On the anniversary of October 7, the Heritage Foundation released Project Esther: A National Strategy to Combat Antisemitism. The 33-page document calls on the federal government to use counterterrorism, immigration, surveillance, intelligence gathering and other apparatuses to “disrupt and degrade” Palestinian rights organizations and a range of progressive funding infrastructure.
Spearheaded by Heritage’s National Task Force to Combat Antisemitism, Project Esther is lengthy, rambling, and “full of grandiose language light on many specifics,” as Forward reporter Arno Rosenfeld put it, which was perhaps because the writing process was “not terribly iterative,” one anonymous conservative critic told Jewish Insider. But we can assume its authors mean business. The Heritage Foundation also brought us Project 2025, while the America First Policy Institute (one of the Task Force’s 12 organizations), described by Politico as a “White House in waiting,” is composed of former Trump advisors eager to staff the next administration.
A McCarthyist blueprint
Much like Project 2025, Project Esther calls on the next conservative administration to adopt a gloves-off approach to achieving its goals; in this case, repressing progressive movements under the guise of protecting Jews. It sets its sights on what it calls the “Hamas Support Network” (HSN), which is composed of “virulently anti-Israel, anti-Zionist, and anti-American groups,” which it describes as the spear’s tip of “a vast network of activists and funders with a much more ambitious, insidious goal—the destruction of capitalism and democracy.”
It only mentions by name a few “Hamas Supporting Organizations” (HSOs)—among them, National Students for Justice in Palestine, American Muslims for Palestine, and Jewish Voice for Peace—as well as large progressive foundations like the Tides Foundation, Rockefeller Brothers Fund, and Open Society Foundations. Given the near-limitless scope, the full list of those the Right may deem part of this ‘vast network’ opposed to ‘capitalism and democracy’ could be open-ended.
Outlining a vast conspiracy, Project Esther insists the HSN “has been active for years, infiltrating and entrenching itself in key institutions…in every state in the Union,” as well as “the highest reaches of the United States government,” where they form an “active cabal of Jew-haters, Israel-haters, and America-haters in Washington.” The goal of this shadowy network? To “sow internal dissension and generate enough political pressure…to compel the United States government to change its long-standing policy of support for Israel”—along with a “parallel goal of eliminating capitalism and democracy.”
Project Esther aims to “disrupt and degrade [HSOs] and deny them the resources they need” within the first two years of a conservative administration. It calls on that administration to deport foreign leaders and members of HSOs; to block their public and private funding and revoke their tax-exempt status; and to subject them to federal criminal and legal prosecution under foreign agents, anti-racketeering, counterterrorism, hate speech, and other laws. It calls for the mobilization of a “public-private partnership” to uproot HSN influence from campuses, social media and civil society, and to “name and shame” HSO leaders in the hope that public pressure may dissuade their organizing. As a result, HSOs will “no longer have access” to “U.S. open society,” the “U.S. economy,” and Congress. Supporters of the HSN, Project Esther declares, “must be made to feel extreme discomfort. We will generate that discomfort.”
In short, Project Esther aims to weaponize the state in a full-court-press McCarthyist campaign against Palestine solidarity groups, designed to amplify anti-Muslim bigotry and cast a chilling effect across a range of Left organizing. To be sure, most of these are repackaged proposals already championed by the Right (along with many centrist liberals) since October 7 and before. Whether or not they’re new, as leading MAGA institutions prepare for a potential return to executive power, bold statements of policy intent like Project Esther are alarming. When the architects of Project 2025 announce their plans openly, they should be taken seriously.
Light on Jews, heavy on Christian Zionists
Following a time-honored Israel advocacy tradition, Project Esther frames its McCarthyist crusade as an effort to ensure the safety of Jews. But as Jewish Insider reported, it seemingly lacks the participation of all but the most far-right fringes of the institutional American Jewish landscape. Instead, it appears to be led entirely by Christian nationalists. At the helm of the National Task Force to Combat Antisemitism are Mario Bramnick and Luke Moon, among the most influential movement builders of the Christian Zionist Right.
Florida-based Pastor Bramnick is a leading apostle of the New Apostolic Reformation (NAR), a militant Pentecostal and Charismatic dominionist movement that seeks to conquer the “seven mountains” of legislative, cultural and societal influence to Christianize the nations. A member of then-President Trump’s 2016 Hispanic Advisory Council and 2020 Faith Advisory Board, Bramnick boasts close ties to Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, GOP House speaker Mike Johnson, and a host of global authoritarian leaders. Like much of the NAR network, Bramnick was influential in MAGA election denial efforts leading up to January 6.
Bramnick’s main cause, though, is Israel. “God is calling the Jewish people back home,” he told NAR leader Lance Wallnau in 2022. “It’s the regathering…eschatologically, before the coming of the Lord.” Bramnick leads the Latino Coalition for Israel—which calls itself the “largest Hispanic Pro-Israel organization in America”—and moves regularly in the orbit of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and leaders of the pro-Israel Right. In 2019, Bramnick called Trump a “modern Cyrus” for moving the US embassy to Jerusalem, a core Christian Zionist policy goal, and claims to have met with eight heads of state in the aftermath, attempting to convince them to do the same.
Luke Moon is CEO of the Philos Project, a Christian Zionist organization that has launched ‘Christian Birthright’ trips, outreach initiatives to Black and Latinx communities, and other projects to target what one 2023 profile called the “mushy middle” of American Christians who are “underengaged on Israel.” Philos has received core funding from anti-Iran hawks like Paul Singer and right-wing hasbara outfits like the Adam Milstein Family Foundation, and its former executive director, Robert Nicholson, whose recent op-ed in Providence, an Institute on Religion and Democracy publication, declared that “hundreds of millions of Muslims” worldwide are part of a “rival civilization who want to destroy our way of life.”
Moon moves easily in NAR circles as a result of his efforts to craft a big-tent Christian Zionist coalition. In April, he organized a rally to protest Columbia University’s Gaza student encampment with popular NAR leader and worship singer Sean Feucht. “We’re seeing this rise and this flood of antisemitism across the world—yes, these are the end days!” Feucht proclaimed excitedly on a livestream the night before the rally. “Israel will serve as a redemptive sign,” agreed Russell Johnson, another rally leader, “proof positive…that as we move closer to the great day of the return of the Lord, we will see massive harvest, massive revival, massive souls turning to the Lord in the nation of Israel.” For the NAR, a rise in antisemitism, and mass conversion of Jews in Israel, are sure signs that the End Times draw near.
According to Jewish Insider, leaders of Project Esther refused to address the precipitous rise of right-wing antisemitism in their recommendations, and it’s easy to see why, as doing so might force them to look in the mirror. In the end, Project Esther is merely the latest in a tired trend of Christian nationalists using Jews as a fig leaf for their authoritarian, illiberal agenda. Unsurprisingly, their agenda doesn’t bode well for Palestinians, social movements, or anyone else in our multiracial democracy—including Jews.
