A 31-page document that seeks to "combat anti-Semitism" and dismantle "so-called pro-Palestinian activism in the United States" has been circulating on computers and desktops in Washington since October of last year.

This is Project Esther, a plan developed by conservative individuals and organizations, some of them close to President Trump, which proposes several measures that coincide with actions that his administration has been taking.

Named after the biblical story of a woman in the Persian Empire who saved Jews from extermination, the project lays out a detailed strategy to combat what it calls a “Hamas support network” in the United States.

“The virulently anti-Israel, anti-Zionist, and anti-American groups that make up the so-called pro-Palestinian movement within the United States are part of a global network of support for Hamas and, therefore, constitute in practice a network of support for terrorism,” the document says.

It is signed by a coalition of organizations — the National Task Force to Combat Antisemitism — organized and supported by The Heritage Foundation, the influential conservative think tank that made a lot of noise during the 2024 presidential campaign for being behind the controversial Project 2025.

The three co-authors of the Esther Project are linked to The Heritage Foundation.

In their own words, the project aims to “ensure that antisemitic movements are incapable of threatening American citizens with violence” and “dismantle the infrastructure of the Hamas support network throughout the United States” within 12 to 24 months.

Daniel Flesch, one of the co-authors, told BBC Mundo that this plan was created precisely to respond to this moment in which, according to him, “those who have been calling for “globalizing the intifada” for twenty years are carrying out their threat.”

For Flesch, this has been reflected in the recent attacks in Washington,where two Israeli embassy officials were killed, and in Boulder, Colorado, where 12 people were injured while participating in an event supporting the release of Israeli hostages held by Hamas in Gaza.

Flesch served as an advisor to Israel's permanent mission to the United Nations from 2018 to 2021.

Victoria Coates and Robert Greenway, the other two co-authors of the project, were officials in the first Trump administration. Both worked at the National Security Council on Middle East and North Africa issues.

What the document says

According to the Esther Project, the pro-Palestinian movement in the United States not only threatens the Jewish community, but threatens to destroy capitalism, democracy, and American values.

“Anti-Zionists and antisemites are attempting to assault our educational system, our political processes, and our government,” it reads.

The plan opposes what it calls a “Hamas support network” (HSN), which it says is made up of organizations that disguise under the label of pro-Palestinian activism their true intention of advancing the Hamas cause and detrimental to US interests and values.

The Esther Project was published one year after the October 7 attack, while Joe Biden was still President.

It accuses the Biden administration of “being on a path” to making antisemitism acceptable, eroding relations between Israel and the United States, and recognizing “a Palestinian entity to include Hamas.”

And it says that the “intention” of the Esther Project is that “when a favorable administration occupies the White House” public and private efforts will be coordinated to combat antisemitism.

The document was published at the height of the 2024 presidential campaign.

No Trump administration official has directly referred to the Esther Project.

BBC Mundo contacted the State Department to ask about the level of influence of the Esther Project on the policies of the current administration, but did not receive a response.

In any case, several of the plans defined in the document are similar to the actions that the Trump administration has taken, as celebrated by co-author Daniel Flesch.

“We are pleased that some of our recommendations, such as the deportation of those people who fail to comply with the requirements of their student visa are being pushed by the administration," he said in a statement to BBC Mundo.

The pro-Palestinian organizations that the Esther Project mentions by name, and which he accuses of being part of the support network for Hamas,These organizations have recently been subject to sanctions and suspensions by the universities where they operate. Harvard, for example, ordered the Harvard Undergraduate Palestine Solidarity Committee to “cease all activities” in April 2024. Columbia University, for its part, suspended Students for Justice in Palestine (SPJ) and Jewish Voice for Peace for violating university policies by organizing unauthorized on-campus protests. In May 2024, the Anti-Defamation League, an organization dedicated to combating antisemitism, reported that Columbia’s SPJ branch was posting on its Telegram channel a “fawning Resistance News Network guide to ‘the resistance,’ featuring designated foreign terrorist organizations such as Hamas and Jihad.” "Palestinian Islamic."

A profile of Sheikh Yassin, founder of Hamas, was published on the same channel in September 2024. “Even in death, his legacy of relentless resistance to oppression lives on. He lives on in his students, including current Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar [considered the architect of the October 7 attack on Israel], the man who deceived the Zionist entity, and in all the Palestinian fighters who embody the resolve that Yassin taught.” Tributes to Sinwar have also been posted there, as well as to the late leader of the Lebanese militia Hezbollah, Hassan Nasrallah, among many other members of Palestinian armed groups, including several who attempted or carried out actions against civilians in Israel, including hijacking buses with passengers and a failed attempt to detonate a bomb in a movie theater. Both Sinwar and Nasrallah were killed in attacks by Israeli forces. At least one message commemorating the October 7 attack on the which is described as a “strategic” and “anti-imperialist” action.

The Coincidences

The Esther Project coincides with the Trump administration’s approach especially regarding the role it believes college students (especially foreign ones) and academics play in the proliferation of antisemitism in the US.

Senior administration officials have noted that universities such as Harvard and Columbia have become fertile grounds for antisemitism and that educational institutions have not done enough to combat it.

Education Secretary Linda McMahon, for example, noted that Columbia “acted with deliberate indifference to the harassment of Jewish students.”

And Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem accused Harvard of “fomenting violence, anti-Semitism, and coordinating with the Chinese Communist Party.”

Those accusations, in fact, are part of the justification with which the government announced that it would prevent the university from enrolling foreign students. A few weeks earlier, it had frozen millions of dollars in federal funding earmarked for that institution.

The plans outlined in The Esther Project, published several months earlier, were along similar lines.

It notes that a group of foreign nationals who are part of Hamas’s support network have infiltrated the United States as students and have taken advantage of the rights and benefits the country offers.

“Organizations supporting Hamas have infiltrated their ideology into the United States education system. It is pervasive,” says the document, which also accuses dozens of universities of employing professors who defend Hamas-supporting organizations.

Based on this diagnosis, The Esther Project proposes a series of “desired effects,” including “that propaganda from Hamas-supporting organizations be eliminated from the curricula,” “that faculty who support those organizations be fired,” and “that foreign members of those organizations be denied access to campus.”