The Mapping Project is an anonymous activist initiative which brings attention to businesses, universities, government agencies, nonprofit entities, media sources, health care providers, and other institutions in the state of Massachusetts which appear to have ties to the state of Israel. The project’s organizers claim that the organizations it targets are responsible for enabling the perceived oppression of non-Jews in Israel and the disputed Palestinian territories. The project accuses Israel’s government and societal institutions of “colonization” and “ethnic cleansing” of what it considers to be historically Palestinian-Arab lands in the region. ¹

The Mapping Project ties Israel’s alleged repressions against Palestinians to law enforcement in the United States—which it connects to supposedly “systemic white supremacy”—as well as to the history of American Indians. The project refers to its home state as “the colonized land known as ‘Massachusetts’” and claims that the territory belongs to “tribal nations.” ² While the Mapping Project positions itself as left-wing, it targets other left-of-center groups which it believes to be complicit in what it describes as “the Liberal Zionist Agenda.” This notably includes the Anti-Defamation League, a prominent and controversial left-leaning Jewish advocacy organization. The project has also attacked a number of nonpolitical Jewish-community organizations in Massachusetts. ³

Some organizations featured in the Mapping Project’s reports have pushed back with accusations of antisemitism and incitement to violence. The Anti-Defamation League claims that the project publicizes names and addresses in order to “intimidate” and incite “action threatening physical security.” ⁴ Boston University’s Center for Jewish Studies published a letter highlighting its own left-of-center advocacy on racial and foreign policy issues, and similarly accused the project of “incitement” to “anti-Jewish violence.” ⁵ In response, a number of pro-Palestine activist groups in the United States and elsewhere, including the controversial Samidoun and Al-Awda movements, issued a statement affirming their support for the project and accusing its critics of “smears and criminalization.” ⁶

Ideology

The Mapping Project’s organizers describe the United States as a country running on “intersecting systems of white supremacy and capitalism.” The project is opposed to Zionism, generally defined as support for a Jewish nation-state in the historical Land of Israel, which Mapping Project connects to imperialism and colonialism. The project’s organizers view law enforcement in America as a hostile force with “no role” in an ideal society, and they have endorsed “resistance in all its forms” including disruption of police activity through collective action. ^{7 8}

Activities

The Mapping Project website features an interactive layout of the state of Massachusetts with detailed labels and search functions. The site allows users to sort organizations across the state based on the type and extent of their involvement with Israeli institutions, the United States government, and local law enforcement, and thus their involvement with alleged persecution towards Palestinians. Organizations are also tagged for their involvement with supposedly harmful criminal justice, economic, health care, and environmental policy. Universities, police stations, correctional facilities, and recipients of federal defense or homeland security funding are all highlighted separately. ⁹

The Mapping Project website repeatedly emphasizes that the decision to publicize the physical addresses of targeted institutions, as well as the names of their leadership, was deliberate. The organizers’ statement describing the project notes that “these entities exist in the physical world and can be disrupted in the physical world,” and calls on supporters to “push back” through refusal to cooperate with authorities and collective action against police. The project description concludes with a call to “dismantle” the targeted institutions and offers the advice that “every entity has an address” and that “every network can be disrupted.” ^{10 11}

Supporters and Opponents

The Mapping Project received endorsements from several dozen pro-Palestine and other left-wing activist groups in the United States and around the world. Following the backlash from the Anti-Defamation League, other Jewish organizations, and various institutions across the state of Massachusetts which the project targeted, a large number of these groups signed a statement reaffirming their support and dismissing the critics. ¹²

The response from the pro-Palestine movement included at least one high-profile detractor: the Palestinian Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions National Committee, which claims to be “the broadest coalition leading the global BDS movement.” In June 2022, the committee issued a statement claiming “no connection” to the project and condemning a Boston-area BDS chapter for promoting it. ¹³

In addition to negative responses from institutions, the project’s apparent targeting of Jewish groups and militant rhetoric prompted more than 30 members of Congress to sign a letter calling on federal law enforcement to track the map’s spread and use. ¹⁴

In February 2023, legal think tank Zachor Legal Institute published a report titled, “The Unseen Threat of the Mapping Project,” that discussed how the Mapping Project and its reporting of Israeli-linked entities within the state of Massachusetts posed a national security threat to the United States and Israel due to their possible links to terrorist groups. The report concluded that the initiative, “was likely created by a state-backed element via a proxy group, private contractor, or civilian intelligence unit” due to the budget and skill necessary for maintenance rather than from, “average nongovernmental organizations or volunteer groups.” ^{15 16}

Samidoun

Also known as the Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network, this international activist group agitates on behalf of Palestinian activists imprisoned in Israel and in Western countries. ¹⁷ This has included a number of highly controversial individuals who were prosecuted for participating in terrorist acts. Samidoun has organized pressure campaigns for the release of Ahmed Sa’adat, the head of the insurgent Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine when it assassinated the Israeli minister of tourism in 2001. ^{18 19} It has also demanded the release of Lebanese Marxist guerilla Georges Abdallah, who led the militia responsible for kidnapping and assassinating several American, French, and Israeli diplomats. ^{20 21} In July 2022, Samidoun called for demonstrations to commemorate pro-Palestine ideologue Ghassan Kanafani, who was the spokesman for the Popular Front in 1972, when its militants killed 26 people during the Lod Airport Massacre in Israel. ^{22 23} Samidoun is a project of the far-left Alliance for Global Justice. ²⁴

Democratic Socialists of America

The pro-Palestine working group of America’s largest and most mainstream socialist political faction—whose supporters include far-left U.S. Representatives Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) and Rashida Tlaib (D-MI)—backed the Mapping Project in June 2022. ²⁵ The endorsement came during a period of internal conflict within the Democratic Socialists of America over how far to take support for Palestine and the BDS movement: in March of that year, the DSA national committee forcibly dissolved the working group, then reversed its decision, but barred group members from holding top leadership roles. According to reporting by The Nation, this back-and-forth on the issue has also led to a conflict with the National Students for Justice in Palestine, another leading far-left activist group and a strong backer of the Mapping Project. ²⁶

Students for Justice in Palestine

This nationwide left-wing group engages in controversial campus activism and instigates conflict with other campus groups. This includes putting up fake “eviction notices” in student dorms, meant to imitate Israeli authorities’ alleged forcible removal of Palestinians from their homes, and calls for blanket boycotts of Jewish student organizations. ²⁷ The group’s founder, Muslim activist Hatem Bazian, was previously involved in raising funds for a charity which had its assets frozen by the United States Department of the Treasury in 2006 for allegedly directing funds to the Palestinian militant group Hamas. ²⁸

Financials

The Mapping Project claims to be unpaid and allegedly refuses support from donors. ²⁹ At the same time, the pro-Israel Zachor Legal Institute has suggested that a project of such a scale and complexity would require “considerable funds.” ³⁰

1. The Mapping Project. Accessed September 26, 2023. https://mapliberation.org/index.html
2. The Mapping Project. Accessed September 26, 2023. https://mapliberation.org/index.html
3. The Mapping Project. Accessed September 26, 2023. https://mapliberation.org/index.html
4. “Unmapping the ‘Mapping Project.’” ADL. Accessed September 26, 2023. https://www.adl.org/boston-mapping-project
5. Michael Zank. “Antisemitic Mapping Project Likely to Lead to More Anti-Jewish Violence.” BU Today. June 16, 2022. Accessed September 26, 2023. https://www.bu.edu/articles/2022/pov-antisemitic-mapping-project-likely-to-lead-to-more-anti-jewish-violence/
6. “Reject Repression: Support the Mapping Project.” Samidoun. June 23, 2022. Accessed September 26, 2023. https://samidoun.net/2022/06/reject-repression-support-the-mapping-project/
7. “Zionism, Policing and Empire.” The Mapping Project. June 3, 2022. Accessed September 26, 2023. https://mapliberation.org/articles/zionism_policing.html
8. “Zionism.” Encyclopaedia Britannica. Accessed September 26, 2023. https://www.britannica.com/topic/Zionism
9. The Mapping Project. Accessed September 26, 2023. https://mapliberation.org/index.html
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11. The Mapping Project. Accessed September 26, 2023. https://mapliberation.org/index.html
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13. Andrew Lapin. “BDS movement disavows Boston project mapping Jewish groups.” The Times of Israel. June 24, 2022. Accessed September 26, 2023. https://www.timesofisrael.com/bds-movement-disavows-boston-project-mapping-jewish-groups/
14. “37 members of Congress send letter urging investigation into Boston BDS map.” Cleveland Jewish News. June 22, 2022. Accessed September 26, 2023. https://www.clevelandjewishnews.com/jns/37-members-of-congress-send-letter-urging-investigation-into-boston-bds-map/article_76fcd84f-1467-5e4f-b98e-922e5e71059d.html
15. Mauro, Ryan. “Massachusetts Mapping Project Linked to Terrorists.” Capital Research Center, October 9, 2023. https://capitalresearch.org/article/massachusetts-mapping-project-linked-to-terrorists/
16. “Special Brief: The Unseen Threat of the Mapping Project.” Zachor Legal Institute, February 2023. https://zachorlegal.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/Mapping-Project-Special-Brief.pdf
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19. Nissan Ratzlav-Katz. “30 Years in Jail for PFLP Leader.” Israel National News. December 26, 2008. Accessed September 26, 2023. https://www.israelnationalnews.com/news/129043
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22. Michael Starr. “New media outlet may have ties to Palestinian terrorist group.” The Jerusalem Post. July 18, 2022. Accessed September 26, 2023. https://www.jpost.com/arab-israeli-conflict/article-712391
23. “Call to Organize for the 50th Anniversary of the Assassination of Ghassan Kanafani.” Samidoun. July 8, 2022. Accessed September 26, 2023. https://samidoun.net/2022/05/july-8-2022-ghassan-lives-palestine-lives-call-to-organize-for-the-50th-anniversary-of-the-assassination-of-ghassan-kanafani/
24. “SOS – AfGJ has been attacked!” Alliance for Global Justice. February 14, 2023. Accessed September 26, 2023. https://afgj.org/sos-afgj-has-been-attacked
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26. Hanna Phifer, Omar Zahzah. “The DSA Is at a Crossroads Over Palestine.” The Nation. July 28, 2023. Accessed September 26, 2023. https://www.thenation.com/article/activism/dsa-palestine-bds-conflict/
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29. “Contact.” The Mapping Project. Accessed September 26, 2023. https://mapliberation.org/contact.html
30. “The Unseen Threat of the Mapping Project.” Zachor Legal Institute. February 2023. Accessed September 26, 2023. https://zachorlegal.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/Mapping-Project-Special-Brief.pdf