Canary Mission
Illegal Israeli Counterintelligence on American Citizens
Canary Mission is a secret Israeli operation (with an ops center hidden within the United States) that profiles students, professors, and organizations involved in pro-Palestinian activism, often labeling them as antisemitic or terror supporters. While its operators remain anonymous, reports have tied it to Israeli government interests and funding from American Jewish foundations, such as the Helen Diller Family Foundation via the Jewish Community Federation of San Francisco, and an Israeli charity, Megamot Shalom.
*As a personal note, I do not believe that this operation is or was limited to only Palestinian activism. I believe that Canary Mission, and its strategic relationships, is used to gather intel and data on individuals speaking against Israeli/IDF activity and initiatives. It uses publicly available data (e.g., social media posts) to create detailed dossiers, aiming to intimidate activists and harm their future employment prospects.
It maintains a database of student activists, professors, and organizations, primarily targeting those at North American universities. According to its website, it "documents individuals and organizations that promote hatred of the US, Israel, and Jews on North American college campuses and beyond," investigating hatred across the far-right, far-left, and anti-Israel activists. The site is run anonymously, with operators justifying secrecy due to fears of physical harm. Well over 2,000 individuals have become victims of this operation, with 500+ of them being professors—some of whom are Jewish.
Canary Mission gathers content from publicly available sources, such as social media, and “validates” materials submitted privately through its website. It aggregates this information into concise, searchable profiles, providing free access to the public. The profiles are often detailed, including personal information like childhood photos, and have grown to include thousands of students and professors engaged in pro-Palestinian or anti-Israel activism. It also profiles a handful of white supremacists and antisemites, which has led to criticism for grouping them with activists.
“…there has been so little reported on the secretive organization that Project Censored named Canary Mission one of the Top Ten Underreported Stores of 2021. [1]”
The site claims to be motivated by combating the rise in anti-Semitism on college campuses, pursuing its mission by presenting the words and deeds of individuals and organizations engaged in anti-Semitism, racism, and bigotry. It features campaigns and exclusive videos, such as "Bringing The War Home: The Palestinian War on America" and "Rape Denial: The New Way to Dehumanize Jews," here.
Then there is the "Ex-Canary" option, where individuals previously investigated can have their profiles removed if they reject anti-Semitism within far-right, far-left, and anti-Israel groups, including Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP), Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP), and the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) movement. This requires acknowledging past mistakes and embracing tolerance and coexistence, with inquiries directed to the Contact Us page on the site.
This quite literally translates to a “we will stop calling you anti-semites—,” which is effectively calling someone a Nazi in today’s age (and Israel knows this, very well), “—in exchange for you toeing the line.” This is intimidation, coercion, and the establishment of dominance over the individual. These are tactics core to the operations of organized crime and criminal syndicates.
It looks like Canary Mission is secretly funded by wealthy Jewish Americans and Jewish American foundations, with money funneled through Israeli nonprofits. These include but are not limited to the Helen Diller Family Foundation and the Central Fund of Israel (as reported by Forward), and The Jewish Community Federation of San Francisco. Controlling the Diller Foundation with net assets over $800 million and an annual budget over $100 million, is involved, with two federation staff on its board in 2016. Megamot Shalom, an obscure Israeli nonprofit with an address in Beit Shemesh described as a run-down abandoned building, received approximately $165,000 in the last six months of 2016, operating or having operated Canary Mission.
Additional funding includes $250,000 from an anonymous contributor via the Jewish Community Foundation of Los Angeles to Megamot Shalom, as per Forward. The Central Fund of Israel also transfers donations to Megamot Shalom, funding extremist settler groups like Lehava. Allegations suggest Adam Milstein, a multimillionaire and convicted felon, funds Canary Mission, though he denies it, as per an Al Jazeera investigation (linked below). The Diller family, headed by billionaire Sanford Diller, supports right-wing Islamophobic organizations, adding to the controversy.
Reports indicate direct links to the Israeli government like the Ministry of Strategic Affairs, which has been funding and dictating strategies to attack the movement for Palestinian rights, as noted in Palestine Legal. This raises legal concerns, with suggestions that Americans funding Canary Mission could be acting as agents of a foreign power, potentially committing a serious crime, as discussed in The Nation.
The evidence leans toward Canary Mission's funding and strategic alignment implying involvement with Israeli intelligence. The Ministry of Strategic Affairs, a highly secretive intelligence organization focused on the US, is known for its anti-BDS efforts, and The Nation describes Canary Mission as a "key intelligence asset" for the ministry, used to prevent individuals from entering Israel and visiting family, including Jews and Palestinians. This alignment is further supported by statements from the Israel on Campus Coalition (ICC), which shares its "operations and intelligence brief" with the ministry, boasting about Canary Mission's effect on activists, as noted in Palestine Legal.
On the ICC:
“One of those secret conduits is the Washington-based Israel on Campus Coalition (ICC), a key player in the Blue Network. Because much of the boycott activity takes place on college campuses around the United States, targeting and spying on student activists has become a high priority for Israel. This is often done secretly by fellow students belonging to Jewish and pro-Israel on-campus organizations. Once gathered, that intelligence on their fellow Americans is fed to the ICC, which acts as a sort of command center for on-campus spying. ‘The ICC pools resources from all of the campus organizations. So that they’re tapped in on all angles,’ Lila Greenberg, the senior national organizer for AIPAC, told undercover reporter Tony Kelinfeld.
‘We built up this massive national political campaign to crush them,’ boasted Jacob Baime, referring to Americans on campuses across the country who support Palestinian human rights and the boycott. The ICC’s executive director was meeting with Kleinfeld at the organization’s Washington headquarters. On the hidden camera he described ICC as basically a clandestine Israeli military command. ‘It’s modeled on General Stanley McCrystal’s counterinsurgency strategy in Iraq. We’ve copied a lot from that strategy that has been working very well for us actually. And one of the pieces is this Operations and Intelligence Brief.’
That intelligence brief, containing secret details about targeted American students, is then passed on to the Ministry of Strategic Affairs, according to Baime’s director of operations, Ian Hersh. ‘In terms of information sharing, we did add the Ministry of Strategic Affairs to our Operations and Intelligence Brief,’ he said. Baime told Kleinfeld that he also ‘coordinates with’ and ‘communicates with’ the ministry.”
“They were striking revelations, indicating that Israel is illegally operating a secret nationwide campus spying operation within the United States, and Baime and his staff may potentially be acting as covert foreign agents for Israel. Beyond spying, the ICC engages in covert operations against the innocent American students, with its ‘massive national political campaign to crush them.’ [1]”
Canary Mission has faced significant criticism for its tactics, described as doxxing and blacklisting, intended to intimidate and silence critique of Israel. It has been compared to McCarthyist witch hunts and authoritarian regimes, with accusations of open racism and misleading claims. For instance, it has been criticized for targeting Jewish supporters of Palestinian causes, such as JVP, IfNotNow, and Mondoweiss, equating criticism of Israel with anti-Semitism, which Jewish Voice for Peace condemns as a false assertion.
The site’s profiles have been used by Israeli intelligence, such as the Ministry of Strategic Affairs and Shin Bet, to interrogate and deny entry into Israel.
The impact on activists is daunting to say the least. A survey by Palestine Legal found over 200 individuals reported effects:
Legal and travel issues include being interrogated and deported from Israel, with some visited by the FBI due to profiles, as noted in Palestine Legal. The blacklist has been described as killing the student movement, reducing the ability to hold big actions or events, with organizers noting a chilling effect on campus activism, as discussed in Arab America: Canary Mission: Suppressing Activism and Stifling Freedom of Speech.
One clear pattern I am observing here is how closely related these tactics are to the recent wave of Swattings that have been targeting “Right-Wing,” Conservative influencers and media personalities. Without speculating too far, I believe it would be wise to consider investigating the similarities between Canary Mission’s tactics and those deployed against American citizens as of late.
Furthermore, are the speculations of blackmail against other citizens of the United States. Citizens such as RFK Jr., who recently spoke with Dave Smith. RFK had a moment of pause and hesitation when asked about Israel that sent an unsettling shutter through the screen that caused the hairs on the back of one’s neck to stand at attention.
I will continue to dig into this activity by Israel and share the information that I find on covert intelligence operations being carried out against American citizens. It should be known that I have no vendetta or wish to stir up hatred against the People of Israel, nor those of the Jewish faith. My interest is in identifying nefarious activity by the Israeli government, the US government, the respective military and intelligence aspects of both, and to identify their methods. This information is pertinent to getting the general public to realize the kinds of legitimate psychological, military activity that has been deployed against them, without their knowledge, for decades.
Expect discussions of how these operations can relate to one another, as well as how these methods can be carried out with extreme ease into other vectors and initiatives.
Sources:
Bamford, James. Spyfail: Foreign Spies, Moles, Saboteurs, and the Collapse of America’s Counterintelligence. Twelve, Hachette Book Group, 2023.