Washington, DC – When the Heritage Foundation, an eminent right-wing reflection group in the United States, published a game book last year to destroy the solidarity movement of Palestine, it did not draw a lot of attention.
But more than eight months later, the political document – known as Project Esther – is now faced with an in -depth examination of activists and the media, in part because President Donald Trump seems to follow his plan.
The authors of Project Esther presented their report as a set of recommendations to combat anti -Semitism, but criticisms say that the ultimate objective of the document is to “poison” critical groups in Israel by painting them as Hamas Associates.
Project Esther was created in response to growing demonstrations against American support for the War of Israel against Gaza, which experts and group defense groups have described as a genocide.
So what is Project Esther and how is it applied to activists? Here is an overview of the document and its current implications for the United States.
What is the heritage foundation?
Heritage Foundation is a conservative reflection group influencing Washington, DC, whose mission declared is to “formulate and promote public policies according to the principles of free enterprise, limited government, individual freedom, traditional American values and a strong national defense”.
However, criticism argues that the Esther project calls on the government’s interference to limit individual freedoms, including the rights of freedom of expression and association when it comes to opposing Israeli government policies.
According to a New York Times report published earlier this month, the project is supervised by Victoria Coates, vice-president of the Heritage Foundation who was deputy national security advisor during Trump’s first term.
The Heritage Foundation is also at the origin of the 2025 project, which criticism describes as an authoritarian game book for the second presidency Trump.
Before last year’s elections, the Democrats repeatedly invoked the 2025 project to criticize Trump, but the candidate of the time moved away from the document.
What is Project Esther aims to achieve?
The initiative indicates that it aims to “dismantle the infrastructure that supports” what it calls the “Hamas support network” within 24 months.
What is the “Hamas support network”, according to Project Esther?
The authors claim that groups engaged in advocacy for Palestinian rights are members of Hamas Network support (HSN).
They define the supposed network as “people and organizations which are both directly and indirectly involved in the promotion of the cause of Hamas in violation of American values and to the detriment of American citizens and American national security interests”.
In short, the document alleges that the “pro-Palestinian movement” is “indeed a terrorist support network”.
Does the “Hamas support network” exist?
No.
There is not such a network in the United States, which has severe laws against the provision of material support for groups designated as “terrorist organizations”, including Hamas.
BETH MILLER – The political director of Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP), a group that the Heritage Foundation appoints as part of the network – called the allegations of Project Esther “Ordlandish”.
“He exposes the length of the lies and the absurdity they are going through to try to demolish the Palestinian rights movement,” Miller told Tel Aviv Tribune.
The Heritage Foundation did not respond to the request for comments from Tel Aviv Tribune.
How does Project Esther plan to remove the Palestinian rights movement?
The document provides for a campaign with multiple facets against supporters of Palestinian rights, targeting them legally, politically and financially.
The initiative describes 19 objectives which it describes as “desired effects”.
They include the refusal of supporters of Palestinian rights who are not American citizens access to universities, the guarantee that social media platforms do not allow “anti -Semitic content” and have evidence of “criminal activity” by defenders of Palestine to the executive branch.
He also calls for refusing to grant organized protest permits in support of Palestinian rights.
Project Esther suggests that the donors of Israel should conduct “legal and private research” on pro-Palestine groups to “discover criminal acts” and undermine their credibility.
“We have to lower the law,” he reads, referring to the tactics of the use of dispute to put pressure on opponents.
Does the Trump administration turn the recommendations into politics?
This seems to be the case.
“The phase in which we currently find ourselves begin to execute some of the efforts in terms of legislative, legal and financial penalties for what we consider as material support for terrorism,” Coates at the New York Times told.
Trump’s repression against university demonstrations seems to line up with what Project Esther is trying to achieve.
For example, the American administration revoked the visa of foreign students criticizing Israel. This echoes a proposal in Project Esther, who calls for identifying students “in violation of student visa requirements”.
The Heritage Foundation also largely cites the Canary mission – a website dedicated to pro -Palestine Doxxing students and in difficulty – in its footnote notes for Project Esther. The Trump administration is also suspected of relying on the website, as well as other pro-Israeli groups, to identify students for expulsion.
In addition, Project Esther knows the programs “Middle East / North Africa or Islamic Studies” as having teachers “hostile to Israel”.
The Trump administration has put pressure on elite universities to reorganize university departments, including the Middle East study programs, which he considers biased in favor of the Palestinians. The University of Columbia, for example, appointed a provost to examine its programs at the request of Trump, “from the department” immediately with the Middle East “.
The White House did not respond to the request for comments from Tel Aviv Tribune.
What groups Project Esther Name as targets?
The initiative explicitly identifies several Arab, Muslim and progressive Jewish organizations as well as groups of students as part of the Hamas support network.
The initiative says that “the network revolves around” American Muslims for Palestine (AMP), a group for the defense of education and civic.
Osama Abuirshaid, Executive Director of AMP, said that the Esther project points to the group’s finger because it has “Muslim” in his name, playing on Islamophobic fanaticism.
“American Muslims for Palestine are an easy target. Given Islamophobic trends, it is easy to assume the guilt of American Muslims, Palestinians. It is a name that sticks,” Abuirshaid told Tel Aviv Tribune.
He added that the group is also a target because it is effective and has a “solid district”.
“If they can paralyze and lower the amplifier, it will have a scary effect in the movement. They therefore think that if they can bring us down, other organizations will cease to work on solidarity in Palestine,” said AbuiShaid.
Why focus on universities?
Tariq Kenney-Shawa, an American scholarship holder in Al-Shabaka, a Palestinian reflection group, said that the Esther project targets universities because Israel is bleeding young people in the United States.
“This is why there is such an overwhelming focus on universities and university campuses,” he told Tel Aviv Tribune The taking podcast.
Kenney-Shawa explained that support for the War of Israel against Gaza tended to descend into American demography. But on university campuses, the change is more pronounced.
“Although this change is absolutely through the political spectrum, it is obviously much more acute in the left and among young Americans,” said Kenney-Shawa.
A recent PEW Research Center survey showed that 53% of American respondents had negative opinions on Israel, a number that reached 71% among Democrats under 50.
Is Project Esther working?
The defenders claim that, in the immediate future, the repression of the solidarity movement of Palestine threatens the security and well-being of activists, in particular foreign students. But he also triggered a backlash.
“The extreme nature of these attacks has also embarked on people to continue to express themselves with challenge against these attacks,” said Miller de JVP.
“And he has in fact, in many cases, awakened people – who were not careful before – the hypocrisy which existed so long in the desire to silence and censor the militants of Palestinian rights.”
Earlier in May, several right -wing legislators and Trump Allies came out in the opposition of a bill which aimed to extend the boycott restrictions of Israel, citing problems of freedom of expression.
Abuirhaid echoes Miller’s comments. He acknowledged that media attacks, arrests and prosecution against defenders and students of students were “distracting” from the mission to focus on Palestine.
However, he added: “I’m going to be clear: it energizes us to continue this fight.”
