Kate Anderson(Daily Caller)

The Mapping Project, which was originally thought to be a website targeting Jewish communities in Massachusetts, may be a front for a foreign power to map out “U.S. security institutions,” according to a new report released Wednesday.

The Mapping Project was initially started in Jun. 2022, after a website tied to the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement, an organization dedicated to getting businesses to cut ties with Israel in protest of alleged human rights abuses towards Palestinians, was created with the exact locations of dozens of Jewish community centers, schools and synagogues, according to the American Jewish Committee. Zachor Legal Institute, a legal think tank and Jewish advocacy organization fighting the BDS movement, published a report Wednesday showing that the Mapping Project, which was originally deemed an antisemitic BDS ploy, may be a front for foreign powers such as Iran to create a strategy for taking out military and security targets, according to a press release. (RELATED: Supreme Court Declines To Hear Case Against State Law Banning Anti-Israel Boycotts)

The report explains that the Mapping Project currently shows 500 exact addresses of organizations that are accused of supporting Israel or U.S. funding for Israel. Out of the original 500, 298 are “American strategic security assets and institutions” as well as the locations of several dozen Jewish organizations in the state of Massachusetts.

“This includes institutions such as police stations, air force bases, naval installations, the U.S. Secret Service, FBI, Homeland Security, U.S. Marshals, and other government offices,” the report reads. “This raises concern that the true goal of the project is to map the American security apparatus and that the targeting of the American Jewish community – while real and troubling – may be a façade to obfuscate this plan.”

The report notes that there is “considerable evidence that Iranian elements” may be aiding or potentially even behind the Mapping Project. When the project launched, social media groups, including several with ties to Iran, such as the Iranian State-owned media outlet PressTV and Hezbollah affiliate Al Mayadeen, immediately promoted and endorsed the website.

“In addition to these organizations, U.S. terror-designated Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) itself published a ringing endorsement of the project on June 24, as did the Iranian regime-owned PressTV, which published a supportive column on Jun. 26 and a 30-minute video segment about it on Jul. 9 as part of its Palestine Declassified program,” the report said. “The program hosts lauded the Mapping Project, encouraged its replication, and explicitly accused the ADL of espionage on behalf of the Israeli Mossad.”

Marc Greendorfer, president of ZLI, told the Daily Caller News Foundation that if the “project is part of Iran’s agenda to bring bloodshed and conflict to U.S. soil, law enforcement and homeland security officials should take this as an imminent threat and respond accordingly.”

While the report found that the project had been supported by multiple groups with ties to terrorism in Palestine, China and North Korea, many of those groups have Iranian ties as well. Qiao Collective, an anti-American “diaspora Chinese media collective,” helped organize the “International people’s tribunal on U.S. imperialism” which held its first event in March 2022 led by Helyeh Doutaghi, a Canadian Iranian doctoral candidate and a member of “PFLP-affiliated and Israel terror-designated group Samidoun [and] Committee of Anti-Imperialists in Solidarity with Iran.”

Qiao Collective also follows the JISR Collective, an “Arab Diaspora Media” group that actively encourages terrorism in the Middle East, particularly against Israel, and regularly voices support for Iran, according to the report. JISR didn’t exist until late 2021 and its first follower on social media was Boston BDS, which has been cited as being involved and potentially creating the website, and when the project went live, JISR announced its support and posted the project on its website and social media.