Sintesi personale
Da più di
due anni un sito oscuro chiamato Canary
Mission ha pubblicato fascicoli politici sugli studenti attivi nei gruppi pro-palestinesi,
sperando di impedire loro di trovare
lavoro dopo il college.
Ora un’organizzazione
ebraica ha approvato questi fascicoli nonostante le critiche .
In una relazione annuale , la
Israel on Coalition Campus ha citato Canary Mission come un modello efficace per minare il sostegno al BDS in quanto fa leva sulla paura di "ripercussioni “.
"Attraverso
piattaforme online come la Canary Mission, una banca dati impegnala a monitorare l’'odio
verso gli ebrei e verso Israele, la comunità pro-israeliana ha creato un
forte deterrente contro il BDS", afferma la relazione dell'ICC.
ICC si trova
al centro dell'apparato pro-israeliano della comunità ebraica organizzata. Il
suo consiglio comprende anche i leader di Hillel International e le fondazioni
ebraiche più importanti. L'organizzazione non ha risposto a richieste di chiarimento.
Alcuni
leader ebraici hanno condannato il sostegno dell'ICC.
"Sono
rimasto deluso nel vedere il riferimento
positivo alla Canary Mission ", ha dichiarato Kenneth S. Stern, che da
oltre due decenni è stato direttore del comitato ebraico americano per
l'antisemitismo e l'estremismo.
Un portavoce
del gruppo pro-israeliano J Street, Logan Bayroff, ha affermato che l'elogio dell’ICC
è stato un "enorme errore". Un allievo il cui nome è nella lista nera, ha dichiarato che non è stato sorpreso dalla lode dell’ICC
per il sito. La Canary Mission ha accusato Pritsker, il cui padre è ebreo, di
protestare "accanto ad antisemiti e a negatori dell'Olocausto".
"Non
sono sicuramente un negatore dell'Olocausto", ha detto Pritsker. "Non
mi associo in nessun modo ai neo-nazisti. Se si fossero preoccupati di sapere
chi ero, avrebbero saputo che mio nonno era sfuggito ai Pogrom. "
Pritsker ha
detto che lui e gli altri elencati sul sito sono preoccupati per come il sito
web influenzerà la loro vita.
IL dossier
include anche informazioni su Pritsker non correlate al suo attivismo
pro-palestinese. Rileva che è stato arrestato all'inizio di quest'anno per una
protesta contro il divieto musulmano dell'amministrazione di Trump.
La Canary
Mission è apparsa per la prima volta nel maggio del 2015.
Fin dall'inizio il sito ha cercato di mascherare l'identità dei suoi donatori.
Forward ha scoperto i nomi di due persone che sembravano
collegati all'organizzazione nel settembre 2015, anche se una ha negato
qualsiasi connessione e l'altra non ha risposto alle richieste di commento. Da
allora l’Organizzazione ha continuato a sviluppare la sua lista nera con poca
attenzione da parte dei gruppi organizzati ebraici. Alcune persone che
compaiono nella Lista nera sono attivisti professionisti, la maggior parte sono
studenti universitari e molti sono ebrei. I dossier citano post tratti dai social
media e scritti pubblicati nelle pubblicazioni studentesche.
" Gli iscritti
alla lista nera hanno 18, 19, 20 anni . Le affermazioni su di loro , li seguiranno
per il resto della loro vita. Possono cambiare il loro punto di vista. Titengo che sia una pratica denunciabile "
La Canary
Mission è l'unica organizzazione citata positivamente dall' l’ICC nello
scoraggiare l'attivismo anti-israeliano: “Temendo ripercussioni nell’esposizione
pubblica, alcuni studenti hanno ritirato il loro sostegno e altri hanno
tagliato i loro legami con le cause anti-israeliane".
Il rapporto
ICC identifica quindi Canary Mission come parte della "comunità
pro-israeliana". Non fornisce informazioni sull'identità dei suoi
sostenitori .
Bayroff di J
Street ha affermato che il lavoro della Canary Mission è controproducente:
“Abbiamo sempre affermato che il modo migliore per contrastare i critici di
Israele, inclusi i sostenitori del movimento BDS, consiste nell’impegnarsi in discussioni
e dibattiti con loro."
For
the first time, a mainstream Jewish pro-Israel group is explicitly
endorsing Canary Mission, the shadowy student activist blacklist.
For more than two years, a shadowy website called Canary Mission has
posted political dossiers on students active in pro-Palestinian groups,
saying it hopes to keep them from finding work after college.
Now, a mainstream Jewish pro-Israel organized has endorsed Canary Mission — despite criticism that site uses “McCarthyite” tactics.
In an annual report,
the Israel on Campus Coalition cited Canary Mission as an effective
model for deterring support for the boycott, divestment and sanctions
movement, hailing the website for causing students to drop their support
for pro-Palestinian groups out of fear of “repercussions.”
“Through online platforms such as Canary Mission, a database devoted
to exposing hatred of Jews and Israel, the pro-Israel community has
established a strong deterrent against anti-Semitism and BDS activism,”
ICC’s report reads.
ICC sits at the center of the organized
Jewish community’s pro-Israel apparatus. Its board includes includes
leaders of Hillel International and top Jewish foundations. The
organization did not respond to multiple requests for comment.Some Jewish leaders condemned ICC’s support for Canary Mission.
“I was disappointed to see the positive reference to Canary Mission,”
said Kenneth S. Stern, who served for over two decades as the American
Jewish Committee’s director on anti-Semitism and extremism, and is now
executive director of the Justus and Karin Rosenberg Foundation. “In my
view Canary Mission is a blacklist, like the academic boycott [of
Israel] is a blacklist. You don’t oppose one blacklist by another
blacklist”
A spokesman for the dovish pro-Israel group J Street, Logan Bayroff,
said that ICC’s praise for Canary Mission was a “huge mistake.”
“It shows a total misunderstanding of what effective, principled
pro-Israel advocacy on college campuses should look like,” said Bayroff,
who is J Street’s director of communications.
One student targeted by Canary Mission, George Washington University
senior Kei Pritsker, told the Forward that he was not surprised by ICC’s
praise for the site. Canary Mission accused Pritsker, whose father is
Jewish, of protesting “alongside anti-Semites and Holocaust deniers.”
“I’m definitely not a Holocaust denier,” Pritsker said. “I don’t
associate with neo-Nazis in any way. If they bothered to know who I was,
they would know my grandfather escaped the Pogroms.”
Pritsker said he and others listed on the site are worried about how
the website will impact their lives. “All I can do is really wonder,” he
said.
Canary Mission’s published dossier on Pritsker runs to 3,000 words,
much of it boilerplate text on Students for Justice in Palestine, of
which he is a member. It also notes his support for a failed student
government resolution to divest from ten companies that SJP says profit
off Israel’s occupation of the West Bank and Gaza.
But the dossier also includes information on Pritsker unrelated to
his pro-Palestinian activism. It notes that he was arrested earlier this
year at a protest against the Trump administration’s Muslim ban, and
that he ran for student government in 2015.
“They also generally just have a problem with activists,” he said.
“They went back on my profile two or three years, before I even knew who
Yasser Arafat was.”
Canary Mission first appeared in May 2015. From its start, the website went to great lengths to mask the identity of its donors and any staff. The Forward uncovered
the names of two people who appeared to be linked to the organization
in September 2015, though one denied any connection and the other did
not respond to requests for comment.
At the time, it had had no visible ties to the organized pro-Israel
community and no prominent Jewish leaders have openly came to its
defense.
Since then, Canary Mission has continued to grow its blacklist with
little apparent attention from organized Jewish groups. While some of
the people it profiles are professional activists, most are college
students, and many are Jewish. Dossiers cite social media posts and
op-eds written in student publications.
“In many ways blacklisting students is even worse,” Stern said.
“Students are 18, 19, 20. These are things that are going to follow them
for the rest of their lives. They may change their point of view. And I
find it to be a reprehensible practice”
The ICC’s report is the pro-Israel establishment’s first public
acknowledgement of Canary Mission. In the document, the group says that
SJP held a session on Canary Mission at its annual conference last year,
“revealing growing anxiety among leaders of the anti-Israel movement.”
Canary Mission is the only organization whose work ICC highlights for “Exposing and Discouraging Anti-Israel Activism.”
“During the 2016-2017 academic year, pro-Israel efforts raised
noticeable concerns among Israel’s detractors, causing activists to
downplay their associations with BDS campaigns,” the report reads.
“Fearing the repercussions of public exposure, some students withdrew
their support for campus divestment, while others severed their ties to
anti-Israel causes.”
The ICC report identifies Canary Mission as part of “the pro-Israel
community.” It discloses no information about the identity of its
backers or staff.
J Street’s Bayroff said that Canary Mission’s work is
counterproductive. “The activities and the whole focus of Canary Mission
is deeply wrongheaded and mistaken,” he said. “We’ve always said the
best way to counter critics of Israel, including supporters of the BDS
movement, is to engage in discussion and debate with them, and not to
target and ostracize them with blacklists.”
In September 27 fundraising email to supporters, Canary Mission boasted of ICC’s praise for its work.
Hillel and the Charles and Lynn Schusterman Foundation, a
left-leaning Jewish foundation, jointly created ICC in 2002. The ICC
became independent in 2010, but the chair of Hillel’s board and two top
Schusterman officials remain on the ICC board. Neither Hillel nor the
Schusterman Foundation would say if their organization has a position on
Canary Mission and its tactics.
Other ICC board members include Adam Milstein and Harold Grinspoon,
both of whom fund major family foundations that support a broad range of
Jewish institutions. Spokespeople for both of the philanthropist’s
foundations did not respond to inquiries about their foundations’
positions on Canary Mission.
Pritsker, the student profiled on the Canary Mission site, said that
his dossier is now the top Google result for his name. “The website is
saturated with desperation,” he said. “It’s a slander.”
Contact Josh Nathan-Kazis at nathankazis@forward.com or on Twitter, @joshnathankazis.
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