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Project Esther: A National Strategy to Combat Antisemitism

PROJECT ESTHER A National Strategy to Combat Antisemitism National Task Force to Combat Antisemitism

The Torah, in the Book of Esther (Megillat Esther), tells us that in the mid-fourth century BCE, a thriving Jewish community in ancient Persia risked extermination. Haman, Persian King Ahasuerus’s Prime Minister (Vizier), angry because Mordecai, a Jew, refused to bow to him, told the King: 

There is a certain people scattered and separate among the peoples throughout all the provinces of your kingdom, and their laws differ from [those of] every people, and they do not keep the king’s laws; it is [therefore] of no use for the king to let them be. If it pleases the king, let it be written to destroy them, and I will weigh out ten thousand silver talents into the hands of those who perform the work, to bring [it] into the king’s treasuries.1

With the King’s approval, Haman plotted to kill every Jew in Persia, drawing lots (purim) to determine the day of their execution. Unbeknownst to either the King or Haman, Ahasuerus’s new Queen Esther was a Jew and therefore marked for death. Additionally, Mordecai—the man who had so enraged Haman—was also Esther’s cousin. Mordecai encouraged her to use her position and influence to beseech the King to reverse course: 

Do not imagine to yourself that you will escape in the king’s house from among all the Jews. For if you remain silent at this time, relief and rescue will arise for the Jews from elsewhere, and you and your father’s household will perish; and who knows whether at a time like this you will attain the kingdom?2

Esther mustered the courage to oblige her cousin’s plea and convinced King Ahasuerus to reverse course. The result: Haman and his family were hanged, Mordecai replaced Haman as the King’s Vizier, and the Jewish people were saved. As Rabbi Joseph Telushkin so aptly points out, “the character of Haman unfortunately is far from unique in the Jewish experience. As one bitter Yiddish proverb summarizes the unhappier episodes of Jewish history, ‘So many Hamans, and only one *Purim.’”3 

Today, Israel, Jews everywhere, and Americans face yet another “Haman.” The question remains: Will we face the threat as Esther did so many centuries ago or capitulate to intimidation and fear?

Executive Summary

Purpose. Named after the historic Jewish heroine who saved the Jews from genocide in ancient Persia, Project Esther provides a blueprint to counter antisemitism in the United States and ensure the security and prosperity of all Americans.

Introduction. Antisemitism in the United States of America is alive and spreading. Hamas’s October 7, 2023, terrorist attack on Israel laid bare existing antisemitism across the world, including the United States. The virulently anti-Israel, anti-Zionist, and anti-American groups comprising the so-called pro-Palestinian movement inside the United States are exclusively pro-Palestine and—more so—pro-Hamas. They are part of a highly organized, global Hamas Support Network (HSN) and therefore effectively a terrorist support network.

Current Situation. The HSN’s strategic purpose inside the United States is to generate internal political pressure to compel the United States government to change its long-standing policy of support for Israel. Within the United States, the HSN receives the indispensable support of a vast network of activists and funders with a much more ambitious, insidious goal—the destruction of capitalism and democracy. As their ends align, the HSN and its nihilist supporters indoctrinate the gullible into supporting Hamas and hating Israel to create the street mayhem that serves their ends. This network is nominally American but benefits from the support and training of America’s overseas enemies. Its members hope to achieve their goals by taking advantage of our open society, corrupting our education system, leveraging the American media, coopting the federal government, and relying on the American Jewish community’s complacency.

Mission Statement. The National Task Force to Combat Antisemitism leads a coalition to dismantle the infrastructure that sustains the HSN and associated movements’ antisemitic violence inside the United States of America within 12 to 24 months to restore equal protection under the law for all Americans.

Vision (Intent). Our intent is to organize and guide all willing and able partners in a coordinated effort that employs all available resources to combat the scourge of antisemitism in the United States. Our hope is that this effort will represent an opportunity for public–private partnership when a willing Administration occupies the White House.

Ends

• Goal. Ensure that U.S.-based antisemitic movements are incapable of threatening U.S. citizens with violence.
• Objective. Dismantle the pro-Hamas support network’s infrastructure across America.

Priorities (Methods/Ways)

Guide coalition members toward thematically grouped, distinct, but mutually supportive lines of effort (LOE), described in the accompanying Campaign Plan, that integrate to varying degrees the following methods (ways).

• Expose the critical resources fueling antisemitism. Gain a comprehensive understanding of the infrastructure that sustains individuals and organizations supporting Hamas.
• Mobilize a coalition of private organizations. Build and coordinate the efforts and activities of private organizations in the U.S. to achieve combined effects.
• Erode support for antisemitism. Exploit fissures within and among antisemites and affiliated organizations and their target audiences.
• Synchronize coalition actions to maximize impact. Orchestrate actions and activities across society in collaboration (where appropriate) with federal and state government to achieve the desired impact and align resources toward priorities.
• Focus. Disrupt and degrade networks and deny them the resources they need to conduct and sustain antisemitic behavior.
• Communicate. Erode support for antisemitic behavior, expose the individuals and organizations supporting such conduct to discourage it, and laud the individuals and organizations effectively countering it to encourage others to join.

Means

Organize and focus a broad coalition of willing and able partners to leverage existing—and, if required, work to establish additional—authorities, resources, capabilities, and activities.

Risk

There is risk both in doing nothing and in doing something. If left alone, the HSN and its affiliated Hamas Support Organizations (HSOs) could become irrelevant or discredit themselves (although current trends and geopolitical conditions do not support this conclusion). At the same time, if Project Esther succeeds, it could reinforce a “blood libel” narrative, lending credence to an HSN “blame the Jews” mantra and expanded antisemitism. It is therefore incumbent upon us to integrate measures to mitigate the negative consequences that could result from success.

The Strategy

The Silent Majority is too often irrelevant between elections. It must break its silence and speak. In a democracy, the Silent Majority must be heard to have an effect lest a louder, more vocal minority unjustly control the narrative and generate a distorted perception of political legitimacy. We intend to help America’s Silent Majority recover its voice and convert its words into actions to render impotent an illegitimate, hateful minority that threatens America’s soul.

Project Esther’s Purpose. Our goal is to provide a strategic blueprint to all Americans who are willing to counter antisemitism in the United States so that they can protect not only American Jewry, but the sanctity of the core values derived from our Founding documents that ensure the security and prosperity of allAmericans.

Introduction. Antisemitism in the United States of America is alive and spreading. This antisemitism had been rekindled for decades before October 7, 2023, by the promotion of a view that reduces all human interaction to a heroic struggle between the oppressed and their oppressors. The victim status of the oppressed, in this view, grants them license to pursue any course of action. Jews, Israelis, and all proud Americans in this case have been cast in the role of the implacable oppressors and the Palestinians, Arab or Muslim, in the role of their victims. While this understanding of history comes straight from the pages of Karl Marx’s Communist Manifesto, it can also be traced to Soviet agitprop and found in Adolf Hitler’s Mein Kampf and other Nazi propaganda, which portrayed the Jew as the conniving exploiter of the pure and innocent German.

The anti-Israel and anti-Zionist Jew-haters attempting to lay siege to our education system, political processes, and government have not simply been influenced by this way of thinking—they have enthusiastically adopted it. This makes them a threat not just to American Jewry, but to all Americans. Their ideology and actions directly challenge and attempt to undermine the American values that are fundamental to our way of life, our nation’s success, and our future.

• Hamas’s October 7, 2023, terrorist attack on Israel laid bare this existing and underlying antisemitism around the world, including in the United States. The forces that cynically fanned this antisemitism exposed by October 7 pounced on Hamas’s pogrom, intending to use it as a George Floyd–style event to spring onto center stage and grab a giant microphone. The attack confirmed two things.
• Hamas—a U.S.-designated foreign terrorist organization (FTO)—is not a freedom movement. It is a hateful death cult bent on exterminating Jews and destroying their historic homeland.3

Those supporters of Palestine and Hamas who have claimed for decades that criticizing Israel’s policies does not equate to antisemitism are at best insincere. They have simply masked their antisemitism in a thin veneer of political rhetoric to disguise their true intent—the destruction of the Jewish state of Israel.

Had the intent of these critics been otherwise—had their goal truly been to change Israeli policies they found disagreeable—the so-called pro-Palestinian movement would not have organized so quickly across the world, including inside the United States, and immediately degenerated into the commission of blatant acts of antisemitism specifically targeting Jews. In 2023, The Anti-Defamation League (ADL) tabulated 8,873 antisemitic incidents across the United States, a 140 percent increase from 2022 and the highest the ADL has recorded since it began tracking the statistic in 1979. The dramatic increase occurred following Hamas’s October 7 terrorist attack on Israel. “Between October 7 and the end of 2023, ADL tabulated 5,204 incidents—more than the incident total for the whole of 2022.”4

The rallying cry of these “pro-Palestinian” organizations—“From the River to the Sea, Palestine will be free!”—begs the question: Free from what? Free from Hamas? Free from a corrupt Palestinian Authority? To the contrary, Hamas’s actions and the refusal of these “pro-Palestine” groups to hold Hamas accountable for its October 7 murder and atrocities have made clear that both Hamas and the broader Palestinian movement simply want to lay claim to Israeli territory and “free” it of Jews.

In this light, the virulently anti-Israel, anti-Zionist, anti-American groups comprising the “pro-Palestinian” movement, including those that merely use this issue cynically in the furtherance of other goals, both abroad and inside the United States, are exclusively pro-Palestine, part of a highly organized global Hamas Support Network (HSN) and therefore effectively a terrorist support network. Although the HSN and the individual HSOs that comprise it—such as National Students for Justice in Palestine (NSJP or SJP), alternatively known as the Palestine Solidarity Committee (PSC); American Muslims for Palestine (AMP); Jewish Voices for Peace (JVP); and Samidoun, along with such financial supporters as the Westchester People’s Action Coalition Foundation (WESPAC); Alliance for Global Justice; Tides Foundation; and Rockefeller Brothers Fund, to name a few—have risen to the fore of the American public’s view since Hamas initiated its war against Israel and Jews, the network has been active for years, infiltrating and entrenching itself in key institutions across the United States.5 The HSN and its affiliated HSOs are likely in every state in the Union, are active on most university and college campuses, are likely connected by both ideology and other tangible ties, and have managed to extend their influence into the highest reaches of the United States government.

Moreover, the indispensable support network of activists and financial supporters that allows the HSN to succeed in its operations has a parallel goal of eliminating capitalism and democracy. Making common cause with the HSN furthers the goals of these anti-American organizations along with those of America’s other enemies. Thus, the HSN poses a threat not simply to American Jewry, but to America itself.

Extirpating the influence of the HSN from our society will not be easy, but extirpate it we must.

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The Hamas Support Network. We define the Hamas Support Network (HSN) inside America as the people and organizations that are both directly and indirectly involved in furthering Hamas’s cause in contravention of American values and to the detriment of American citizens and America’s national security interests. Driven by an ideology that is decidedly antisemitic, anti-Israel, and anti-American, the network revolves around American Muslims for Palestine (AMP). AMP supports and motivates such national affiliated HSOs as National Students for Justice in Palestine (NSJP, or SJP) and Jewish Voices for Peace (JVP), among many others. Housed under the umbrella of academic institutions, and comprised of students, faculty, and staff, these HSOs serve as AMP’s “action arms,” recruiting members; disseminating propaganda; coordinating and conducting rallies; leading demonstrations; and intimidating Jews, academic administrations, and local governments. A coalition of leftist, progressive organizations such as the Open Society Foundations, Tides Foundation, and numerous others whose broader goals generally align with those of AMP and its associated HSOs provides financial resources and other material support such as equipment, training, and advice and consulting services across the HSN. The material and administrative connective tissue common to the leadership, members, and organizations comprising the HSN forms its infrastructure. This infrastructure supports and includes propaganda dissemination to spread HSN ideology, financial aggregation and distribution, policy and legislative support, communications, and the legal veil under which the HSN operates. 

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Current Situation (Framing the Problem). We assess that the HSN’s strategic purpose inside the United States is to sow internal dissension and generate enough political pressure, in conjunction with international efforts, to compel the United States government to change its long-standing policy of support for Israel—the only true democracy in the Middle East, the United States’ most stalwart ally in the region, and one of its most important allies in the world generally. Furthermore, the activists and funding sources that make up the indispensable support network that allows the HSN to succeed in its operations have a parallel goal of eliminating capitalism and democracy. The HSN’s success would lead to one or more of the following results:

• Legitimization of the protests in an effort to make their antisemitism and calls for genocide acceptable;
• The erosion of resources and diplomatic support from the United States to Israel in its war against Hamas and decreased assistance generally;
• Deterioration in Israel’s relations with, and eventually a complete break with, its most strategic ally, the United States; and
• Passive or overt unilateral U.S. recognition of a Palestinian entity, to include Hamas.

Regrettably, it appears that the Biden–Harris Administration is on track to do all of these things.

In the wake of the October 7 attacks and Israel’s ongoing defensive war to destroy Hamas, it has become clear that the HSN and its component HSOs have worked diligently over a long period of time to set conditions for their strategy’s success. Their strategy includes the following:

• Take advantage of our open society.America’s open society affords resident members of the HSN and its HSOs the ability to access everything in the United States in the same manner as every other American citizen can. Foreign HSN members residing in America (as students or under other temporary conditions) also have extensive rights and access to the American system. Members may come and go freely, as they please. HSOs have complete access to the U.S. economy to generate and spend money as they see fit. And just as every other American is, they are protected under the Bill of Rights and enjoy all of the freedoms that go with it, including the freedoms of speech and assembly, and the right to vote. HSOs can organize protests and demonstrations wherever and whenever they choose.
• As of May 30, 2024, the Harvard Kennedy School’s Ash Center for Democratic Governance and Innovation’s Crowd Counting Consortium (CCC) had “logged more than 3,700 days with [pro-Palestine] protest activity at 525 different colleges, universities, K–12 schools, and school district offices across 317 different U.S. cities and towns” since October 7, 2023. Additionally, approximately two-fifths (nearly 1,500) of those school protest days occurred before April 17, 2024—the day the Gaza Solidarity Encampment was established at Columbia University. As the CCC’s own data and analysis indicate, “this wave of pro-Palestine campus activity began almost immediately after October 7, 2023; crescendoed in late April and early May 2024; and continues apace, even as many U.S. schools have already entered final exam periods or begun their summer breaks.”6
• Corrupt the U.S. education system.HSOs have infiltrated their ideology into the U.S. education system across all levels. It is pervasive. The U.S. education system fosters antisemitism under the guise of “pro-Palestinian,” anti-Israel, anti-Zionist narratives across universities, high schools, and elementary schools, often under the umbrella or within the rubric of diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) and similar Marxist ideology.
• As of July 29, 2024, Canary Mission had documented that at least 856 professors at over 240 universities across 46 states and the District of Columbia, along with four Canadian provinces, had openly advocated or supported up to 63 different HSOs, often within the context of their classes, membership in HSOs, or participation in anti-Israel demonstrations.7 Twenty-one of those universities had professors of this ilk in the double digits, including Barnard (12); California State University–Northridge (17); CUNY Genesee Community College (14); Columbia (70); Cornell (12); Fordham (10); Georgetown (16); Harvard (17); NYU (28); Princeton (30); Rutgers (14); San Francisco State University (10); Stanford (10); Syracuse (18); UC Berkeley (28); UC Davis (18); UCLA (17); UCSB (12); University of Hawaii Manoa (10); University of Illinois Urbana–Champaign (13); and University of Pennsylvania (16).8 Five of the eight Ivy League schools can add membership on this list to their prestige. It is no wonder the country witnessed antisemitic mobs of students, faculty, staff, and other supporters at Columbia, NYU, and Princeton, to name only a few, on the eve of the Jewish holiday of Passover following Congress’s passage of a funding bill in support of Israel—a bill that included $9 billion for humanitarian aid to Gaza.
• Foreign money from wealthy supporters of the Palestinian cause flows freely into U.S. academic institutions as a way to influence curricula against Israel and Jews. According to an October 2020 report from the U.S. Department of Education’s Office of the General Counsel:

 

[T]here is very real reason for concern that foreign money buys influence or control over teaching and research. Disclosure and transparency might mitigate the harm to some extent. However, the evidence shows the industry has at once massively underreported while also anonymizing much of the money it did disclose, all to hide foreign sources (and, correspondingly, their influence on campus) from the Department and the public. Since 2012, institutions reported anonymous donations from China, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and Russia totaling more than $1.14 billion.9

• The extent of foreign influence over the hearts and minds of American youth may be far worse. According to an even more recent report by the Network Contagion Research Institute (NCRI) in conjunction with Bar Ilan University’s Institute for the Study of Global Antisemitism and Policy (ISGAP), “[a] massive influx of foreign donations to American institutions of higher learning, much of it concealed and from authoritarian regimes, with notable support from Middle Eastern sources, reflects or supports heightened levels of intolerance towards Jews, open inquiry, and free expression.”10 The report further concluded that “[t]his relationship of foreign funding to campus antisemitism was stronger when the donors were Middle Eastern regimes rather than other regimes.”11 The largest donor was Qatar ($2.693 billion from 2014–2019), which currently serves as Hamas’s proxy in ongoing negotiations to release Israeli hostages held by the terrorist group.12
• In short, these “professors” in universities and colleges, often insulated in the comfortable halls of social sciences departments and Middle East/North Africa or Islamic studies programs, are decidedly antisemitic and hostile to Israel.13 The result is that additional professors and teachers, social activists, and other “experts” across all professional fields are indoctrinated into Hamas’s antisemitic ideology, which then trickles down and permeates our elementary and secondary education systems, proliferating their toxic tropes throughout curricula—and the minds of American youth.
• Leverage the American media. The HSN and HSOs have mastered the use of America’s liberal media environment. They are quick to gain attention for any and every demonstration, no matter how large or small, from every network across the country. They make ample use of their right to do so, outnumbering and outpacing any demonstrations in support of Israel in both size and frequency.
• The HSN and HSOs have made prolific and unchecked use of social media platforms, such as TikTok, across the entire digital ecosystem to spout antisemitic propaganda. Additionally, these social media platforms provide the perfect means of communication and coordination among HSO members and between HSOs, strengthening the broader HSN.
• Of equal concern, over the weeks and months since the end of the last semester and the waning of campus protests, demonstrations, and encampments, finding recorded examples of the antisemitic statements and actions that America witnessed in real time has become ever more difficult. Internet searches for pictures of students and pro-Palestine protesters spouting antisemitic tropes, displaying disgusting antisemitic signs, and video capturing acts of violence against Jews return less and less relevant results. Whether it is under the pretense of not wanting to spread antisemitic propaganda, for fear of lawsuits, or because of a desire to dull the antisemitic edge of protesters, it looks as though a deliberate sanitizing of the Internet is occurring.
• Coopt the federal government. It should be obvious at this point even to the casual observer that there is an active cabal of Jew-haters, Israel-haters, and America-haters in Washington—all apparently aligned with the far left, progressive movement. Given their leftist orbit, they are likely funded and supported by the same backers that support the HSN and its HSOs, which actively leverage these government officials to give their cause the gravitas of Washington’s progressive elite—in terms of platform, publicity, and even law—to the detriment of the American people. Moreover, whether it is by design or the result of pressure or incompetence, the executive branch appears to be unwilling to confront, pursue, or prosecute any HSO legal violations.
• The “Hamas Caucus” in the House of Representatives consists of a core group of roughly a dozen of the more “progressive” Members. They include Rashida Tlaib (D–MI); Ilhan Omar (D–MN); Cori Bush (D–MO);14 Jamaal Bowman (D–NY);15Summer Lee (D–PA); Ayana Pressley (D–MA); Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D–NY); Greg Casar (D–TX); Andre Carson (D–IN); Hank Johnson (D–GA); Jan Schakowsky (D–IL); Mark Pocan (D–WI); and Pramila Jayapal (D–WA). Collectively, they have consistently expressed their anti-Israel bias through numerous statements in speeches and to the press. Often forced to apologize or “walk back” their statements because of “ignorance” or “unintended hurtfulness,” their retractions seem insincere at best and reflective of the unqualified anti-Israel positions demonstrated in their voting records. The “Hamas Caucus” has support in the Senate from Bernie Sanders (I–VT); Chris Van Hollen (D–MD); Elizabeth Warren (D–MA); and, to varying degrees, several others.
• On November 7, 2023, the House of Representatives voted to censure Rashida Tlaib for promoting false narratives regarding the October 7, 2023, Hamas attack on Israel and for calling for the destruction of the state of Israel. The resolution was adopted by a vote of 234 to 188. Of the 220 Republicans in the House at that time, 212 voted for censure; of the 212 Democrats, only 22 voted for the resolution.
• Even more disturbing, while there are only two Jewish Republicans in the House of Representatives, there are 25 Jewish Democrats—almost 12 percent of the Democratic representation. Both Republicans voted in favor of censure, compared to only 10 Democrats. In fact, more Jewish Democrats (15) voted against censure than voted for it, while more non-Jewish Democrats (12) joined their remaining 10 Jewish colleagues voting in favor of censure. That the political party with more elected Jewish Representatives chose political expediency over the morally correct position against antisemitism is striking. It is indicative of the strong strain of antisemitism that is running rampant through the progressive left in concert with the dangerous complacency and indifference across America’s Jewish community.
• In the Senate, Bernie Sanders, an Independent who caucuses with the Democratic Party, is one of 10 Jewish Senators whose anti-Israel positions are both notorious and inexplicable. The nine other Jewish Senators are Democrats, including Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (NY).
• In May 2023, the Biden–Harris Administration applauded itself for publishing the first-ever U.S. National Strategy to Counter Antisemitism. Less than one year later, antisemitism runs rampant across the country’s universities. This may be due to the completely feckless nature of the Biden–Harris Administration and its policies; the National Strategy to Counter Antisemitism appears to have more to do with furthering the progressive left’s obsession with LGBTQ+ and all other minorities than it has to do with anything substantive in countering antisemitism.16More disconcerting, it may reflect a deliberate effort to avoid countering antisemitism. The Biden–Harris Administration’s policies vis-à-vis the Middle East—particularly with respect to Iran and the Palestinians—have been decidedly anti-Israel and filled with disdain for the United States’ other traditional regional allies. This is perhaps because the Administration employs documented past members of the HSN, such as Maher Bitar, currently a Deputy Assistant to the President and Coordinator for Intelligence and Defense Policy and a former leader of SJP at Georgetown University in 2006, where he also promoted Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS).
• Rely on the American Jewish community’s complacency. The American Jewish community has not demonstrated a unified resolve against the HSN, its HSOs, and their program of Jew-hatred and America-hatred. While a strong, capable element has mustered financial, political, and moral support both for the Jewish state of Israel and for efforts to counter academic intolerance in some select institutions, particularly at the administrator level, significant components of the community remain disengaged. Some may be blind and deaf to the manifestation of HSN-inspired antisemitism at home. Some may be in such disbelief that they cannot even acknowledge the threat. More likely, many simply do not know what to do and are waiting for leadership to guide them.
• The HSN can muster a constant stream of media-attracting demonstrations and protests across the country, but the American Jewish community remains relegated to singular, large, ineffective bursts of symbolic activity with no support from other special-interest groups.
• This is particularly disconcerting and sad as over the past decades, significant elements of the American Jewish community, particularly the Reformed Jewish movement, have supported—even led—a multitude of liberal causes célèbres, including pro-Palestine organizations. Yet, when American Jews were directly threatened by an existential enemy, none of those supposed allies showed up to support them.
• The American Jewish community did not even utter a whimper when left-of-center Democrat Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer—himself Jewish—called for Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu’s ouster for no apparent reason other than Netanyahu’s being on Israel’s political right.

Problem Statement. How do we simultaneously neutralize the domestic tension placed on the U.S.–Israel relationship and counter the related rise in antisemitism across the United States, which threatens not just the American Jewish community, but America itself?

There are plenty of antisemitic organizations across the United States. There also are several major anti-American organizations working to unravel the fabric of American society. However, what the two separate elements of this problem statement share is the Hamas Support Network, which has also become a useful focal point and action arm for anti-American efforts. The HSN is a threat not simply because of its demonstrated intent, but also because of the resources that make it capable. We must therefore direct our efforts against the HSN. An effective strategy and campaign focused on the HSN will level a decisive blow against both antisemitism and anti-Americanism. 

Mission Statement (Tentative). The National Task Force to Combat Antisemitism leads a coalition to dismantle the infrastructure that sustains the HSN and associated movements’ antisemitic violence inside the United States of America within 12 to 24 months to restore equal protection under the law for Americans.

Vision (Intent). The Task Force’s intent is to organize and guide all willing and able partners in a coordinated effort employing all available resources to combat the scourge of antisemitism in the U.S. By completion of Project Esther, we intend that the HSN and its composite HSOs will cease to exist as a functional, effective support apparatus for Hamas inside the United States. They will not be able to generate any political pressure on the U.S. government or the U.S.–Israel relationship. No American will need to fear intimidation from a terrorist support network that uses our own open society against us. We will organize rapidly, take immediate action to “stop the bleeding,” and achieve all objectives within two years from the beginning of our efforts. Our hope is that this will represent an opportunity for public–private partnership when a willing Administration occupies the White House.

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America has been here before. Between World War I and World War II, the United States witnessed the rise of a highly organized, nationwide group of American Nazis known as the German–American Bund.17 After undergoing numerous earlier iterations, the group finally coalesced around its highly charismatic American “Bundesfuhrer” Fritz Kuhn and worked to inculcate Nazism within America’s large German–American communities. The Bund generated income, held large rallies replete with Nazi-style uniforms and swastikas, ran family and youth camps, and coordinated actions to implement a near mirror-image version of Hitler’s Nazi Germany here in the United States. 

Though the Bund cloaked itself in what it portrayed as American values inseparable from Nazi philosophy, key Americans—including Jews—saw the Bund for what it was: an antisemitic de facto extension of the German Nazi machine propagating across the United States. American civil society responded in kind, recognizing the threat to America and mobilizing a whole-of-community effort to counter the Bund. 

Famed journalist Walter Winchell, himself a Jew, relentlessly exposed and attacked Kuhn and the Bund from his New York City–based media perch, and Jewish Hollywood media moguls organized protests and generated anti-Bund content. Great American politicians initiated efforts to stymie the Bund at all levels, from New York City’s half-Jewish, half-Catholic Mayor Fiorello LaGuardia to prosecutor and future New York Governor Thomas E. Dewey. New York Democratic Congressman Samuel Dickstein, a Lithuanian-born Jew, worked with Texas Congressman Martin Dies to establish the House of Representatives’ Special Committee on Un-American Activities, also known as the Dies Committee, charged with uncovering Nazi and Communist activities inside the United States.18Law enforcement and the underworld worked in parallel to target the Bund. While J. Edgar Hoover’s Federal Bureau of Investigation worked to investigate Bund criminal activity,19 Jewish gangsters like Meyer Lansky, Benjamin “Bugsy” Siegel, Abner “Longy” Zwillman, and Meyer “Mickey” Cohen—sometimes at the behest of their rabbis—happily coordinated “less than kosher” activities, pro bono, to disrupt and thwart the Bund. 

Combined, these efforts severely weakened the Bund. The Dies Committee’s investigations uncovered the extent of the Bund’s activities. Successful criminal prosecutions disrupted leadership, drained the Bund’s funds, and exposed internal fraud, waste, and abuse at the expense of Bund members of modest means, severely weakening the national network. Large protests and counterdemonstrations disrupted the Bund’s rallies. Winchell’s public ridicule amassed a massive American following, allowing him almost single-handedly to counter the Bund’s Nazi propaganda. Many key Bund leaders fled the United States. By the eve of World War II, the Bund was a hollow shell of its former self and had ceased to function as a national network capable of spreading Nazi ideology. America’s entry into the war on December 7, 1941, all but sealed the Bund’s fate. 

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The Strategy.20 Project Esther’s strategy follows a standard ends, ways, means, and risk construct. The project has a strategic goal directly supported by two strategic objectives. Realizing this goal and attaining the objectives will require achieving a series of desired end state criteria in direct contravention of the nature of the current situation. The eventual actions we take under the umbrella of the project will set conditions and generate effects that contribute to achieving the desired end state, attaining our strategic objectives, and realizing our goal.

Ends. Project Esther’s ends reflect what we intend to accomplish. While broadly designed to counter antisemitism, they are scoped specifically with respect to the HSN, its HSOs, and the antisemitic ideology threatening America. While arguments may be made to expand and include other antisemitic problem sets, no other antisemitic organization or movement threatens American Jewry and Western civilization more than the HSN does at this moment in time. Therefore, and in line with the problem statement and its mission, Project Esther will remain laser-focused on the HSN. Everything that follows—from the ways to specific actions—should contribute to the achievement of these ends.

Strategic Goal. Our strategic goal is for U.S.-based antisemitic movements to be incapable of threatening U.S. citizens with violence.

Strategic Objective. The following concrete strategic objective directly supports realization of our strategic goal:

Dismantle the pro-Hamas support network’s infrastructure across America, including but not limited to propaganda, organizations, funds, access, communications, platforms, and people.

Desired End State (ES). Establishing the following criteria, which mirror current conditions, will achieve our desired end state:

• ES1: HSO propaganda eradicated from the U.S. education system at all levels.
• ES2: HSOs unable to disseminate propaganda inside the United States.
• ES3: HSOs no longer have access to U.S. open society.
• ES4: HSOs no longer have access to the U.S. economy.
• ES5: HSN loses access to Congress.
• ES6: Executive branch confronts, pursues, and prosecutes HSO legal and criminal violations.
• ES7: HSOs’ communications disrupted.
• ES8: HSOs rendered unable to conduct or sustain demonstrations and protests.
• ES9: U.S. Jewish community (and allies) unified against HSOs.
• ES10: American public broadly united against HSN/HSOs.
• ES11: Critical vulnerabilities exploited.

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America is no stranger to hate groups. In the aftermath of the Civil War, the Ku Klux Klan initially focused on anti-black, racist policies. By the early 20th century, the Klan began to espouse antisemitic as well as racist beliefs, but it also denounced all kinds of other groups, such as Catholics and immigrants. In the mid-20th century, in reaction to the civil rights movement, the Klan once again refocused on its anti-black, racist policies. Over time, the Klan became less specific in its hatred and more all-encompassing in its inherent anti-Americanism. Antisemitism was a natural component. The Klan, always generating revenue through membership dues and business sales, became much more organized over time. However, it was never a major target of concerted action by the federal government. In fact, by all accounts, the Klan petered out mostly due to the Great Depression and its followers’ inability pay for membership. 

Likewise, before September 11, 2001, few Americans had ever heard of al-Qaeda. It did not matter that Islamic extremists had already targeted the United States—specifically, New York City—as early as 1993 when Islamic terrorists first bombed the World Trade Center. Nor did it register that al-Qaeda was already at war with America when it attacked U.S. embassies across Africa in 1998. It took the horrific, sensational attacks on the World Trade Center, the Pentagon, and potentially the White House or Congress (Flight 93) to wake up America to the reality that Usama Bin Laden and al-Qaeda were serious about destroying the United States. Additionally, al-Qaeda intended its attack on the United States to be the opening salvo in a broader jihad against Saudi Arabia and Israel. For al-Qaeda and all others of their ilk, including Hamas, there is never any distinction between the West, the United States and Christians, and Israel and Jews: All are targets. 

Nevertheless, when most Americans hear “Klan,” they immediately associate this homegrown American hate group with “bad.” Likewise, after 9/11 and more than 20 years of the global war on terrorism, the vast majority of Americans associate al-Qaeda and Islamic extremism with “bad.” This is precisely the effect Project Esther strives to generate when Americans hear “Hamas Supporters” or “Hamas Support Network.” 

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Desired Effects (DE). Generating the following desired effects will either contribute to or directly result in achieving the desired end state:

• DE1: HSO propaganda purged from curricula.
• DE2: HSO-supporting faculty and/or staff removed or fired.
• DE3: HSO access to campuses lost and/or denied.
• DE4: Foreign members of HSOs/HSN access to campuses lost and/or denied.
• DE5: Money from foreign HSO supporters not accepted by schools.
• DE6: HSOs unable to raise revenue.
• DE7: HSOs unable to transfer money to Hamas.
• DE8: Congressional “Hamas Caucus” marginalized.
• DE9: Executive branch presented with undeniable evidence of HSOs’ criminal activity.
• DE10: Social media no longer allow the spread of antisemitic content.
• DE11: HSOs’ voice/access to propaganda dissemination mechanisms lost.
• DE12: HSOs cannot/unwilling to communicate with each other.
• DE13: HSOs unable to coordinate action.
• DE14: Permits for HSOs to protest or demonstrate are restricted and/or denied.
• DE15: People are unwilling to join demonstrations.
• DE16: Foreign HSO leadership no longer present in U.S.
• DE17: Preponderance of Jewish community perceives HSOs as a threat to their safety.
• DE18: Preponderance of broader American public perceives HSOs as a threat to their safety and a functioning society.
• DE19: Critical vulnerabilities targeted.

Necessary Conditions (NC). Any actions taken in furtherance of this strategy must either contribute to or directly result in setting the following conditions, which are tied to the generation of commensurate effects:

• NC1: HSO propaganda discredited.
• NC2: HSO propaganda is not academically accreditable.
• NC3: Curricula must adhere to academic freedom and present multiple perspectives.
• NC4: HSO-supporting faculty and staff’s credibility undermined.
• NC5: HSO-supporting faculty and staff lose their credentials.
• NC6: HSOs in violation of campus policies.
• NC7: HSOs lose affiliation with campuses.
• NC8: HSO members in violation of student visa requirements.
• NC9: HSO-supporting foreign faculty and staff in violation of visa requirements.
• NC10: Foreign HSO leaders and members voluntarily depart the U.S.
• NC11: Foreign HSO leaders and members deported from the U.S.
• NC12: HSOs not eligible for public funds.
• NC13: Institutions voluntarily refuse money from HSO supporters.
• NC14: Institutions cease providing money to HSOs.
• NC15: People and groups refuse to donate to HSOs.
• NC16: HSOs not permitted to make money.
• NC17: HSOs lose conduits for transferring money to Hamas.
• NC18: Progressive left support to “Hamas Caucus” is untenable.
• NC19: Evidence of HSOs’ criminal activity gathered.
• NC20: Social media view HSOs’ presence as a liability.
• NC21: Social media platforms unwilling to host or promote HSOs.
• NC22: Social media users do not want to be affiliated with HSOs.
• NC23: HSOs do not trust each other.
• NC24: Localities unwilling to grant permits for HSO demonstrations or protests.
• NC25: Potential demonstrators fear affiliation with HSOs.
• NC26: HSOs present a threat to American (Jewish and otherwise) livelihoods.
• NC27: HSOs present a threat to Americans’ personal beliefs.
• NC28: Critical vulnerabilities identified.

Priorities (Methods/Ways). These are the methods by which Project Esther will achieve its ends. They are comparable to guiding principles—themes if you will—that will shape participants’ approach in generating comprehensive action to dismantle the HSN. They are not solutions or specific actions in and of themselves, but they will permeate all of our efforts and allow us to organize the project’s activities in a manner that moves everything in the same general direction. Project Esther will guide coalition members toward thematically grouped, distinct, but mutually supportive lines of effort, described in the accompanying Campaign Plan, that integrate to varying degrees the following methods (ways).

• Expose the critical resources fueling antisemitism. The first step in dismantling the HSN is gaining a comprehensive understanding of the network. To this end, we will assume a network-centered approach to gain a comprehensive understanding of the infrastructure that sustains the individuals and organizations supporting Hamas. An important critical task is to “build out” the HSN and its composite HSOs and to conduct both center of gravity (COG) analysis and social network analysis (SNA) to identify critical vulnerabilities. This likely will necessarily expand to include the HSN’s far-left support network, particularly with respect to financial support. As with any social network, Project Esther’s operations will target critical HSN and HSO vulnerabilities, including critical nodes, critical functions, and/or critical requirements, to optimize effects and encourage the rapid dismantling of the HSN.

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A Crash Course in Center of Gravity and Network Analysis 

Center of Gravity Analysis 

• Center of gravity (COG): The source of power that provides moral or physical strength, freedom of action, or the will to act. 
• Critical capability (CC): A means that is considered a crucial enabler for a center of gravity to function as such and is essential to the accomplishment of the specified assumed objectives. What the center of gravity does for the adversary. 
• Critical requirement (CR): An essential condition, resource, and means for a critical capability to be fully operational. What the center of gravity needs to perform its critical capabilities. 
• Critical vulnerability (CV): An aspect of a critical requirement that is deficient or vulnerable to direct or indirect attack that will create decisive or significant effects. 
• Social Network Analysis 
• Social network: The organization of a group of people based on their relationships. 
• Critical node: In social network analysis (SNA), a network member with a significant number of connections to other network members and the removal of which will have a deleterious effect on the network. 
• Critical function: Often overlooked in SNA, a critical function refers to the nature of the connections themselves between nodes in a network. Nodes often connect in multiple ways; the more the different types of connections, the stronger the overall bond between nodes and the stronger and more resilient the network. However, functions are also targetable. Think of it in terms of something basic, like communications. If multiple nodes all rely on Internet connectivity to communicate and something disrupts Internet connectivity, then the network becomes less effective because nodes cannot communicate with each other. 

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• Mobilize a coalition of private organizations. Engage like-minded organizations with a bias for action tobuild a coalition and coordinate the efforts and activities of private organizations in the U.S. to achieve combined effects. The Heritage Foundation is a powerful organization with great brand recognition and outstanding credibility, but it cannot successfully implement Project Esther alone. And it does not need to: Given Heritage’s extensive social and professional network across all dimensions of American society along with other like-minded organizations and super-empowered individuals, a coalition of the willing and able will be well-positioned and well-resourced to generate the necessary action to counter the HSN. Such a coalition will no doubt reflect the multifaceted nature of the American demographic.
• Undermine the HSN’s baseline assumption. In line with building a coalition, we must energize the American Jewish community at home. No doubt this will start with volunteers joining the coalition built in general support of Project Esther, but it must take on a life of its own to shift both the narrative and the mindset prevalent among significant portions of the American Jewish community. Only by actively engaging resistant sectors of this community from within will we be able to harness the power, strength, and intellect of these amazing Americans to counter the HSN threat both to their community and to America generally. When the HSN can no longer count on American Jewish complacency, an important leg of their strategy will crumble.
• Erode support for antisemitism. By exploiting fissures within and among antisemites and affiliated organizations and their target audiences, we will generate strategic dilemmas across the entire HSN front. Whether in the halls of academia or in the halls of power, HSN supporters and influence targets must be made to feel extreme discomfort. We will generate that discomfort. We will construct situations so stark that HSN supporters and enablers either will be compelled to change course and capitulate to our pressure campaign or will ultimately fail and render themselves irrelevant by continuing to support organizations that support terrorism.
• Synchronize coalition actions to maximize impact. Project Esther’s coalition will orchestrate actions and activities across society in collaboration with federal and state government to achieve the desired impact and align resources toward priorities. Project Esther will work to align coalition strengths against HSN vulnerabilities. Everycoalition member will likely have its own areas of expertise and its own charter guiding its activities in a manner commensurate with its purpose. In addition, many partners who join us may already have ongoing activities designed to counter the HSN in some way. That need not change. If those activities target HSN vulnerabilities, we will work to reinforce success. However, we will also work to match partners and capabilities to HSN vulnerabilities that nobody is exploiting. We will also seek partners that can fill capabilities gaps and initiate actions against specific HSN vulnerabilities.
• Focus. Disrupt and degrade networks and deny them the critical resources that they need to conduct and sustain antisemitic behavior. As the HSN and HSOs carry on their activities in a variety of domains and venues across our open society, so too shall we. Project Esther will coordinate and synchronize civic operations and activities across the academic, social, legal, financial, and religious spheres. Additionally, we will execute actions at the federal, state, and local levels to ensure both effects and success.
• Communicate. Erode support for antisemitic behavior, expose the individuals and organizations that support it, and laud the individuals and organizations that are effectively countering it to encourage others to join in this effort.

Means. At the strategic level, means generally break down into four categories: authorities, resources, capabilities, and activities. Project Esther will organize and focus a broad coalition of willing and able partners to leverage existing—and, if required, work to establish additional—authorities, resources, capabilities, and activities.

• Authorities. As American citizens, our authorities derive from the Republic’s founding documents: the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, and the Bill of Rights. Beyond that are federal, state, and local laws, ordinances, and regulations. We have several laws at our disposal that may help to exploit HSN and HSO vulnerabilities, such as the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA); the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO); and counterterrorism, hate speech, and immigration laws. Each of our coalition partners has its own relevant charter delineating its purpose, intent, and constraints. Finally, given the nature or our charge, we may seek moral guidance from relevant religious texts.
• Resources. First and foremost, Project Esther will require money to fund the operations needed to counter the HSN. That money may originate from coalition members, large donors, other high-net-worth individuals (HNWI), and grassroots fundraising. Similarly, we will need centers of influence, which themselves may be HNWI or key influencers. Much of the information required, especially with respect to building out the HSN for analysis, is publicly available or purchasable. Information that is not so readily accessible can likely be accessed through Freedom of Information Act requests or on-the-ground and in-the-field research and analysis. Finally, the project will require people—an army of volunteers with the skill sets needed to render the HSN ineffective.
• Capabilities. Thankfully, America’s open society allows us to access the capabilities that the HSN and its HSOs use for ill. This means that we have the same capability to influence—perhaps more so. We have access to the same social media platforms across the entire U.S. digital ecosystem. These allow us not only to connect with our own various social networks, but also to access and monitor the HSN’s. As a nation of laws—and equal protection under the law—we likely have vast ranks of legal scholars, experts, and practitioners ready to volunteer on our behalf. As a group of American professionals, we are likely connected to our own academic institutions’ alumni networks; any of us who are HNWIs in our own right may wield significant influence over the administration of those institutions, particularly if we sit on boards of directors. Finally, given the nature of the endeavor and the amount of information required, we will need to access several commercially available analytic tools.
• Activities. To exploit specific HSN and HSO vulnerabilities, we must conduct legal, private research and investigation to uncover criminal wrongdoing. We must conduct audits, both academic and financial. We must conduct information campaigns that are designed to illuminate and expose—“name and shame”—to undermine HSN and HSO members’ credibility. We must wage lawfare. We must disrupt HSN and HSO communications, both to the broader public and among each other. We must conduct public relations campaigns designed to place officials who are HSN supporters or fence-sitters in untenable positions, forcing them to end their support for anti-American, antisemitic HSO causes or risk losing their power.

Risk. The risk inherent in Project Esther largely involves the consequences of success and the consequences of doing nothing (which equates to failure).

If the HSN and its affiliated HSOs were left alone, their activities conceivably could drift away from the public’s consciousness and into the annals of unrecorded history. They could, of their own accord, become ineffectual. Unfortunately, current trends and geopolitical conditions do not support this conclusion. It is more likely that antisemitism will grow across the United States and that the American Jewish community will become both more insular and more marginalized, eventually falling victim to the HSN agenda. Over time, the HSN’s victims will grow to include other American minority groups that are incapable of aligning with the HSN and its HSOs. While there is always a risk that doing anything could fail and accelerate these results, doing nothing will ensure them.

At the same time, it is worth acknowledging that when Project Esther succeeds, it could reinforce a “blood libel” narrative, potentially lending credence to an HSN “Blame the Jews” mantra, followed by expanded antisemitism across the United States. It should be anticipated that HSOs will counter legal actions taken by Heritage and other members of the coalition with legal action of their own. At the lowest level, inadvertent violations of the rights of other Americans, even supporters of HSN and its HSOs, during the conduct of civic operations or activities could expose both individuals and Project Esther to liability.

It is therefore incumbent upon us to integrate measures necessary to mitigate the risk of success. Project Esther will adhere scrupulously to the law—federal, state, and local—and ensure that we do not violate the rights of any HSN or HSO leaders, members, or supporters. We can further minimize risk to the project from “counter accusations” with an underlying public relations campaign designed to insulate it from the HSN, HSOs, their supporters, and other Jew-haters. Most important, reflecting the true nature of the HSN threat—a threat to the foundations of the United States and the fabric of our society—Project Esther cannot be a solely “Jewish” effort: It must be an American effort. Project Esther will deliberately remain American, without foreign partners, to ensure that nobody can legitimately accuse us of being under the influence of foreign powers or part of a broader foreign “conspiracy.” And because Project Esther is an American effort, participants will no doubt naturally reflect the inherently dynamic U.S. demographic, one that is multicultural and multiethnic and includes Jews and non-Jews alike. There is no need for “diversity, equity, and inclusion” (DEI); we have no doubt that Americans of allbackgrounds will gravitate toward Project Esther because it is righteous and reflects American values.

First they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out— because I was not a socialist.

Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out— because I was not a trade unionist.

Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out— because I was not a Jew.

Then they came for me— and there was no one left to speak for me.

—Martin Niemoller 21