Pro-Trump Project 2025 Has Sinister Plan to Crush Palestine Activism

If Donald Trump wins, the conservatives behind the Project 2025 manifesto have a plan to go after pro-Palestine activists.

The Heritage Foundation, a right-wing think tank, has crafted the “Project Esther” plan to go after what it calls the “Hamas Support Network,” Drop Site News reports. To these conservatives, organizations such as American Muslims for Palestine, Jewish Voice for Peace, and National Students for Justice in Palestine are part of the so-called network. Even more mainstream groups are also singled out, including the Open Society Foundation, the Tides Foundation, and the Rockefeller Brothers Fund.

The plan claims that these organizations and pro-Palestine advocates receive “indispensable support of a vast network of activists and funders with a much more ambitious, insidious goal—the destruction of capitalism and democracy.” The plan to crush the pro-Palestine movement includes using counterterrorism and sanctions laws to overrule constitutional freedoms, including the First Amendment.

The plans would include deporting international students and others on foreign visas if they take part in pro-Palestinian activism, as well as charging people under the Foreign Agents Registration Act, which requires people representing foreign interests to disclose their funds and activities. The plan also suggests using RICO statutes, typically used against organized crime, to help prosecute leading pro-Palestine organizations.

Project Esther outlines a series of steps: going after “propaganda” in schools, pursuing intimidation tactics to stop students from joining demonstrations, and restricting communication, coordination, and meetings between pro-Palestinian groups. The plan envisions a point at which most of the Jewish community and the general public perceive pro-Palestine groups “as a threat to their safety.” The whole process would be successful “within 12 to 24 months,” according to the plan.

The disturbing part of this plan is that many of its tactics are not new: They are simply escalations of what is already happening. The RICO act was used last year against people protesting against “Cop City,” a police training facility in Georgia, and the Biden administration declared a Palestinian prisoner solidarity movement a terrorist group earlier this month.

The plan counts many conservative groups, including In Defense of Christians, the Family Research Council, the Philos Project, the America First Policy Institute, Concerned Women of America, and Regent University, among its supporters. In recent weeks, several Jewish groups have distanced themselves from the project due to its conservative ties.

Democrats have been broadcasting Project 2025’s disturbing plans throughout the 2024 election campaign. Project Esther takes those plans further to target First Amendment rights to squash a protest movement in the name of fighting antisemitism, while promoting prejudice against Muslims and Arab Americans. Democrats should oppose Project Esther just as much as Project 2025.