What Is Project Esther? Plan To Tackle Pro-Palestinian Protests in US
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Months before President Donald Trump returned to office, the creators of Project 2025 unveiled a blueprint to shut down pro-Palestinian activism in the United States.
The conservative Heritage Foundation's Project Esther sought to equate actions such as participating in pro-Palestinian protests on college campuses with providing material support for terrorism so that the demonstrators could be deported, face prison time, civil penalties or other serious consequences, The New York Times reported.
Newsweek has contacted the Heritage Foundation and the White House for comment via email.
Pro-Palestinian protesters participate in a Nakba Day rally and march on May 15, 2025, in Brooklyn, New York City.
Pro-Palestinian protesters participate in a Nakba Day rally and march on May 15, 2025, in Brooklyn, New York City.Why It Matters
The Trump administration appears to have adopted some of the suggestions in Project Esther, including casting pro-Palestinian demonstrators as supporters of Hamas.
The administration has withheld federal money from universities, arguing that they allowed antisemitism to go unchecked at campus protests last year, and revoked the visas of international students accused of participating in pro-Palestinian demonstrations.
Pro-Palestinian protests have flared again on college campuses this year, pushing for the same goal that drove demonstrations last year: an end to university ties with Israel or companies that provides weapons or support to Israel amid its ongoing war in Gaza.
What To Know
About 1,200 people were killed in the Hamas-led attack on October 7, 2023, and about 250 people were taken captive.
In the 19 months since, Israel has killed more than 53,000 people in Gaza, the Associated Press reported, citing Palestinian health officials.
As anger over Israel's actions in Gaza mounted, the Heritage Foundation unveiled a policy paper called Project Esther on the one-year anniversary of the attack.
The document said the "virulently anti-Israel, anti-Zionist and anti-American groups comprising the pro-Palestinian movement" are pro-Hamas and "effectively a terrorist support network."
The document said the project's aim was to "dismantle the pro-Hamas support network's infrastructure across America, including but not limited to propaganda, organizations, funds, access, communications, platforms, and people."
It includes calls to revoke the visas of international students and faculty who have supported pro-Palestinian causes, deport pro-Palestinian activists, defund organizations that help them and discredit the broader pro-Palestinian movement by casting any critics of Israel as supporters of Hamas.
However, many pro-Palestinian groups and activists, some of them Jewish, say they support Palestinian rights, not Hamas or terrorism.
What Is The Heritage Foundation?
The Heritage Foundation is a conservative think tank in Washington, D.C.,
What Is Project 2025?
Project 2025 is a nearly 1,000-page blueprint for Trump's second term from the Heritage Foundation. It outlined a proposed massive overhaul of the federal government that was drafted by longtime allies of Trump and former Trump administration officials. On the campaign trail, Trump denied it was a blueprint for his second term, but his policies since returning to office reflect many of the positions put forth in Project 2025.
What People Are Saying
Victoria Coates, a former deputy national security adviser to Trump and the Heritage vice president who oversees Project Esther, told The New York Times that there are clear parallels between Project Esther and recent actions taken by the Trump administration against pro-Palestinian demonstrators. "The phase we're in now is starting to execute some of the lines of effort in terms of legislative, legal and financial penalties for what we consider to be material support for terrorism."
Stefanie Fox, the executive director of Jewish Voice for Peace, said on Democracy Now! that Project Esther has "absolutely nothing to do with Jewish safety, and it is intended solely to destroy the Palestinian liberation movement using tools that can then be used against all communities and movements and democracy itself.
"We can see clearly that Project Esther sets out a path for the Trump administration to sharpen those legal regimes that will best advance MAGA goals. So, for example, the targeting of international students like Mahmoud Khalil for abduction and deportation because of their political views is a terrifying attempt to expand already-unjust counterterrorism and immigration laws against [the] Palestinian rights movement, immigrant communities and civil liberties writ large."
Harrison Fields, the White House's principal deputy press secretary, told Axios in March: "It's always been a core principle of President Trump, his administration and the Republican Party to combat antisemitism, stand with Israel and revoke visas of foreign nationals who support terrorism and jihadism."
What Happens Next
According to The New York Times, Heritage Action, the think tank's grassroots advocacy arm, is working to help states pass legislation that penalizes those who support boycotts against Israel.
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