A key McCarthyite-type operation attempting to suppress Jewish and Palestinian voices for peace is something called “Canary Mission.” They run an online blacklist that has been primarily targeting students on U.S. campuses for what they deem anti-Israel and/or anti-Jewish activity. They’ve been active since at least 2015. They claim to track the targets as they attempt to gain employment and to poison the minds of potential employers. To this extent, it smells much like J. Edgar Hoover’s operations during the 1950s McCarthy period—except run privately. The group has gone through serious efforts to obscure both where they work and the source of their funding.
Their central focus has been college students active in university decisions and votes to move investments out of Israeli-linked companies, that is, the disinvestment campaign. The Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) are certainly in their crosshairs, but also pro-peace Jewish groups. It appears that recently the group has been expanding, including by targeting pro-peace demonstrations.
While Canary has gone out of its way to hide their location, their mode of operation and their funding, research by the Jewish publication Forward has made progress. Forward writes that Canary’s key operative is a British citizen named Jonathan Bash, who moved to the Old City of Jerusalem’s Jewish Quarter and manages Canary’s operations through an Israeli charity named “Megamot Shalom.” (And it is also his signature on their initial 2016 financial reports.) Bash was the former head of IT for, and on the board of, a British company called “Body Clock Health Care.” Otherwise, Bash also owns Royal Research, founded in September 2015, a few months after Canary started online operations.
The Forward cites two of Bash’s former employees who supposedly confirm that he runs Canary. A fellow shareholder in Megamot Shalom, and a neighbor of Bash, is Rabbi Ben Packer, a major advocate of Meir Kahane and the man who runs “Jerusalem Heritage House.”
According to the Forward, Canary’s initial (2015-16) funds appear to have come through Megamot Shalom, but they originated from the San Francisco-based Helen Diller Family Foundation (HDFF). The Dillers were longtime major players in real estate in the San Francisco area and achieved billionaire status. The HDFF is controlled by the Jewish Community Federation of San Francisco (JCFSF) and, of some note, they channeled the money for Canary through the Long Island, New York-based “Central Fund of Israel,” a tax-deductible conduit for channeling large amounts of money for “right-wing” Jewish groups and aggressive settlement activity. After the Forward reported in October 2018 on the HDFF/JCFSF source of monies, the JCFSF announced that they were discontinuing.
