The Trump administration has been arresting and detaining protesters who participated in pro-Palestinian demonstrations. They’ve justified the motion by calling these protesters — with out proof — “Hamas supporters.”
In so doing, the administration seems to be following Undertaking Esther, a plan from the Heritage Basis with the acknowledged goal of cracking down on antisemitism. Revealed in October, it’s seen as an addendum to Heritage’s better-known Undertaking 2025.
Undertaking Esther — which seems to have been written by evangelical Christians with nearly no Jewish enter — asserts that the nation is dealing with a group of “virulently anti-Israel, anti-Zionist, and anti-American teams” that it calls the “Hamas Assist Community.” It names organizations just like the left-leaning nonprofit Tides Basis and Jewish Voice for Peace among the many perpetrators.
Undertaking Esther requires the administration to rebrand pro-Palestinian supporters as Hamas supporters. It suggests public firings of pro-Palestinian professors and the deportation of scholar visa and green-card holders who’ve spoken critically of Israel, and advocates utilizing anti-racketeering legal guidelines to interrupt up pro-Palestinian teams.
To be very clear, there has been an increase in antisemitic incidents within the U.S. for the reason that outset of the struggle in Gaza. However Undertaking Esther means that any protest — any critique of Israel — is probably going antisemitic and must be handled accordingly.
Whereas some Jewish teams have come out in assist of Undertaking Esther’s proposals, others have rejected it as a Christian nationalist challenge.
Dove Kent is amongst those that reject Undertaking Esther. Kent is the US senior director of the Diaspora Alliance, a nonprofit that goals to fight antisemitism and its distortion. Kent joined Noel King on At this time, Defined to debate her response to the plan — and why she thinks it should finally stoke antisemitism, not mitigate it.
Beneath is an excerpt of the dialog, edited for size and readability. There’s rather more within the full podcast, so take heed to At this time, Defined wherever you get podcasts, together with Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, and Spotify.
One factor that we’ve discovered during the last 18 months or so is that there are completely different definitions of antisemitism. How do you and the Diaspora Alliance outline it?
Certain. What I’ll say is that there’s really not numerous distinction in how most Jews or students outline the fundamentals of antisemitism. [From Diaspora Alliance: “The term antisemitism describes hostility, discrimination, prejudice, and violence toward Jews as Jews.”] What folks disagree on is how and when that’s utilized to Israel. And so numerous the fights over the definitions are literally proxy fights for folks’s politics about Israel and Palestine.
Okay, you nailed it there, the actually essential factor: There’s a spectrum of beliefs even throughout the Jewish neighborhood about how questioning Israel pertains to antisemitism. The place do you personally fall on this spectrum?
I believe that whether or not speech or conduct about Zionism in Israel is antisemitic must be primarily based on the requirements for speech or conduct that apply to antisemitic habits normally. However as a basic rule, criticism of Zionism and Israel, opposition to Israel’s insurance policies, nonviolent political motion directed on the state of Israel or its insurance policies will not be inherently antisemitic.
All proper, let’s get into the subject at hand, which is Undertaking Esther. Do you keep in mind once you first heard about Undertaking Esther?
Sure. It was printed on the one-year anniversary of October 7. So it was printed on October 7, 2024, and instantly, my colleagues and I have been very alarmed by this plan.
When Undertaking Esther was rolled out, most Jewish establishments that you may think is perhaps aligned with this had nothing to say as a result of they’d by no means heard of it. There are mainly no Jews concerned on this plan to supposedly dismantle antisemitism: The Heritage Basis is the core creator and different allied organizations [contributed], lots of them Christian nationalist organizations.
All through the plan, they misuse Jewish textual content, they check with Jewish teams with the mistaken phrases, they name Jewish positions on antisemitism “inexplicable.” In an interview with a member of the Heritage Basis, they stated one thing alongside the traces of, “If Jews have been doing their job countering antisemitism, we wouldn’t be within the place we’re in now.” So the plan actually derides Jews all through it.
Undertaking Esther is called after a determine, Queen Esther. What’s Queen Esther’s story?
The Guide of Esther is a textual content the Jews learn yearly on the vacation of Purim. Within the story, Queen Esther makes an intervention with the king. [As a result], a mortal decree that the king’s adviser had made in opposition to the Jewish folks is as an alternative turned in opposition to the adviser. So the victims turn into the heroes. However throughout the story can also be the concept that these traces will not be so binary and that what is nice and what’s evil could change.
The story of Esther has been repurposed by far-right Christian political actions. There’s a phrase from the textual content that Esther was “put right into a place of energy for such a time as this.” And that phrase has been utilized by extremist teams like Mothers for Liberty, protesters on the US Capitol on January 6, the Esther Name to the Mall that introduced lots of of evangelical ladies to DC to protest reproductive rights.
Queen Esther is invoked for this concept of religious warfare that have to be waged in opposition to evil on this planet, this battle in opposition to demonic forces that Christian nationalists consider they’re in. So it is sensible that the Heritage Basis would invoke this Christian nationalist body for a sort of warfare in opposition to liberal civil society.
Your response on studying [Project Esther] is what, precisely? Do you suppose what they’re suggesting will work, would work?
No. We can not terrorize or incarcerate or deport or fireplace or infiltrate our approach out of antisemitism. That’s simply not the way it works. And we actually can’t dismantle constitutional protections as a method to fight antisemitism after we know that Jewish security within the U.S. relies on constitutional democracy and minority protections.
So deporting worldwide college students doesn’t fight antisemitism. Public firings don’t fight antisemitism. Withholding funds from analysis establishments doesn’t fight antisemitism, arresting activists doesn’t fight antisemitism. And there’s no metropolis or nation on this planet the place these sorts of actions have been utilized which have seen any improve in Jewish security or lower in antisemitic concepts or behaviors.
We’ve seen the Trump administration come out and, for instance, insist that Mahmoud Khalil is a supporter of Hamas. When requested for proof, the administration hasn’t been in a position to present something. Now, Undertaking Esther names a “Hamas Assist Community” as the basis of numerous antisemitism. This isn’t an actual group. So what’s the purpose of claiming Mahmoud Khalil and folks like him are a part of the “Hamas Assist Community”?
This phrase, “Hamas Assist Community”, was made up by the Heritage Basis and its allies as a smear for any group that helps Palestinian rights and humanity. That is a part of an effort to fully conflate assist for Palestinian rights and humanity with assist for Hamas.
Undertaking Esther’s scope extends properly past these teams to focus on a large spectrum of liberal donors, foundations, and organizations that additionally don’t in any approach assist Hamas. The plan even names anti-capitalist teams, claiming that they align with America’s abroad enemies. All of this simply units the stage for guilt by affiliation and exposes the true intent of Undertaking Esther, which is dismantling civil society establishments similar to universities and nonprofit organizations as a method to eliminate any home opposition to the administration, all underneath the guise of defending Jews.
There’s one other essential be aware right here. What they’re doing with the time period “Hamas Assist Community” is attempting to create within the minds of Individuals a complete class of people who find themselves related to terrorism and violence and subsequently don’t deserve the protections of US regulation, together with immigration regulation. So when the administration begins to detain and deport folks by unlawful means as they’re at the moment doing, they’re banking that Individuals received’t protest. It’s straight related to what they’re doing in sending immigrants to jail in El Salvador underneath the false premise that they’re all related to a violent gang.
One different factor I’ll say is that Undertaking Esther has actually nothing to say concerning the firehose of antisemitism and conspiracy theories popping out of the far proper on this nation, that are the main drivers of antisemitic violence within the US in response to any and each severe examine. So the only real goal of that is pro-Palestinian teams and past who they accuse of being not simply antisemitics but additionally anti-American.
What does all of this imply for Jews in the US?
Nicely, the Trump administration’s preliminary assaults that we’re seeing because the very clear rollout of Undertaking Esther don’t simply not work in opposition to antisemitism. They actively stoke antisemitism by making Jews the face of authoritarian crackdowns.
Individuals are shedding their jobs. They’re shedding funding for vital scientific analysis. They’re shedding their freedoms, supposedly in our identify. This feeds into antisemitic conspiracy theories about shadowy, outsized Jewish energy and makes Jews the one in charge for the longtime Christian nationalist purpose of dismantling increased schooling. So the speedy and long-term impression of Undertaking Esther, sarcastically, is a rise in antisemitism throughout the nation, on prime of the unimaginable hurt being performed to worldwide college students, educators, researchers, and all of us who profit from free speech and educational inquiry.
That is an efficient technique by the best as a result of they’re executing the insurance policies they wish to anyway, however they’re doing so within the identify of combating antisemitism. The erosion of these rights makes all communities much less secure, together with Jews, and any work to carve out exceptions, whoever they aim or declare to guard, undermines the common safety that really makes us all secure.
I’ll additionally say that it’s abundantly clear that the Trump administration is just not really engaged on behalf of Jewish security. Trump’s right-hand man, Elon Musk, is working to dismantle the federal authorities whereas repopularizing the Nazi salute, working a platform rife with antisemitic conspiracies, and inspiring German politicians to desert their post-Holocaust dedication to maintaining far-right extremists out of energy. The administration is full of appointees who’ve lengthy histories of spreading antisemitic conspiracy theories. They’ve defunded the Workplace of Civil Rights for universities, which is the very physique that’s tasked with reviewing and implementing guidelines in opposition to antisemitism and different types of discrimination on campus. It’s additionally clear that nobody on this administration cares about bigotry or discrimination of any variety, except it’s an invented and inverted anti-white or anti-Christian discrimination. And American Jews can see that this administration is just not really combating for our security.
