What is Project Esther, the Heritage Foundation's conspiracy to crush pro-Palestinian speech in US?

Project Esther is a 30-page plan issued in October 2024 by the far-right American think tank Heritage Foundation for what they say aims "to combat antisemitism" by labelling critics of Israel as "effectively a terrorist support network."

Critics say the plan not only doesn't address antisemitism, but instead promotes it.

More broadly, critics say Project Esther's goal is to crush pro-Palestinian protests in the United States "within two years" through false propaganda and by infringing on people's First Amendment rights. 

Who is behind Project Esther?

The Heritage Foundation, the group behind Project 2025, a blueprint for a Christian national agenda for the current Trump administration, is a far-right think tank based in Washington, DC. It was founded in 1973 with the intention of leading the US government in a more conservative direction, which it did under President Ronald Reagan throughout most of the 1980s.

This continued throughout subsequent administrations, including under Democrats, advocating against universal healthcare, women's access to abortion, and immigrants' rights. It is increasingly active on college campuses and at Republican events. It is considered one of the world's most influential think tanks.

The Heritage Foundation created Project Esther, named after a Jewish figure from the Hebrew Bible who saved Jews from genocide in ancient Persia. It is an important reference that elicits the persecution of the Jews, which is also used in Protestant Bibles.

According to The New York Times, Project Esther was authored by two people.

The first is Robert Greenway, a Heritage national security director. Greenway is also a former senior National Security Council official, and previously ran the Abraham Accords Peace Institute, a nonprofit founded by Jared Kushner that sought to normalise relations between Israel and other Middle Eastern countries.

The second is Daniel Flesch, a policy analyst at the foundation who has written about his experience as an American Jew who served in the Israeli Defence Forces.

What are the key points of Project Esther?

The project declares several allegations, without citing sources to support them. One is the concept of a "Hamas Support Network" (or HSN, as it's called throughout the document). The idea, according to the project, is that the pro-Palestinian student protests sprang up so quickly that there must have been an organised network of Hamas support.

The project mentions several student groups, including Jewish Voice for Peace, that it claims have benefited from the alleged 'HSN.' 

Project Esther's architects also claim that there is a "Hamas Caucus" in the US Congress. Representative Jan Schakowsky of Illinois, who has been openly critical of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, is among those they claim are members of this non-existent caucus.

Among the main criticisms of Project Esther is that it primarily targets what it sees as antisemitism that comes from the left, but remains silent on antisemitism from the right wing of the political spectrum.

This calls into question the motives of the project, given that multiple studies in recent years, which have confirmed a rise in antisemitism, have shown that the vast majority of antisemitism comes from the right-wing.

Who supports Project Esther?

Ironically, the vast majority of support for Project Esther comes from fundamentalist Christians. In fact, the Jewish publication The Forward notes in an article published in November that they were unable to garner Jewish support, possibly because of the report's unflattering depiction of Jews as complacent to antisemitism.

An open letter from former members of Jewish groups raised concerns over the project's potential to weaken higher education and free speech.

Indeed, the report itself acknowledges that they need more support from the US Jewish community.

"In line with building a coalition, we must energise the American Jewish community at home. No doubt this will start with volunteers joining the coalition built in general support of Project Esther, but it must take on a life of its own to shift both the narrative and the mindset prevalent among significant portions of the American Jewish community," reads the Project Esther report.

"Only by actively engaging resistant sectors of this community from within will we be able to harness the power, strength, and intellect of these amazing Americans to counter the HSN threat both to their community and to America generally," it continues.

The report repeatedly makes reference to bias and threats against Jews, Israelis and Americans, as though to put the three groups all in one category. Possibly this was done to broaden the project's appeal. However, the result is the overriding of its stated mission, which is to specifically combat antisemitism, a historic term for prejudice or discrimination against Jews.

What has Project Esther accomplished so far?

According to a recent analysis of Project Esther by the New York Times, it aims to depict "a broad range of critics of Israel as 'effectively a terrorist support network,' so that they could be deported, defunded, sued, fired, expelled, ostracised and otherwise excluded from what it considered 'open society.'"

So far, either directly or indirectly, these tactics generally appear to be working. Some of the country's main universities and media outlets often portray pro-Palestinian protesters as supporters of Hamas without evidence. These portrayals have exposed protesters to doxxing, allegations of criminal intent and harm to their overall safety and well-being.

In the November report by The Forward, the magazine accuses the Heritage Foundation's report of using anti-democratic scare tactics to achieve their goals. They say the group's Esther Project "calls for using tools including anti-terrorism and anti-racketeering criminal prosecution; deportations; public firings; removal of tax-exempt status; blocking of funding; and campaigns to sow discord within movements to 'disrupt and degrade' these organisations."

Is there resistance against Project Esther?

Project Esther and the far-right depiction of antisemitism have been seeing growing resistance in recent months, particularly since the inauguration of US President Donald Trump, when his megadonor Elon Musk gave an apparent Nazi salute.

Since the outbreak of Israel's war on Gaza, Trump has been taunting Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, one of the most senior US Jewish politicians, in one instance calling him a proud member of Hamas and multiple times calling him a Palestinian as a slur, following a vote he made against one of many "antisemitism" resolutions put forth in recent months. Many have argued that questioning Schumer’s loyalty to his faith, much like the contents of Project Esther, is itself antisemitic.

These extreme examples are leading to growing dissent, not just from the far left of the political spectrum, but also from moderates, who are increasingly seeing connections between right-wing allegations of antisemitism and the erosion of democracy. This growing consensus among leftists and moderates can be seen at regular anti-Trump protests, where many demonstrators are not completely aligned on all issues, but are coming together in defence of maintaining their ability to protest in a democratic society.

"Resistance will demand that we defend the groups that are singled out for political prosecution in Project Esther, including Students for Justice in Palestine and Jewish Voice for Peace," writes The Forward in their November piece on Project Esther.

"The American Jewish community, and all those concerned about democracy, must defend the fundamental rights of free speech and dissent. In order to effectively resist authoritarianism, our political alignments must be broad enough to include those with whom we might disagree about other things, and principled enough to understand who our bigger opponents are," The Forward concludes.