In early December 2024, a researcher published a comment about the “Project Esther” and its declared goals, primarily silencing voices supporting the Palestinian cause in the United States, especially university students.
The student movement for Palestine has once again made headlines after the arrest of Mahmoud Khalil, a student and one of the leaders of pro-Palestinian protests at Columbia University, by the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. It seems that the Trump administration is fulfilling its promise to pursue foreign students participating in the student movement for Palestine, implementing the provisions of the mentioned project. Trump has indeed issued several executive orders as part of his McCarthyist attack on universities.
The project’s vision is to organize and direct all willing and capable partners in a coordinated effort that utilizes all available resources to combat the scourge of anti-Semitism in the United States. The project’s leaders expressed hope that this effort would represent an opportunity for partnership between the public and private sectors when an administration willing to do so reaches the White House. And indeed, such an administration has come to the White House and more. Within weeks of its arrival, its president personally began implementing the “Project Esther” in its entirety, making it one of the urgent issues and boasting about its implementation, mockingly. Key members of the Trump administration, including his Secretary of State, Marco Rubio, have engaged in this war. This means there is a good chance that the content of the 33-page project document will become federal policy during the presidency of Donald Trump.
Since the start of the Al-Aqsa Flood on October 7, 2023, and the subsequent genocidal war on the Palestinian people, the West, led by the United States, has rushed to mobilize its military forces to support this war. At the same time, it has utilized all its soft power through media institutions, social media platforms, sports and academic institutions, to justify Israeli criminality and terrorize supporters of the Palestinian people’s right to liberation, silencing them and accusing them of the ready-made charge of “anti-Semitism,” despite their diverse intellectual and social backgrounds. University students have been at the forefront of those showing solidarity with the Palestinian people and denouncing the crimes of the occupation. After their unprecedented and brilliant success in tarnishing Israel’s image in the world, exposing its narrative about its war on Gaza, and debunking the founding myths of the Zionist movement, the regimes in the West and supporters of Israel, especially in the United States where the Zionist lobby is the loudest, have become agitated. We have seen the phoenix of McCarthyism rise from its ashes in a more extreme form, as supporters of Israel have decided to unite their efforts to confront the “Haman of the age,” referring to the pro-Palestinian movement in the United States, just as “Esther” did in ancient Persia, and crucify it on the wood prepared for the crucifixion of “Mordecai.” Thus, they have established a theoretical framework for their work, calling it “Project Esther: A National Strategy to Combat Anti-Semitism. National Task Force to Combat Anti-Semitism,” as if “Project 2025,” the 900-page repressive plan for the United States prepared by dozens of political staffers associated with President Donald Trump, was not enough.
If the McCarthyist era reminds us, a mere whiff of sympathy for the Palestinians is enough to label an organization or individual as part of what is called the Hamas network. The document suggests that any group seeking to “disrupt the fabric of American society” can be linked to this imaginary network, making it vulnerable to destruction. On this basis, the war against anti-Israel sentiments will also be a war against enemies of the “Heritage” Foundation.
What are Trump’s real goals behind his claim of fighting anti-Semitism? To what extent will his administration, backed by far-right institutions, primarily the Heritage Foundation seeking to establish “Trumpism,” succeed in achieving its goals and silencing every voice supporting the Palestinian cause?
Project for the Establishment of Trumpism
The mentioned foundation has helped shape the policies of Republican presidents for decades and is now focusing on “establishing Trumpism.” The plan to combat anti-Semitism was formulated by an alliance that includes the “America First Policies Institute,” often referred to as the “White House in waiting.” Ironically, the slogan “America First” was favored by some Nazi sympathizers before World War II, whom “Project Esther” condemns.
The project claims that the motivations and historical understanding of groups supporting the Palestinian people come “directly from the pages” of the Communist Manifesto. It does not identify the “Ku Klux Klan” or neo-Nazis as potential targets in its plan, as if anti-Semitism does not exist among the network of white supremacist organizations supporting “MAGA.” The purpose of this association is to suggest that the danger of supporters of the Palestinian cause is like the “Communist threat” that threatened the United States seventy years ago. A fervent campaign was launched against anyone suspected of being a Communist, following Senator Joseph McCarthy’s announcement in February 1950 that he had a list of 205 State Department employees suspected of being Communists. This campaign turned the lives of many of its victims upside down, forcing some to leave the country.
Joseph Howle, a professor at Columbia University who participated in organizing Jewish faculty members against the war and the exploitation of anti-Semitism, said, “The dominant Zionist right-wing wanted to make anti-Zionist Jews, non-Zionist Jews, or critics of Israel outlaws. They succeeded this year in making universities adopt this policy… and now they want to make it federal law.” Howle added that “Project Esther” is more enthusiastic authoritarianism from the American Christian nationalist right, which has become more terrifying due to the thousands of lives it costs abroad and the readiness of many Jewish institutions in this country to sign onto it… It’s a disgrace.”
Americans who raise their voices against U.S. support for the genocide committed by Israel in Palestine face widespread suppression, but “Project Esther” embodies a right-wing endeavor to institutionalize suppression by weaponizing the government, especially one led by Trump, who has unconvincingly tried to distance himself from Project 2025, given the series of relationships connecting him to the project’s authors.
Just as Project 2025 proposes a 100-day timeline to dismantle and rebuild the federal government according to the dictates of the far-right, its appendix, “Project Esther,” envisions eliminating “anti-Israel sentiments” in the United States within just 12 to 24 months. By the end of this period, according to the Heritage Foundation, there will be no more pro-Palestinian demonstrations in the United States, and sympathizers with the cause will be deported, imprisoned, disenfranchised, expelled, or driven underground. The Jewish community in the United States will also be purged of any elements sympathetic to the Palestinian cause.
In implementation of “Project Esther,” U.S. President Donald Trump issued an executive order on January 29, 2025, to combat anti-Semitism, aiming to stop U.S. support for Palestine. A statement released before Trump signed the order quoted him as saying, “To all foreign residents who have joined pro-jihadist protests, we warn you: by 2025, we will find you and deport you. I will also revoke the visas of all students sympathetic to Hamas on campus, which have become more radicalized than ever before.”
According to the news website Axios, the U.S. Department of State has resorted to artificial intelligence to revoke the visas of foreign students “who appear to support Hamas.” Secretary of State Marco Rubio has launched a campaign called “Capture and Revoke” to revoke the visas of these students. This campaign, which aims to review tens of thousands of social media accounts of student visa holders, represents a significant escalation in the U.S. government’s surveillance of the behavior and speech of foreign citizens. It specifically searches for evidence of alleged sympathy with the “terrorism” revealed by Hamas’s attack on Israel on October 7, 2023. Officials are examining internal databases to determine if any visa holders were arrested during the Biden administration and allowed to remain in the country. They are also scrutinizing news reports about anti-Israel protests and lawsuits by Jewish students that highlight foreign citizens allegedly involved in “anti-Semitic” activities without consequences. The State Department is working with the Departments of Justice and Homeland Security in what one senior State Department official described as a “whole-of-government, whole-of-authority approach.”
Although the executive order itself does not directly call for the deportation of students, the idea of suppressing student protesters participating in pro-Palestinian activities was one of the promises of Trump’s 2024 election campaign and has sparked intense debate in the United States. Republicans have widely sought to portray protests against Israel’s war on Gaza as expressions of support for Hamas and called for universities that do not suppress them to be punished.
According to Politico’s White House correspondent Irie Sentner, Republicans have long hated universities, and the anti-war protests have given them a reason to punish them. J.D. Vance, the U.S. Vice President, has described them as “the enemy.” Republicans have long blamed universities for being fertile ground for many cultural war issues of “wokeness,” which they now attack, including diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives and academic frameworks such as critical race theory. The protests that swept universities last spring amid Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza have provided fuel for Republicans to pursue universities.
This approach closely aligns with the right-wing “Project Esther,” which calls for targeting the pro-Palestinian movement. Before becoming Secretary of State, former Senator Marco Rubio urged the revocation of visas for students who protested against Israel due to its retaliatory campaign on Gaza. In a letter to Blinken, Rubio described pro-Palestinian protesters as “Hamas supporters” and urged the federal government to “conduct a comprehensive review and coordinate efforts to revoke the visas of those who supported or adopted Hamas’s terrorist activities.” The executive order calls on federal agencies to identify “all civil and criminal authorities or actions within the jurisdiction of each agency” so they can be used to combat “anti-Semitism on campus.”
The student at Columbia University, Mahmoud Khalil, from Palestine, was the first victim of this policy. Human rights advocates say that Homeland Security officers detained (Mahmoud) at his home in New York City, a university-owned residential building. Khalil was arrested while with his pregnant wife in her eighth month, and the officers threatened to arrest his wife if she did not leave her husband and go to their apartment.
Commenting on this incident, Trump said that the arrest of the Palestinian student, Mahmoud Khalil, who played a prominent role in pro-Palestinian protests at Columbia University in New York, would be followed by other arrests. In a post on the Truth Social platform, he added, “Based on the executive orders I previously signed, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) proudly arrested Mahmoud Khalil, a radical foreign student and Hamas sympathizer on Columbia University’s campus. This is the first of many arrests to come. We know there are more students at Columbia and other universities across the country who have participated in activities supporting terrorism, anti-Semitism, and anti-Americanism, and my administration will not tolerate it. Many of them are not students but paid agitators. We will search for these terrorism sympathizers, arrest them, and deport them from our country, never to return.” He then addressed the Palestinian student: “If you support terrorism, including the killing of innocent men, women, and children, your presence is against our national and international interests, and you are not welcome here. We expect all American colleges and universities to comply with this.” The White House posted a photo of the student Khalil on the social media platform X with the comment “Shalom Mahmoud,” quoting Trump’s threats regarding students who participated in pro-Palestinian protests.
Khalil was transferred to a federal immigrant prison in Louisiana, according to the U.S. detainee database. His transfer came at a time when his lawyers began filing a legal challenge to his arrest procedures in Manhattan’s district court. Even before Khalil’s arrest, the Trump administration announced the cancellation of $400 million in grants and contracts awarded to a group of universities, including Columbia. This will deprive many students from all over the world of continuing their studies at American universities. The General Services Administration justified the Trump administration’s decision to cancel these grants by citing the failure to address the ongoing harassment of Jewish students and protect them.
In another post, the White House account posted a photo of Khalil with the comment “He was arrested,” accusing protesters against the genocidal war against the Palestinians of being connected to the Islamic Resistance Movement Hamas.
According to the website Zeteo, Mahmoud Khalil requested protection from the president of Columbia University the day before his arrest. In an email, he told her, “I couldn’t sleep, fearing that Immigration and Customs Enforcement or someone dangerous would come to my home. I urge you to intervene and provide the necessary protection to prevent further harm.” But the president chose to side with Trump.
Will Trump succeed in imposing his will?
Trump may achieve some success in his fervent pursuit of suppressing voices supporting the Palestinian cause by deporting some foreign students. But he will certainly not be able to achieve what he aspires to. These students are just a small part of a broad and growing base of Americans supporting the Palestinian right. American public opinion has begun to radically change its stance on the Palestinian cause and the Israeli occupation after the Al-Aqsa Flood, especially among university youth, who are the leaders of the future, and this is what terrifies the American right and the Zionist lobby in America and behind them Israel. The Al-Aqsa Flood on October 7 and the subsequent genocidal war on Gaza have swept away most of the achievements of Zionism over 100 years of its invasion of Western minds and hearts. In addition, Trump will find himself facing the American judiciary, which has opposed Mahmoud’s deportation; Judge Jesse Foreman issued a ruling not to deport him “unless ordered by the court.”
Mahmoud’s arrest has sparked a wave of criticism and condemnation, with critics arguing that the mention of deportation in the Federal Register could violate the U.S. Constitution if implemented. Among the critics of the arrest, for example, is the American Civil Liberties Union, which said that Mahmoud’s arrest was “unprecedented, illegal, and contrary to American principles.” Ben Wizner, director of the Speech, Privacy, and Technology Project at the Union, said, “Immigration enforcement based on protected speech is unconstitutional.” He added, “We believe that the executive order is likely to lead to law enforcement abuses and illegal immigration procedures, but we have to see.”
The United Nations condemned the arrest, and the spokesperson for the Secretary-General, António Guterres, emphasized “the importance of safeguarding the right to freedom of expression and the right to peaceful assembly everywhere.” Members of the U.S. Congress and civil society organizations also denounced the arrest of activist Mahmoud, seeing it as a “dangerous precedent and a violation of the freedom of expression guaranteed by the Constitution.” Journalist Emily Tamkin, a Jewish graduate of Columbia University, warned that Donald Trump’s administration’s focus on “anti-Semitism” makes Jews less safe, pointing out in a report published in The New Republic that Trump’s mocking use of anti-Semitism to justify the suppression campaign has put many Jews at risk. Tamkin believes that these developments are not about combating anti-Semitism or even protecting Jews. Rather, they seem to be a mocking ploy by an administration full of people promoting anti-Semitic conspiracies, obsessed with attacking higher education, freedom of expression and assembly, and immigration standards and legal procedures, exploiting Jews, Jewish fear, and anti-Semitism as a pretext to achieve this.
Tamkin said she is not alone in this view, as Sheldon Pollock, the emeritus professor of South Asian studies at Columbia University, wrote to her via email: “Columbia University’s administration has done everything it can to appease the Trump administration, by creating a new large office for institutional equity and new training protocols, among other things… Nothing has worked, and this attack has nothing to do with actual anti-Semitism. The legitimate criticism of Israel’s widespread ethnic cleansing campaign is being used as a pretext to destroy the American university and its fundamental principles of academic freedom and freedom of expression.” In addition, students involved in the movement believe that the suppression faced by the pro-Palestinian movement actually motivates people in the movement to show stronger solidarity with each other, “The accusations actually motivate us to struggle more and fight harder.”
Based on the above, it is clear that U.S. President Donald Trump is using his war on “anti-Semitism” as a pretext to achieve other goals, namely imposing a far-right agenda that believes in white male supremacy and seeks to change the identity of American society. This policy will not turn back the clock and reflects ignorance of the logic of history, and it will not achieve what it seeks. This has led journalist Thomas Friedman to warn that Trump’s policy in his second term will not succeed, and that “a great collapse is underway.”
References
Sam Carliner, “How pro-Palestine student activists are fighting increasing repression”, March 11, 2025. (Accessed: March 16, 2025). https://wagingnonviolence.org/2025/03/pro-palestine-student-activists-a…
Arno Rosenfeld , “The group behind Project 2025 has a new plan to fight antisemitism”, Forward, October 15, 2024. (Accessed: March 12, 2025). https://forward.com/forward-newsletters/antisemitism-notebook/664258/th…
Taryn Fivek, “Project Esther: Next chapter of Project 2025…”. October 18, 2024. https://shorturl.at/2v83q
Marc Caputo, Scoop: State Dept. to use AI to revoke visas of foreign students who appear “pro-Hamas”, March 6, 20225. (Accessed: March 12, 2025), https://www.axios.com/2025/03/06/state-department-ai-revoke-foreign-stu…
“MAGA movement, United States political movement”, Britannica,
https://www.britannica.com/topic/MAGA-movement
Irie Sentner, Republicans have hated universities for years. Anti-war protests gave them a reason to punish them. Plitoco, 03/11/2025. (Accessed: 03/13/2025), https://www.politico.com/news/2025/03/11/trump-universities-protest-ant…
Prem Thakker, “DHS Detains Palestinian Student from Columbia Encampment”, March 9, 2025. (Accessed: March 12, 2025), https://zeteo.com/p/breaking-dhs-detains-palestinian
Prem Thakker, “SCOOP: Emails Show Mahmoud Khalil Asked Columbia for Protection a Day Before He Was Detained”, March 10, 2025. (Accessed: March 12, 2025), https://zeteo.com/p/breaking-dhs-detains-palestinian
Emily Tamkin, “Trump’s Crackdown on “Antisemitism” is Making Jews Less Safe. March 11, 2025. (Accessed: March 12, 2025). https://newrepublic.com/article/192576/trumps-crackdown-antisemitism-ma…
Carliner, “How pro-Palestine student activists are fighting increasing repression”,
Thomas L. Friedman, “A Great Unraveling Is Underway”, March 11, 202, The New Work Times. (Accessed: March 13, 2025), https://www.nytimes.com/2025/03/11/opinion/trump-economy-tariffs.html
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