Hello, and happy Friday!
Most readers of this correspondence have probably never heard of Canary Mission, a relatively obscure organization whose aim is to expose—or, more accurately, doxx—students and groups on American college campuses it sees as promoting “hatred of the USA, Israel and Jews.” Its list of offenders is long, including Congresswoman Rashida Tlaib, Arab American Institute founder James Zogby, and IfNotNow co-founder Simone Zimmerman. But you needn’t have a national profile to end up on the site. Simply being of Palestinian and/or Arab descent and expressing critical views of Israel is often more than sufficient.
I first became aware of Canary Mission in college because, like many other Palestinian-American students, I worried about getting caught in its crosshairs. Even though I largely avoided campus activism about Israel-Palestine, choosing instead to report on it as a fledgling journalist for the school newspaper, I knew that my words alone could land me on one of their blacklists. Using terms like “Nakba,” the Arabic word for catastrophe that refers to the mass displacement of Palestinians who were violently expelled or forced to flee their homes during the founding of the state of Israel in 1948—constitutes, in the eyes of Canary Mission, the “delegitimization of Israel.” So too is supporting a boycott of products from Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank, which are illegal under international law.
I knew that my coverage was fairly restrained (if occasionally surprising—I was surprised to rediscover that I once defended Yair Netanyahu’s right to date whomever he pleased) and that my views were moderate by any reasonable standard (in brief: occupation and apartheid = bad, self determination for all people between the river and the sea = good). But I wasn’t confident I was dealing with reasonable people, because I didn’t know who I was dealing with at all.
Unlike most organizations, Canary Mission doesn’t reveal who runs it. As the New York Times reported, “the group has not sought tax-exempt status in the United States, meaning that, unlike most American nonprofit organizations, it does not file disclosure statements about its leadership and budget with the federal government. It also does not list a physical address.”
As shadowy as Canary Mission is, it is no longer operating in the shadows. The group has seen increased press coverage since the Trump administration launched a crackdown on international students it labeled “Hamas sympathizers” and participants in “pro-jihadist protests” — a campaign Canary Mission and other like-minded groups have cheered. It even produced its own list of deportation targets. Among them was Mahmoud Khalil, a Palestinian student at Columbia University and a lawful U.S. permanent resident, who was deported over his role in campus protests against Israel’s war in Gaza. Also included was Mohsen Mahdawi, another Palestinian student at Columbia, who was arrested this week while showing up for a citizenship interview.
It’s unclear whether Canary Mission directly influenced those deportations—the group told the Times that it doesn’t share information with federal authorities and that all its findings are “publicly available” on its site. What is clear, however, is that the U.S. government appears to be following its playbook: targeting students and professors not for any crime, but for what they think and believe.
What I’ve read
This must-read story on the state of the federal workforce:
Most federal workers know—and will freely volunteer—that some bloat in government exists. Certain contracts should be reviewed, many acknowledged to me, and particular programs axed. “Do we have to know every single language? Maybe not,” the senior Foreign Service officer told me. “Reasonable people can disagree about whether we need 27 communications shops at NIH,” a retired senior scientist at the agency, who requested anonymity to protect his former colleagues from retaliation, told me. The problem they have is with the administration’s approach—instead of being thoughtful and precise, it looks more like giving a haircut with a hedge trimmer.
This visually-stunning investigation on the unexploded bombs in Gaza:
“Due to the restrictions by the Israeli authorities on mine action organizations to allow the entry of necessary equipment, the clearance process has not started,” U.N. human rights office spokesperson Jeremy Laurence told Reuters.
This poses “serious unnecessary challenges” to humanitarians involved, he added.
These handy tips for traveling to the U.S. (which includes scrubbing your phone, because such is the world we live in now):
Catherine, 67, a naturalized citizen who moved to the United States 45 years ago, said she had never been selected for additional questioning when coming through immigration, but that since the start of the Trump administration she has been stopped twice for reasons that remain unclear to her. Catherine asked to be identified by only her middle name, because of her fears that her naturalized status could be revoked for speaking out.
What I’m thinking about
Le Poisson Steve. (You’re welcome.)
Until next time,
Yasmeen