From COINTELPRO to Project Esther: The evolution of domestic counterinsurgency in the U.S.

From COINTELPRO to Project Esther: The evolution of domestic counterinsurgency in the U.S.

Counterinsurgency against U.S. social movements has evolved since the 1960s. What was once the exclusive domain of state agencies has now been privatized. This is seen perhaps most clearly in the ongoing campaign to neutralize the Palestine movement.

By the time DHS agents showed up at Mahmoud Khalil’s door, a full-spectrum campaign had already marked him as a target. Columbia professor Shai Davidai had posted Khalil’s name and image online, called him a terrorist, and urged Secretary of State Marco Rubio to deport him. The smear was picked up by a network of doxxing accounts like “Documenting Jew Hatred on Campus,” which publicly lobbied for the revocation of Khalil’s visa. Rubio repeated the call, Khalil received death threats, and the university stayed silent. Then, federal agents arrived. A professor’s tweet had become a trigger for federal enforcement. A tweet, a tag, a dossier — these were the new informant files. This time, professors, NGOs, and anonymous social media accounts were the new operators.

This episode captures a defining feature of our current conjuncture: counterinsurgency is no longer the exclusive domain of state intelligence agencies. It has been privatized, digitized, and reframed as “civic action,” with Zionist nonprofits, right-wing law firms, and data-harvesting platforms organizing in concert with universities and police departments to neutralize Palestine organizing.