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HOW TRUMP AND THE GOP PLAN TO DISMANTLE THE U.S. PRO-PALESTINIAN
MOVEMENT  
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Ben Samuels
December 23, 2024
Haaretz
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_ Aggressively anti-Palestinian appointees, who tend to describe all
campus protesters as Hamas supporters, will soon steer both foreign
and domestic policy, creating a Trump administration united in seeking
a crackdown on the pro-Palestinian movement. _

U.S. President-elect Donald Trump speaking in Phoenix on Sunday,
December 22., Credit: Cheney Orr/Reuters // Haaretz

 

Four weeks before U.S. President-elect Donald Trump takes power, all
his rhetoric and appointments are indicating that his campaign's vow
to crack down on pro-Palestinian sentiment in America will be a
defining factor of his administration's early days.

Throughout the campaign, both Trump and the Republican Party
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that such a clampdown would be quick and complete. After Trump's
speedy cabinet appointments and ahead of a Congress ruled by a GOP
majority, the fight against the pro-Palestinian movement might be one
of the only things that has a clear path across the government.

Once Trump's picks for the top diplomatic positions are in place, such
as Marco Rubio
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secretary of state and Elise Stefanik
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UN ambassador, the harshest step – the deporting of pro-Palestinian
protesters who have student visas – could be the first move. Both
Rubio and Stefanik are well-known proponents of such a step, one
of Trump and the GOP's
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solid policy commitments on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict during
the campaign.

In October, Rubio wrote to the current secretary of state, Antony
Blinken, urging him to "immediately perform a full review and
coordination effort to revoke the visas of those who have endorsed or
espoused Hamas' terrorist activity."

Stefanik, meanwhile, has doubled down on her star-making turn as
university-president interrogator
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calling for students' deportation. She told Fox News in May that these
students "are pro-Hamas members of a mob who are calling for the
eradication of Israel. They are calling for genocide against Jews
around the world and in America. It is unthinkable that we are
allowing this to happen at U.S. universities."

The blueprint is there

Other nominees more focused on domestic matters have also suggested
that the pro-Palestinian protest movement will be a key issue. Among
them is Pam Bondi, Trump's
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attempt at a nominee for attorney general. The former Florida attorney
general has called for a revocation of visas and condemned the campus
protests.
 
Pro-Palestinian protesters at Columbia University in New York in
April.  (Credit: Emily Byrski/Pro-Palestinian protesters at Columbia
University in New York in April.Credit: Emily Byrski/Agence
France-Presse(AFP)  //  Haaretz)
"The thing that's really the most troubling to me [are] these students
in universities in our country, whether they're here as Americans or
if they're here on student visas, and they're out there saying 'I
support Hamas,'" she told Newsmax last year.

Bondi added: "Frankly they need to be taken out of our country or the
FBI needs to be interviewing them right away."

Trump's choice to lead the FBI is controversial loyalist Kash Patel.
While the former federal prosecutor doesn't have much of a record on
campus protests, he is most notorious for his desire to remove any of
Trump's critics and doubters from the national security apparatus.

Further, Patel's experience as the National Security Council's senior
director of counterterrorism during Trump's first term positions him
to crack down on pro-Palestinian sympathizers. A blueprint for this is
detailed in Project Esther, a plan to combat antisemitism unveiled by
the Heritage Foundation, which is behind Project 2025, the 922-page
paper outlining conservatives' plans to fundamentally alter the
government.

The underlying thesis of Project Esther – a more tractable 33 pages
– is that "America's virulently anti-Israel, anti-Zionist, and
anti-American 'pro-Palestinian movement' is part of a global Hamas
Support Network (HSN)."

"The thing that's really the most troubling to me [are] these students
in universities in our country, whether they're here as Americans or
if they're here on student visas, and they're out there saying 'I
support Hamas,'" she told Newsmax last year.

Bondi added: "Frankly they need to be taken out of our country or the
FBI needs to be interviewing them right away."

Trump's choice to lead the FBI is controversial loyalist Kash Patel.
While the former federal prosecutor doesn't have much of a record on
campus protests, he is most notorious for his desire to remove any of
Trump's critics and doubters from the national security apparatus.

Further, Patel's experience as the National Security Council's senior
director of counterterrorism during Trump's first term positions him
to crack down on pro-Palestinian sympathizers. A blueprint for this is
detailed in Project Esther, a plan to combat antisemitism
[[link removed]] unveiled
by the Heritage Foundation, which is behind Project 2025
[[link removed]],
the 922-page paper outlining conservatives' plans to fundamentally
alter the government.

The underlying thesis of Project Esther – a more tractable 33 pages
– is that "America's virulently anti-Israel, anti-Zionist, and
anti-American 'pro-Palestinian movement' is part of a global Hamas
Support Network (HSN)."

 
President-elect Donald Trump and U.S. Representative Elise Stefanik
at a rally in New Hampshire in January.  Credit: Elizabeth Frantz /
Reuters  //  Haaretz)
The task force's mission statement calls for a coalition to "dismantle
the infrastructure" that purportedly sustains the alleged network.
This would take one to two years. "Supported by activists and funders
dedicated to destroying capitalism and democracy, the HSN benefits
from the support and training of America's overseas enemies," the
document states.

It adds that this network "seeks to achieve its 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."

The document suggests how a potential Trump administration would crack
down on protesters, something he has promised. It also calls for the
deporting of protesters in the United States on student visas and the
targeting of universities' tax-exempt status. It notes laws that might
"exploit [the network's] vulnerabilities," require representatives of
foreign entities to disclose their connections, and target organized
crime and racketeering.

Hardliner Harmeet Dhillon

One bill that will not be in the law books anytime soon is the
Antisemitism Awareness Act, which is aimed at combating campus
antisemitism. It also requires the Education Department to take the
International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance definition of
antisemitism
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account when determining if an action or practice that violates Title
VI of the 1964 Civil Rights Act was motivated by antisemitism.

The House of Representatives overwhelmingly passed the act earlier
this year, despite concerns on the left that criticism of Israel would
be conflated with antisemitism and on the right that the bill had
dramatic implications on freedom of speech. There were also tropes
from far-right Republicans that the bill would state that Jews killed
Jesus.

Outgoing Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer has kept the bill off
the Senate floor for a vote by attaching it to various other packages
that he hopes to push through.

Amid this stalemate, another notable opponent has emerged: Harmeet
Dhillon, Trump's choice to lead the Justice Department's Civil Rights
Division, which will play a major role in enforcing federal action
combating antisemitism.

 
Trump's nominee for assistant attorney general for civil rights,
Harmeet Dhillon, speaking in Phoenix on Friday.  (Credit: Cheney
Orr/Reuters  //  Haaretz)
Dhillon, one of Trump's top legal minds behind his efforts to
challenge the 2020 election results, slammed the Antisemitism
Awareness Act upon its House passage. "I have been a First Amendment
and religious liberties lawyer for minority and majority faith
communities for decades and this bill is knee-jerk anti-constitutional
dreck," she wrote on X.

She added: "Do better, think harder, and be smarter, Congress. 'Hate
speech' laws are a liberal concept." But Dhillon has joined her new
colleagues in being a vocal advocate for cracking down on the campus
protest movement.

"Sue Yale," she wrote on X in April. "Sue every university that
refuses to keep students safe based on their religion. Make them
regret their choices. Deplete their endowments. Sue each and every
violent protester and organizers. Drain their bank accounts. Sow salt
in their career plans."

Dhillon followed that post by laying into a protest at UCLA: "I defend
the right of these jackass terrorist apologists to protest, but they
do NOT have the right to block access to other students or prevent
them from going to class. My tax dollars are subsidizing UCLA and the
Regents need to get their act together ASAP or be sued!"

Linda McMahon, Trump's education secretary nominee, has also publicly
committed to prioritizing the issue, even if the incoming president
has vowed to dismantle her department.

"Certainly. I don't think we should have any kind of discrimination
anywhere, and I absolutely abhor any kind of violence that we have
seen on campus. It should not be allowed," she told Jewish Insider
without specifying what plan she supports. "We have lots of priorities
that I'm going to be dealing with, and certainly anything that is
against the safety and welfare of any of our students will be a
priority."

The proposed defunding of the Education Department is perhaps the
plank in Project 2025 that most concerns the American-Jewish
community. The Office of Civil Rights, which is responsible for
investigating and adjudicating allegations of antisemitism, is part of
this department and has opened at least 145 investigations into such
complaints.

 
U.S. Rep. Brian Mast arrives for a House Foreign Affairs Committee
hearing this month.  (Credit: Kevin Dietsch/ Agence
France-Presse(AFP)  //  Haaretz)
Hardliner Brian Mast

This past summer, a rare coalition of nearly two dozen Jewish
organizations across the political and denominational spectrum urged
Congress to "provide the highest possible funding" for the Office of
Civil Rights, despite the deep disagreements regarding antisemitism on
Capitol Hill and in the Jewish world.

House Republicans, though they deemed the office's funding
insufficient, voted to cut $10 million more after accusing it of
failing to prioritize antisemitism. Several Trump-allied Republicans
have also highlighted the office's role in culture war issues like
Title IX and what they call "forcing women to compete against males in
sports."

Holding a razor-thin majority and already plagued by infighting, the
House GOP might find that advancing legislation relating to the
Palestinians is the only influential work it can get done in the next
session of Congress.

In a surprise development, Rep. Brian Mast has been slated to chair
the House Foreign Affairs Committee after Trump advocated on his
behalf. The Florida congressman has long been considered the U.S.
lawmaker most hostile to the Palestinians. He has decried efforts to
bolster humanitarian aid for Gaza and dismissed the notion of innocent
Palestinian civilians.

"I don't think we would so lightly throw around the term 'innocent
Nazi civilians' during World War II. It is not a far stretch to say
there are very few innocent Palestinian civilians," he said in remarks
that led to an unsuccessful effort in the House to formally rebuke
him.

Mast, an evangelical Christian, once volunteered with the Israeli
military, and he wore his uniform in Congress in the days after the
October 7 attack. That was a way to protest Rep. Rashida Tlaib's
placing of a Palestinian flag outside her office.

Mast has also condemned the concept of a two-state solution while
spearheading legislation to permanently cut U.S. funding for the
UNRWA refugee agency
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among other hostile bills. He has also slammed U.S. efforts to secure
a cease-fire in Gaza and advocated for expedited and expanded weapons
sales to Israel.

* Palestine solidarity
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* Palestine solidarity movement
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* pro-Palestine protests
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* pro-Palestine movement
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* Israel
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* Palestine
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* Gaza
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* West Bank
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* Israel-Gaza War
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* Oct. 7
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* Hamas
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* Hostages
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* Benjamin Netanyahu
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* AIPAC
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* anti-Semitism
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* marco rubio
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* Elsie Stefanik
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* Pam Bondi
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* Kash Patel
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* Project Esther
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* Harmeet Dhillon
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* Linda McMahon
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* Rep. Brian Mast
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