During the 2024 presidential campaign there was quite a bit of media attention paid to the right-wing Heritage Foundation’s 900-page Project 2025, which advocated hundreds of policy positions for candidate Donald Trump and a blueprint for his administration should he win the election. Although candidate Trump denied knowing much of anything about Project 2025, that quickly changed once he was back in the White House.
Trump’s second presidential administration has closely followed many of the policies advocated by authors of Project 2025, including the elimination of entire government agencies, the mass firing of government workers, slashing of the federal budget, mass deportations and dismantling of DEI programs. In fact, many of that document’s authors have joined Trump’s administration, including Russell Vought, a principal Project 2025 architect who was picked by Trump to direct the powerful Office of Management and Budget.
Far less attention has been paid to another Heritage Foundation document called, “Project Esther,” drafted after the Oct. 7, 2023 Hamas attack on Israel. Project Esther outlines a strategy for dismantling the Palestine solidarity movement in the U.S. by falsely conflating all criticism of Israel with antisemitism and support for terrorism, proposing a program of surveillance, propaganda and deportation. The Trump regime is closely following Project Esther’s plan by targeting students protesting against Israel’s genocide in Gaza, deporting non-U.S. citizens involved in pro-Palestinian activism, and withholding funds from universities. Between The Lines’ Scott Harris spoke with Andra Watkins, a New York Times best-selling author, who’s recent column “Project Esther: Where Dissent = Terrorism,” warns that the Heritage Foundation and Trump’s ultimate plan is to equate all dissent with terrorism, in order to target anti-MAGA activists and groups for suppression and censorship.
ANDRA WATKINS: Project Esther is named after a biblical character called Esther. In the Jewish faith, the feast of Purim is a celebration of her life and what she did for the Jewish people in saving them from genocide. So it’s ironic that Project Esther is named after her to persecute people who advocate against a different genocide against the Palestinians.
The reason the Heritage Foundation and Christian nationalists are eager to support Israel and use Project Esther to define antisemitism in the United States is because the existence of the nation of Israel as a nation is central to their end times last days prophecies in the Bible.
It was one reason why they decided to move the U.S. Embassy in Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. Nominating Mike Huckabee to be the U.S. ambassador to Israel is another underscore of this end times last days belief that permeates a document like Project Esther, where Israel has to be an intact nation that exists in its historical fashion for their Bibles to come true and their last days prophecies to come true. Mike Huckabee subscribes to those prophecies as well.
Christian nationalists and their different flavors of Christian nationalist — but they all believe that we are living in the last days of the Earth. We have a bunch of people now in government, the federal government, like Russell Vought who subscribe to these beliefs like Pete Hegseth, like Mike Johnson. I mean, there are over 100 of them just in Congress who believe that this is what we’re living in.
Project Esther’s underpinnings try to ensure that the biblical, historical mass of the nation of Israel remain intact, that Palestine becomes part of that so that their last days predictions of Bible apocalypses can come true.
SCOTT HARRIS: Andra, I wanted to ask you about the conflation that we’ve seen of any criticism of Israel with antisemitism and even terrorism, and that’s outlined in Project Esther.
Tell our listeners a bit about your concern that Project Esther is not just focused on repressing antisemitism, but repressing dissent in general that extends to anyone in this country who dissents from the policies of Donald Trump and the Republican party.
ANDRA WATKINS: Well, so on page 20, Project Esther devotes three subsequent pages to every step they have to take to achieve their desired end state of having all of this kind of dissent be labeled terrorism.
So even though these other groups aren’t named in Project Esther, they’ve already attacked academic institutions and academics who refuse to teach regime viewpoints or dissent in their own curricula. And that’s not just with Gaza and Palestine. That could be with DEI. It could be with women’s studies. It could be with LGBTQ. It could be with teaching what fascism is.
We’ve already seen three academics leave the United States over that. They’ve targeted foreign faculty who are coming here and foreign researchers who are coming here to do work. By stopping them at the airport and refusing them entry for posting things on social media that were critical of the regime. They’re targeting foreign students heavily and have revoked foreign student visas for multiple countries.
They are revoking public federal funding, grant funding and other funding for major universities because of supposed opposition to the regime and its principles. Those are examples of things where they have taken these desired end states that are listed in Project Esther as making dissent terrorism and applying those things to other things that have nothing to do with antisemitism across the board.
They’ve also made noises about targeting ActBlue. So one of the things that Project Esther outlines is cutting off the ability for any group to raise money or be able to attract support if it supports things that are antithetical to what the regime wants.
And they’ve targeted politicians who advocate for those things as well. They’ve charged one politician formerly with a crime for exercising her right to inspect an immigration facility. They arrested someone at a Democratic politician’s office, Jerry Nadler. So we’re seeing them apply these Project Esther talking points far beyond the world of Gaza, Palestine, Israel, Hamas.
Listen to Scott Harris’ in-depth interview with Andra Watkins (17:05) and see more articles and opinion pieces in the related links section of this page. For periodic updates on the Trump authoritarian playbook, subscribe here to our Between The Lines Radio Newsmagazine Substack newsletter to get updates to our “Hey AmeriKKKa, It’s Not Normal” compilation.
For the best listening experience and to never miss an episode, subscribe to Between The Lines on your favorite podcast app or platform.
Or subscribe to our Between The Lines and Counterpoint Weekly Summary.
