program that brings young Jews to Israel for free. With her husband she was the program's largest donor; the couple had given more than $250 million to Birthright Israel by 2015.
Support for the annexation of the West Bank Adelson donated $25 million towards
Ariel University's medical school which opened in the West Bank in 2019. She donated $6 million to
HaShomer HaChadash, a volunteer militia that puts volunteer security guards and agricultural workers on settler farms in the West Bank via the Adelson Foundations between 2019 and 2022. In 2020, Adelson was named as a defendant alongside Netanyahu, Trump,
AIPAC, and others in a lawsuit filed in the Washington, D.C., district court alleging "the denationalization and dehumanization of the Palestinian people" and "the installation of an apartheid regime in the
OPT". Her husband was not included in the lawsuit. The case was dismissed in 2021.
President of the Maccabee Task Force Adelson and her husband were early donors to the
Maccabee Task Force (MTF), an organization aimed at combatting the
Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement on college campuses and spreading pro-Israel sentiment among young people. In 2015 they donated $2.28 million to the MTF, and their support from 2013 to 2013 totaled more than $70 million. Adelson is the organization's president, but this is not listed on the organization's website. The
Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft hypothesized a connection between the organization and the crack down on participants in pro-Palestinian demonstrations on college campuses in
Trump's second term. == Ownership of Dallas Mavericks ==