Have you heard of Project Esther, Project 2025's lesser-known relative?

Yahoo

30-04-2025

Last October, before Donald Trump was reelected president, a little-known conservative plan positioning itself as a blueprint for combating antisemitism encouraged the next administration to deport pro-Palestine protestors and withhold public funds from institutions that support the cause.
If it sounds familiar, it's because Trump appears to have followed its recommendations in his first 100 days back in the White House, especially in his blitz against Harvard University and higher education as a whole.
Playing out in the shadow of Project 2025 is Project Esther, a 33-page conservative roadmap purportedly to fight antisemitism, released one year after the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas attacks on Israel.
Read more: How Trump vs. Harvard is a page out of the Project 2025 playbook
It was published by the same conservative policy nonprofit, the Heritage Foundation, that created Project 2025, a 900-plus page document that reenvisions a federal government with expanded presidential power. Trump distanced himself from Project 2025 on the campaign trail, but in his return to the presidency, it appears to be a policy document he's following.
Though Project Esther, named after the biblical Jewish queen, hasn't received nearly as much attention in the public sphere, its impacts are tangible.
Project Esther positions the U.S. pro-Palestinian movement as a 'Hamas support network' that is eroding American colleges and universities by disrupting the education system.
The right-wing initiative seeks to 'dismantle the infrastructure' that sustains pro-Palestinian outcry and organizing.
One of Project Esther's action items suggests that 'foreign Hamas support organization leaders and members,' or Palestine supporters, should voluntarily depart the U.S. or be deported, mirroring what has ultimately transpired with Columbia University student Mahmoud Khali and Tufts University student Rumeysa Ozturk.
While antisemitism did fester on campuses during the height of the Gaza war protests, many higher education leaders believe the administration is using it as a smokescreen to execute on a larger master plan against progressive ideals that has roots long before the Hamas attack on Israel.
Project Esther, they say, put in writing how to do so.
Read more: Harvard task force reports reveal discrimination, hate on campus, president apologizes
'It lays out a blueprint for exactly what's happening around the weaponization of antisemitism, which is what has happened to Harvard,' Jennifer Lundquist, a University of Massachusetts Amherst sociology professor and higher education organizer, said. 'Everything they are being subjected to is under this guise of antisemitism. It's a cudgel and a weapon to curtail civil liberties.'
Harvard University sued the Trump administration on April 21 after it threatened to pull billions in federal funding unless the university agreed to a series of demands ordered in the name of addressing antisemitism. Harvard said it would not comply, accusing the administration of violating its constitutional rights and federal laws and regulations.
Trump has targeted other colleges and universities in Massachusetts for purported antisemitism. Boston University, Tufts University, Emerson College and Wellesley College were all included on a national list of 60 universities the Department of Education released in March, announcing investigations into whether the schools have failed to meet their obligations to Jewish students under Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.
In November 2023, about eight months after the publication of Project 2025, the Heritage Foundation formed the National Task Force to Combat Antisemitism, a group that ultimately became the author of Project Esther, which was released a year later.
'There is no place for antisemitism in our society, and this task force is committed to doing its part to root out this evil,' James Carafano, senior counselor to the president and E.W. Richardson fellow at the Heritage Foundation, said at the time. 'Following the savage attack by Hamas against Israel, the world has witnessed an increasing number of acts of hatred against Jews. We are coming together as a coalition to take action and combat antisemitism.'
The convening of the task force came after Oct. 7, 2023, when militant group Hamas executed an assault on Israel that would ultimately become the worst terrorist attack in Israeli history. What followed was a massive military offensive launched by Israel in Gaza that, to date, has killed more than 50,000 people, according to Palestinian officials.
Initial members of the Heritage Foundation's antisemitism task force included America First Policy Institute, Coalition for Jewish Values, Concerned Women of America, Family Research Council, In Defense of Christians, Independent Women's Forum, Latino Coalition for Israel, National Association of Scholars, Philos Project, Regent University and the Steamboat Institute.
Project Esther was published on Oct. 7, 2024, on the first anniversary of the Hamas attack.
Politico recently reported that people involved with Project Esther are close allies of Trump, and some now have roles in his administration.
'As we were watching our campuses burn, as we were watching Jewish students that were locking themselves inside of their rooms because they were afraid to leave, (Trump) made promises to our community,' Bryan Leib, a member of the task force behind Project Esther, told Politico earlier this month. 'Here we are in April — and promises made and promises kept.'
The authors of Project Esther wrote that the pro-Palestinian movement in the U.S. has motives to 'sow internal dissension and generate enough political pressure' to compel the U.S. government to change its long-standing policy of support for Israel, calling the Middle Eastern country 'one of the most important allies in the world.'
They cite data from the Harvard Kennedy School's Ash Center for Democratic Governance and Innovation showing, as of May 2024, pro-Palestine protest activity had occurred at 525 different colleges, universities, K-12 schools and school district offices since the Oct. 7, 2023, attack.
Read more: Trump admin demands Harvard provide records of international student 'illegal activities'
The plan calls out colleges and universities that allegedly have 'double-digit' numbers of professors who've 'openly advocated or supported' Palestine, including Harvard University.
A strategy of the pro-Palestine movement, Project Esther argues, is to corrupt the U.S. education system.
'(Hamas support organizations) have infiltrated their ideology into the U.S. education system across all levels,' Project Esther reads. 'It is pervasive. The U.S. education system fosters antisemitism under the guise of 'pro-Palestinian,' anti-Israel, anti-Zionist narratives across universities, high schools and elementary schools, often under the umbrella or within the rubric of diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) and similar Marxist ideology."
A section of the document titled 'Necessary Conditions' suggests that foreign-born Palestine supporters should voluntarily depart the U.S. or be deported. It also says that supporting faculty or staff at higher education institutions should lose their credentials, and students should be held in violation of their visa requirements.
Read more: Harvard changes admissions policy, offering foreign students a 'backup plan'
The Trump administration had revoked thousands of student visas before reversing course earlier this month after more than 100 lawsuits were filed in response.
Actions taken in the name of Project Esther, the document advises, should also:
Gather evidence of criminal activity
Position pro-Palestine views shared on social media as a 'liability,' and make platforms 'unwilling' to host them.
Make municipalities unwilling to grant permits for related protests or demonstrations.
Convey overall messaging that Pro-Palestine supporters present a threat to American livelihoods, 'Jewish or otherwise.'
Some of the actions closely mirror the demands the Trump administration made of Harvard. Notably, 'Hamas support organizations' should not be eligible for public funds, Project Esther attests.
The Boston Globe recently interviewed Jewish students and recent graduates at Harvard about how they see antisemitism manifesting on campus. The response was nuanced: While they're concerned about antisemitism, many said they're far more worried about the Trump administration's actions against higher education.
On Tuesday, Harvard released two long-awaited reports on antisemitism and Islamophobia, vowing to take the recommendations seriously and nurture 'viewpoint diversity.' President Alan Garber apologized to the campus community for the institution's shortcomings during the 2023-2024 school year, when it was a hotspot for protests spurred by the war in Gaza.
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Read the original article on MassLive.
Read the original article on MassLive.