Project Esther is a new proposal from Heritage that claims to lay out a plan to combat antisemitism in the United States. In fact, it aims to destroy the Palestine solidarity movement as a first step in a crusade to, ultimately, restrict activism against American policy of all sorts, foreign and domestic.
The key strategy Project Esther proposes is to identify the Palestine solidarity movement as the “Hamas Support Network,” and organizations in the movement as “Hamas Support Organizations.”
The second aim is to attack the ability of organizations to function by casting them as supporters of terrorism, and specifically of an organization that has been designated by the U.S. government as a terrorist organization. This would make it impossible for those organizations to legally raise money or complete legal business transactions.
Throughout the document, in addition to erasing the distinction between anti-Zionism and antisemitism, the writers attempt to paint the movement as a threat not only to Israeli apartheid—which, of course, it is—but also to democracy in the United States.
The conspiracy that Project Esther tries to paint also reaches into the United States government. The document names Rashida Tlaib, Ilhan Omar, Cori Bush, Jamaal Bowman, Summer Lee, Ayana Pressley, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Greg Casar, Andre Carson, Hank Johnson, Jan Schakowsky, Mark Pocan, Pramila Jayapal, Bernie Sanders, Chris Van Hollen, and Elizabeth Warren as being part of or supporting the “Hamas Caucus.”
Speaking with Zeteo, Professor Joseph Howley of Columbia University, an anti-Zionist Jew, said, “[F]ar-right Zionist hegemonists have wanted for years to make being an anti-Zionist or non-Zionist or Israel-critical Jew illegal. This year they’ve succeeded in getting universities to make it policy …. Now they want to make it federal law.”
Jewish Voice for Peace’s executive director Stefanie Fox told Zeteo, ““It has never been clearer that defending Palestinian solidarity organizing is one of the most critical frontlines of democracy defense today… this McCarthyite initiative is led by Christian Nationalists, who directly threaten the safety and freedom of all marginalized people, including BIPOC peoples, religious minorities, queer people and women.”