'Doxed' Profs. Speak Out as Public Opinion Shifts on Gaza Genocide

Andrew Leong, who recently retired from the University of Massachusetts-Boston’s Philosophy Department, had no idea that his name, photo, links to his social media accounts, and other information were listed on the pro-Israel site Canary Mission — until he was asked about it by a Sampan reporter recently.

But upon hearing the news, he said, “I wasn’t surprised.”

Leong’s alleged misdeed? According to Canary Mission, signing a supposed “anti-Israel letter.”

What did surprise Leong, however, was that more professors did not call out the genocidal assault on Gaza when he signed the letter in 2024, as many human rights groups started calling the onslaught on Gaza by Israel — and with support by the U.S. — as a genocide.

“If you agree it’s a genocide going on, which is true, then you are going to sign it,” he said of the letter.

Sampan reached out to Canary Mission for comment but did not hear back by our press deadline. The group, which started a little over a decade ago, says on its website that its mission is to document “people and groups that promote hatred of the USA, Israel and Jews.” It also claims it “carefully” researches every individual and organization it posts about. But the group is characterized in reports as a shadowy, likely Israel-based, site that specializes in "doxing," or blacklisting, people advocating for Palestinian rights. Former Tufts' student Rümeysa Öztürk is a prominent local example of a person who ended up on the group's list; she would later get detained at length by immigration authorities. In addition, the group is known to make blanket assertions that are unsupported, such as calling the largely peaceful student encampments supporting Palestinians "pro-Hamas" or "pro-terror."

A number of students and university staff around Boston are on these lists — many of them racial and ethnic minorities, such as those interviewed for this story. In addition, like Leong, a large number of them appear to be listed for their activism or advocacy work around Palestine. Sampan spoke to three local current and former university professors — including Leong — for their reactions to being on the lists and how they feel now as public opinion is turning against Israel’s massive assault on Gaza, and killing of hundreds of journalists and thousands of children, as well as the increasing "settler" theft of property in the occupied West Bank.

While those interviewed felt the tide has changed from when they were first targeted by Canary Mission and other groups, they also said the “doxing” from Canary and similar operations has led to them getting online threats and made their work more difficult.

“Canary has distorted pretty much everything I have written and said,” said Susan Akram, a clinical professor and director of the International Human Rights Clinic at Boston University School of Law, in an email. “My publications and talks speak for themselves and all my work is supported by extensive legal and factual research and analysis. I never speak on anything I haven't fully researched, and I stand by everything I speak and write about. Moreover, my work is not exceptional, as many other prominent historians, legal and other experts have been documenting, analyzing and coming to similar conclusions as me about Israel.”

Akram said that she believes Canary casts the words and works of those it targets in a negative light, because it bets that few who read its posts “will actually read or listen to the individuals they are slandering.”

For example, the site says Akram has “praised violent protesters” but one link supposedly supporting the accusation is a seven-year old commentary she wrote for WBUR’s opinion section about the Great March of Return protest marches. Nowhere in the story does she appear to praise any violent protesters. In fact, according to a United Nations' report about the Palestinian marches from March to December 2018, nearly 200 Palestinians were killed and thousands were injured by Israeli forces and no Israelis were killed.

She said that she’s been on the Canary Mission’s site so long she can’t even remember when she first noticed it.

“So many of my friends, esteemed colleagues, our most prominent and principled thinkers, academics and writers are on there that I feel I am in very good company. It has become a badge of honor to be on Canary Mission with such brilliant colleagues,” said Akram.

Another retired professor at a local university, who is in their 80s and does not want to be named, said they were at first startled and shocked to discover their name and bio were posted on Canary’s site about a decade ago.

The professor, who is Jewish and has been critical of Israel, said, however, that being targeted has led them to receive “ugly” emails from people.

Leong and Akram said the same.

“The combination of Canary and the other (doxing groups) has indeed made my work and my ability to speak and write freely more difficult. They have made me a public and easily-identified target. I have received a lot of harassment on social media, pressure on my law school administration, threats and doxing,” said Akram.

Leong, said he has largely disregarded Canary years ago, after he said he was targeted by “Zionists and right-wingers” around the time of the pandemic because he was going speak at a planned webinar discussion that included Leila Khaled, a former Palestinian militant. At the time Khaled was in her 70s and had long since been released from prison for her roles in two hijackings in the late 1960s and early 1970s. Leong says that plans for the online discussion made him and others the center of what he described as an intrusive freedom of information request by a self-proclaimed Zionist group from New York. Attempts were also made to cancel the webinar. He said that when he was younger, he would not have wanted to take part in a discussion with someone with a past like Khaled’s but that after learning about her history and that of Palestinians he felt her perspective would be valuable to understand.

Ironically, his post on Canary Mission makes no mention of that incident.

But now, he said, since the public’s views on Israel and Palestine have changed over the past three years, and doxing by Canary and similar groups are less effective than in the past. Unlike just after the Oct. 7, 2023 attack on Israel by Hamas, polls are now showing most Americans have an unfavorable view of the Israeli government and of its ongoing assault on Palestinians.

“There is no question that the tide has turned,” said Akram. “I have been doing work on Israel-Palestine for many decades now, and for most of them it was very difficult to speak in public without being drowned out by Zionist groups and individuals who usurped the microphones and discourse. Now, public opinion has massively turned against the Zionist project and recognized that Israel is committing genocide, so the tactic has changed to intimidation, harassment, suppression and doxing of individuals and organizations that present a sympathetic view of the Palestinian cause. Those are the tactics that Canary (and) other groups and individuals have ramped up. There is now a political tide of progressive candidates all around the country actively campaigning against U.S. support for Israel. Surveys are also showing that the majority of Americans are now against U.S. funding and arms to Israel. That would have been unthinkable just a few years ago.”

Editor's note, some details in the online story here could not fit in the print version.