For the past few years, Canary Mission – an online database – has published extensive profiles on “individuals and organizations that promote hatred of the USA, Israel and Jews on North American college campuses.”
But while claiming to fight against racism and being critical of organizations and individuals across the political spectrum, the CM database is suspiciously partisan, with only one right-wing anti-Semitic group, Identity Evropa, of a total of twenty-three organization – all the others, from Hamas to the Council on American Islamic Relations to the Students for Justice in Palestine to IfNotNow, are noted for their anti-Israel stances or critiques of Israeli policy.
Similarly, among the college professors featured on the site, a striking majority are of Muslim and/or Arab origin, and almost all for their involvement in the Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions movement or petitions critical of Israeli policies – two individuals (not affiliated with any college campus) of the 2,353 are mentioned for their involvement in the Alt-Right Proud Boys movement and another two for the Neo-Nazi Traditionalist Worker Party.
Despite claiming to challenge “hatred across the entire political spectrum,” CM is clearly first and foremost committed to fighting the BDS movement and Palestinian solidarity activism. In addition to targeting organizations and professionals, they also engage in profiling many hundreds of students across North American college campuses who have taken a role in criticizing Israel publicly at their schools and advocating for campus boycotts.
CM’s ethics policy makes it clear that then site make no differentiation between those who publicly support Hamas or Hezbollah and those who simply advocate for anonymous votes on campus divestment resolutions. Their tendency to paint all of those they target with a single brush highlights the shortcomings of their crusade against “hate groups.”
Their targeting of undergraduate students has garnered special attention in recent years. Especially during the past academic year, even students across North America involved in Israel affinity groups raised criticisms of the way that Canary Mission intervened uninvited in fights against BDS on their campus. Students saw the unsolicited interventions of CM as harmful to serious attempts at dialogue and resolution between supporters of Israel and those of the Palestinian cause.
Students in the Palestinian solidarity community are meanwhile especially disturbed by the ways CM has intentionally tried to impact their employment prospects during school and after graduation. The public and searchable nature of the site makes it very easy for potential employers to find a virulent condemnation from CM of anyone who was even peripherally involved in supporting BDS on campus or any pro-Palestinian activism.
Most recently, the Israeli government has used Canary Mission as a pretext for preventing individuals involved in BDS and other pro-Palestinian organizations from entering the country, or deporting them upon learning of their involvements.
Canary Mission should be seen as an obvious result of everything wrong with the organized pro-Israel community. By ignoring Jewish national aspirations and questions about the next stages of Jewish liberation, pro-Israel Diaspora Jews have dedicated their energies and resources to merely defending the image and policies of the State of Israel.
Instead of inspiring young adults to become participants in Jewish history, college students have been taught by all the hasbara organizations and Israel-advocacy professionals to essentially show their campuses that Israel is the “good guy” in a G-rated film (according to the values of Western civilization). This shallow and dogmatic approach to understanding and explaining a very complex situation has turned any and all critics of Israel into “bad guy” anti-Semites deserving of defamation on a public blacklist.
The Forward recently alleged that a leading member organization of the Jewish Community Federation of San Francisco has given at least $100,000 to fund the CM website, raising serious questions about the allocation of community resources for political aims.
This would obviously not be the first time that funds from Jewish communities have been funneled towards narrow Israel-related political agendas rather than strengthening the community itself, deepening Jewish identity, advancing Jewish aspirations or facilitating aliya to Israel. It continues a long tradition of American Jewish organizations engaging in economic Zionism, funding any number of organizations that claim to support or defend Israel, without seriously engaging the realities on the ground here.
By prioritizing the defamation of pro-Palestinian activists over advancing real Jewish national goals, Canary Mission, the Jewish Community Federation of San Francisco, and perhaps the broader hasbara industry itself fail to live up to the values that should animate the Diaspora Jewish community.
