Trump Administration Targets Americans Opposed to Zionism
Constitutionally protected speech critical of Israel may be considered incitement of violence.
Gabrielle Cuccia, a MAGA influencer and former chief Pentagon correspondent for One America News (OAN), was hired earlier this year to write a script for Vine & Fig Tree Institute (VFT), a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization “that combats antisemitism and hate.” The image of “vine and fig tree” is mentioned several times in the Old Testament. References appear in Kings, Micha, and Isaiah.
“VFT is a pro-Israel organization with ties to the administration,” Cuccia posted to X on May 22. “Earlier this year, VFT was at the White House meeting with Sebastian Gorka.”
Shortly after that White House meeting, I was contacted through a third party and asked to script-write for VFT. The individual who contacted me is publicly very Christian and widely perceived as America First. I was told the script would be used to create an AI-generated video on behalf of the White House, specifically for NSC and Sebastian Gorka.
Zettawire characterizes VFT as a “pro-Israel nonprofit… [that has] conducted domestic surveillance on conservative voices from inside the White House, using AI propaganda.”
An investigative report alleges that pro-Israel nonprofit Vine & Fig Tree (VFT) runs a domestic surveillance and propaganda campaign targeting America First conservatives from inside the White House, using AI media and data operations, and that VFT recently met with NSC counterterror director Sebastian Gorka.
Gorka, as I pointed out in an earlier post, is deputy assistant to the president and senior director for counterterrorism. He said speech critical of the White House and Israel may be considered “incitement of violence under government standards” and linked to Iran and Russia.
Cuccia was told VFT worked covertly with the Trump administration and was provided with a link to a Dropbox account. “Inside the Dropbox were 7 folders,” she writes. “Through those documents, I learned more about what this organization actually does. Their reports monitor major conservative and ‘dissident-right’ accounts and frequently frame those accounts as vulnerable to, or participating in, foreign influence operations.”
The reports contain information on Nick Fuentes, Tucker Carlson, Candace Owens, Ian Carroll, Jackson Hinkle, Dan Bilzerian, Mario Nawfal, Joe Kent, and others. “In another report, they argue that distrust surrounding Charlie Kirk’s assassination was mostly due to Americans falling for Russian, Iranian, and Pakistani propaganda networks” Cuccia writes. ‘In another report, they argue that distrust surrounding Charlie Kirk’s assassination was mostly due to Americans falling for Russian, Iranian, and Pakistani propaganda networks.”
VFT suggested collaboration with NCRI, a multi-million dollar organization that tracks ‘hate speech’ on social media. NCRI, the Network Contagion Research Institute, founded by Joel Finkelstein, focuses on hate groups, disinformation, and misinformation on social media platforms. Finkelstein is a former researcher at the Anti-Defamation League (ADL). In addition to reports on political “dissemination of disinformation” supposedly produced by Iran, Russia, and China, NCRI reported on “anarch-socialist extremists,” antifa, “Jihadi extremism,” “martyr narratives,” and “lone wolf terror attacks.”
The Institute receives funding from the Open Society Foundations of George Soros and the conservative Charles Koch Foundation. In 2021, the NCRI was paid $335,000 by the anti-BDS (Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions) Israel on Campus Coalition (funded in part by Hillel: The Foundation for Jewish Campus Life), which conducts self-described “psychological warfare” on pro-BDS students using Blend AI, a service that manages online ad campaigns. In addition, the Israeli Eran Teboul stated that his anti-BDS organization, Hetz for Israel, has privately raised funds for NCRI. Hetz for Israel bills itself as a “non-profit public organization in the field of Israel relations” and describes its mission as connecting NGOs, activists, corporations, and officials to fight anti-Semitism and advocate for Israel.
VFT raised $3 million in its first year, almost entirely from undisclosed philanthropic donors.
It then funneled $850,000 into its sister entity, the Vine and Fig Tree Fund, which acts as the grantmaking arm. In just one year, the Fund handed out major sums including $250,000 to the Combat Hate Foundation, $100,000 each to Merona Leadership Foundation and The Giving Back Fund, and additional grants to aligned groups. Both organizations claim zero employees, raising questions about how such large sums are being moved with minimal overhead to influence American discourse.
The Combat Hate Foundation steers the Combat Antisemitism Movement (CAM), which identifies itself as a coalition of individuals and organizations from diverse religious and faith backgrounds united in their mission to combat antisemitism. CAM is a coalition of about 700 organizations opposed to antisemitism, according to Influence Watch.
CAM targeted Rep. Ilhan Omar and former Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene. It is believed the foundation is run by the Israeli Diaspora Affairs Ministry. “We wear this as a badge of honor because it demonstrates we are on the right track in exposing Iran and its proxies around the world,” said Sacha Roytman Dratwa, the CEO of CAM. He is the former head of digital media for the IDF and also a former director of digital advocacy at the World Jewish Congress (the president of the Congress is Ronald Lauder, the cosmetics billionaire).
Adam E. Beren founded CAM in 2019. He is owner and president of the oil and gas exploration and production firm Berexco LLC. His family foundation, the Beren Sea Foundation, has been a major donor to the Combat Hate Foundation. Beren donated $312,500 to a Trump PAC before the 2016 election. He was subsequently appointed by Trump to head the the United States Holocaust Memorial Council, established by Congress in 1980. The Beren Sea Foundation contributed $3,125,000 to the Combat Hate Foundation in 2022.
The public-facing leadership of the organization include chief of staff Arthur Maserjian, banker and tech startup entrepreneur; editor-in-chief Barney Breen-Portno, a journalist who has worked in the United States and Israel; COO Yigal Nisell, an Israeli lawyer; Meorah Ha-Me’ir, chief marketing officer and creative director; and Natan Sharansky, the Soviet era dissident, currently chairman of the Institute for the Study of Global Antisemitism and Policy.
In February 2023, Combat Antisemitism Movement and the Network Contagion Research Institute released a study alleging that antisemitic posts on Twitter had surged since Elon Musk bought the social media platform. It noted an increase in references to “Soros” and “Globalists,” which the organization said have antisemitic connotations. It also noted a “horseshoe effect,” with rising comments from white nationalist Nick Fuentes and those in his orbit, as well as white supremacists, Black Hebrew Israelites, and Islamists, making anti-Jewish comments on Twitter.
CAM’s Barney Breen-Portnoy authored a report claiming antisemitism is running “rampant” on Elon Musk’s ostensible free speech X social media platform. “Slurs targeting Jews made up 40.7 percent — the clear plurality – of the 54 posts deemed offensive to Jews, suggesting that straightforward, unabashed anti-Jewish hate runs rampant on X,” Breen-Portnoy writes. He does not mention if a distinction was made between “Jews” and “Zionism,” as increasingly the two are conflated by organizations such as CAM and the ADL.
In addition to the above, the World Jewish Congress, Jewish Agency for Israel, International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA), and the World Zionist Organization consider anti-Zionism to be a form of antisemitism. The IHRA is the most influential of these organizations, although its definition is not universally accepted. AIPAC, the ADL, American Jewish Committee, Jewish Federations of North America, and others utilize the IHRA definition. The IHRA definition was been used to flag and remove online content criticizing Israel or advocating for Palestinian rights, including calls for one-state solutions.
One consequence of using the IHRA definition is that many forms of legitimate Israel criticism are considered antisemitic. Indeed, all forms of anti-Zionism are antisemitic by IHRA definition. The original objection to this direction was that it stifled debate about Israel in the American Jewish community. It has the effect of delegitimizing any group that offers a strong critique of Israel.
In 2020, CAM said the IHRA definition must govern content on social media. “Social media companies need clear standards for evaluating potentially anti-Semitic content on their platforms. Thankfully, a global gold-standard already exists: the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) definition with its detailed examples” including anti-Zionism as antisemitism.
The ACLU, Human Rights Watch, and others, including over 40 Jewish groups, have warned implementing the IHRA definition on social media will chill free speech. In late 2020, the Foundation for Middle East Peace
warned the working definition of antisemitism—and its examples—is on its way to being adopted and used across the globe to restrict free speech. From the State Department to English Premier League soccer teams, from universities to social media platforms, concerted campaigns to label criticism of Israeli policies and challenges to Zionism as antisemitism—and to impose formal/legal consequences—continue to gain momentum.
Speaking at the Hudson Institute in 2025, Trump’s deputy assistant to the president and National Security Council senior director for counterterrorism, Sebastian Gorka, characterized all criticism of Israel as antisemitism. Earlier this month, he said anti-Israel speech should be defined as incitement to violence. He added that anti-Israel activists and protestors are “fellow travelers” to Iran and Russia.
“Expressing support for Hamas and Hezbollah or chanting ‘from the River to the Sea’ does not measure up to incitement under the First Amendment. Gorka believes anti-Israel speech may be defined as illegal incitement,” I wrote earlier this month.
On May 27, Gorka said terrorists will be labeled as such regardless of category, including left-wing radicals with anarchist or anti-fascist ideology. “We’re gonna label terrorists as terrorists, whether it’s cartels, whether it’s jihadis, or whether it’s sadly the le — the Americans who are left wing, who are radical, and because they subscribe to some anarchic, anti-fascist, or radically pro-transgender ideology,” he told the Alex Marlow Show.
Earlier in the month, Gorka produced an online counter terrorism strategy paper, explains Jason Zaharis:
Sebastian Gorka, the unregistered British foreign agent and vicious Islamophobe, along with several unregistered foreign agents of Israel, were involved in the creation of a 16-page online “counterterrorism” strategy document for the Trump Administration. The report named several known dissidents such as Tucker Carlson and Candace Owens. However, what was most terrifying was their attempt to frame independent journalists as agents of Russia and Iran without any evidence to prove such ties.
[…]
The US regime is declaring war on the First Amendment to silence anti-war dissidents and critics of Israel by labeling them foreign agents, just like they did with Russiagate and the McCarthy era. If the facts you report as a journalist don’t happen to serve the Greater Israel agenda or the military-industrial complex’s profit schemes, then you’re a terrorist who is working as an agent of the Kremlin and the IRGC.
Former influential MAGA supporters, including Tucker Carlson, Candace Owens, Alex Jones, and recently Megyn Kelly, have all renounced Trump over the Iran War, the Epstein files, the Charlie Kirk assassination, sex scandals, and the election promises he made and have thus far gone unfulfilled. The Iran War in particular has alienated younger voters, and Trump’s economic policies have soured MAGA voters across the board.
Donald Trump, a vindictive megalomaniac, is using the authority of his office and the state to go after and harm critics, while allowing Zionists to undermine the constitutional rights of American citizens. Sebastian Gorka, an unregistered British foreign agent, with the assistance of VFT and other Zionist groups and individuals, is determined to criminalize all speech that points out the obvious: Israel is an outlaw criminal state guilty of crimes against humanity, genocide, rape, theft, and political manipulation of the United States, including the wholesale purchase of elected representatives.
https://anotherdayintheempire.substack.com/p/trump-administration-targets-americans