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New reporting leads to an inescapable conclusion. Donald Trump played the pro-Palestinian American who voted for him for suckers. Democrats tried to warn these voters in places like Michigan that Trump was on the side of Netanyahu and that a vote for Trump was a vote for the destruction of the Palestinian people, but these voters were angry at the Biden administration’s policy and seemed more interested in sending a message than helping people in Gaza, and the consequences for that decision have arrived.
Trump made it clear that he would allow Netanyahu to do whatever he wanted in Gaza, and that has been the case. Promised US food aid has never arrived and Israeli military operations are ongoing.
Reporting in The New York Times reveals that Trump has implemented much of a Heritage Foundation plan to destroy the pro-Palestinian movement in the United States and remove pro-Palestinian Americans from society.
According to The New York Times:
Drafted in the wake of Hamas’s attack on Israel in 2023 and the mounting protests against the war in Gaza, Project Esther outlined an ambitious plan to fight antisemitism by branding a broad range of critics of Israel as “effectively a terrorist support network,” so that they could be deported, defunded, sued, fired, expelled, ostracized and otherwise excluded from what it considered “open society.”
…
Once a sympathetic presidential administration was in place, the plan said, “We will organize rapidly, take immediate action to ‘stop the bleeding,’ and achieve all objectives within two years.”
Since the inauguration, the White House and other Republicans have called for actions that appear to mirror more than half of Project Esther’s proposals, a New York Times analysis shows, including threats to withhold billions in federal funding at universities and attempts to deport legal residents.
Donald Trump used the pro-Palestinian movement to drive a wedge through the Democratic Party during the 2024 election, and after winning the election thanks in part to the pro-Palestinian voters who either didn’t vote or voted for Trump, the president is now looking to remove those people from American society.
What Trump is doing is unconstitutional, but by acting quickly, he is doing an end run past the court system. By the time the courts decide one issue, the Trump administration will have moved on to ten others.
The timeline is telling. It is as if Trump and his allies plan to lose control of all or part of Congress in two years, so they are trying to push through this agenda as quickly as possible.
What can be done? The courts need to be pressured to move faster. The courts also need to start punishing Trump administration officials who ignore court orders on this issue.
The people who wanted what is best for the Palestinian people would have been better served to elect Kamala Harris and work to pressure her to change any policies that they disagreed with.
Trump played them for a bunch of fools, and now both they and the people of Gaza will pay a horrific price.
What do you think about Trump trying to eliminate the pro-Palestinian movement in the US? Let’s discuss it in the comments below.