Project Esther: Christian Nationalists Weaponize Anti-Semitism

The evil spawn of Project 2025 is Project Esther (PE), a plan to criminalize pro-Palestine activism in the US. It targets a network of US protest groups called the “Hamas Support Network.” They are purportedly “antisemitic, anti-Israel, and anti-American” and attack “American values and…national security interests.”

Those are “heady” words taking us back to the McCarthy era.  This report is the Red Channels of the 21st century MAGA era.  But this is worse than the Red Scare: though many were harmed by HUAC and Senate hearings, relatively few went to prison.  Under the Heritage plan entire organizations and their membership could be targeted for criminal prosecution.  Individuals would be pressured to testify against each other in return for lenient treatment.  Funds would be confiscated.  Ties with Palestine and activism fighting against genocide would be severed.

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The winners would be MAGA Republicans and the Judeo-fascist state.  This plan would dismantle one of the most effective movements against US Middle East policy. It would send its leaders to prison.  It would turn the organizations and their mission into criminal enterprises akin to the Mafia.

The report was issued on 10/7, conveniently tying Hamas’ attack on Israel to the pro-Palestine solidarity movement: if one is a terrorist, then the other is too. The name invokes Esther, the Biblical queen who ostensibly saved her people from a genocide plotted by enemies of the Jews of Persia.  Following which, Esther encouraged the king to commit genocide against her enemies, just as Israel is committing in Gaza.

Project Esther will not save Jews.  It will not address real anti-Semitism; the kind that led to the Tree of Life slaughter or the US Holocaust museum attack. It will promote a witch hunt targeting students, faculty, Jews and POC who support Palestine. It will trample on rights guaranteed in the US constitution.

Project Esther’s ‘vast anti-Semitic conspiracy’

The plan suggests a nefarious left-wing conspiracy to destroy America’s institutions waged with the support of foreign enemies exploiting US’ open society to “seize control of higher education, the media and the federal government.”  No ginned up conspiracy to destroy a country is complete without “foreign adversaries.”  For McCarthy and the days of the Red Scare, it was Communists infiltrating government agencies like the State Department and the military.  For the PE’s authors they are Muslims, threatening a white Christian way of life. Muslims who also happen to be Israel’s greatest enemies.

One of the prime bogeymen is Hamas. Thus, PE gins up something it calls HSN (Hamas Support Network) whose members are “decidedly antisemitic, anti-Israel, and anti-American” and “involved in furthering Hamas’s cause in contravention of American values and to the detriment of American citizens and America’s national security interests.”

Not to be left behind, is that other bogeyman, Hezbollah:

“Iran has their military proxies like Hezbollah, and Iran has their campus proxies like these groups, like Students for Justice in Palestine, Jewish Voice for Peace.” -Jonathan Greenblatt, Anti-Defamation League pic.twitter.com/JOMBeDZCSu

— Waleed Shahid 🪬 (@_waleedshahid) April 25, 2024

There are echoes of ADL CEO Jonathan Greenblatt’s smears of JVP and SJP in the Project Esther passage above.  His Iranophobia reeks of rhetoric about “proxies” sowing terror throughout the region and world.  That provocative word “proxy” thus links Iran to legitimate groups espousing protected speech under the First Amendment. It  discredits the protest movement and transforms it into a violent criminal conspiracy:

To fulfill their goals, the authors envision using financial and academic audits, “name and shame” campaigns, and “lawfare” – including utilizing the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA) and, astonishingly, the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO), as well as counterterrorism, hate speech, and immigration laws.

PE complements the authoritarian program of Project 2025 and Trump’s sweeping authoritarian vision, taking us beyond McCarthyism into police state territory. Here the “paranoia strikes deep.” It suggests that this anti-American conspiracy is supported by nefarious “activists” and major foundations like the Rockefeller Fund (!), “dedicated to destroying capitalism and democracy.” The offending organizations, it declares “benefit from the support and training of America’s overseas enemies.”  We know who the enemies are. But where (Tehran?  Beirut?) and how they train them is a mystery Project Esther hasn’t seemed to work out.

Ironically, the document wasn’t written by Jews, though it claims a task force including Jewish groups advised the effort.  However, it betrays a decided ambivalence toward the very Jews it claims to protect, accusing them of “complacency” in the fight against anti-Semitism:

“While a strong, capable element has mustered financial, political and moral support both for the Jewish state of Israel and for efforts to counter academic intolerance in some select institutions…significant components of the community remain disengaged.

“Some may be blind and deaf to the manifestation of HSN-inspired antisemitism at home. Some may be in such disbelief that they cannot even acknowledge the threat. More likely, many simply do not know what to do and are waiting for leadership to guide them.”

It’s worth noting that among that “strong element which has mustered financial support” is pro-Israel billionaire, Paul Singer, He funds Philos Project, one of the key groups behind both Project Esther.  It’s instructive that one of the most powerful financiers of pro-Israel causes has aligned himself with white Christian nationalists.

PE’s author, James Carafano, criticized the “inadequate” Jewish response to purported anti-Semitism, claiming Jewish organizations were not “doing their job and being effective.”  So anti-Semitism is, therefore, their fault.

The tone is reminiscent of Trump’s grievance against American Jews for showing him insufficient gratitude as “the most pro-Israel president in history.” To which he adds, we are betraying Israel by not supporting him.  Carafano strikes a similar note, declaring that there would be no anti-Semitism problem if Jewish groups followed his lead and were more militant in attacking the pro-Palestinian “enemy within.”

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PE suggests this left-wing anti-Semitic conspiracy intends to destroy America’s most sacred institutions corrupting our youth, insinuating woke content into our media, subverting our government and taking advantage of the “complacency” of American Jewish institutions.

It claims Hamas operates a vast US network to promote its diabolical program. PE describes a new diabolical phenomenon, HSO, the Hamas Support Organization. These are sinister groups like American Muslims for Palestine (AMP) and its companion groups: Jewish Voice for Peace and Students for Justice in Palestine. They “recruit members, spread propaganda, and conduct rallies with the support of a coalition of leftist, progressive organizations” These include George Soros’ Open Society, the Tides Foundation and the aforementioned Rockefeller Fund.

The strategy behind these smears is to link a US movement that opposes Israeli genocide, to Middle Eastern resistance groups which have been designated as terrorist organizations by the US Treasury Department.  Associating legitimate political activism with terrorism facilities the Trump administration assault against the NGOs and the movement. It prevents pro-Palestinian groups from exercising their constitutionally-protected rights as citizens. It is an assault on democracy, whose goal is to destroy the network’s ability to influence US Middle East policy or relations with Israel.

The CIA has participated in this paranoia fest, fueling Iranophobia with unsupported claims that the country is financing unspecified US-based protest groups:

Iranian government actors have sought to opportunistically take advantage of ongoing protests regarding the war in Gaza, using a playbook we’ve seen other actors use over the years. We have observed actors tied to Iran’s government posing as activists online, seeking to encourage protests, and even providing financial support to protesters.

In reality, there are no ties financial, programmatic or political between any of these groups and Iran, Hezbollah or Hamas.  The only connection is that all of them oppose Israeli genocide and Occupation.  All of them defend the inalienable right of the Palestinian people to resist its oppressor and demand political and national rights.  Doing so is not illegal, nor should it ever be. Rather, it is wholly American to fight for justice at home or abroad.

Weaponized anti-Semitism: good for Trump, good for Israel

The Project weaponizes anti-Semitism as a cudgel against the pro-Palestine left, and ties it to a sympathetic Trump administration. All this offers the opportunity for what it calls a “public-private partnership” once Trump takes charge.  The partnership is a marriage of convenience between a MAGA government and privatized, deputized anti-Semite hunters peering inside every university classroom and behind every “liberal-elite” media news desk.

That specter of anti-Semitism transforms criticism of Israel into Jew-hatred.  As I’ve written here many times, this conflates Israel and Judaism, Israelis and Jews; a nation with a religion. Anti-Semitism is hatred of Jews; not Israelis and not Israel.

The same trickery is exploited to turn “from the river to the sea, Palestine will be free” into a call for the elimination of Israel.  However, freedom is not destruction. It is not elimination of anyone or anything. It is not violent (unless the oppressor’s boot-heel forces you to resist).  It is bestowing a right upon a people.  A right denied for 75 years by an ugly, illegal system of apartheid and oppression.

Even taking the slogan literally, there are Palestinians living under Occupation and Palestinian citizens of Israel.  Wanting all of them to be free in Israel and Palestine is not a negation, but an affirmation.  Unfortunately, paranoia is a potent brew that clouds judgment.

The [purported] anti-Zionism-anti-Semitism nexus

Anti-Zionism is also under attack as an alleged cloak hiding a goal of eliminating Israel. PE suggests:

…Anti-Zionist Jew-haters” are “a threat not just to American Jewry, but to all Americans.  Their ideology and actions directly challenge and attempt to undermine the American values that are fundamental to our way of life, our nation’s success, and our future.”

In reality, anti-Zionism does not seek to eliminate anything except injustice, racism, and apartheid, which are baked into Zionism and its national manifestation, Israel.  If Israel becomes a state of all its citizens, bestowing full, equal rights on Jews, Muslim and Christian citizens, it will remain Israel; but transformed into a secular democratic state.

If Israel refuses, it will becomes ever more ostracized throughout the world.  Real justice may be a long time coming, but such a state cannot long endure, to paraphrase Lincoln. PE is ignorant of human history: nations and empires come and go. They last decades or centuries. But unless they are based on principles of fairness, justice and tolerance, they will be riven by war and beset by instability, leading to their ultimate demise.