Israel Exports Its Brutal Police Training to the US, and it Shows
It’s an open secret that
Israel exports its occupation and subjugation management
strategies to the world’s worst human rights violators,
including China, Myanmar, India, and the United States.
Israeli soldiers fire tear gas canisters towards
Palestinian demonstrators at a protest against Trump's
Mideast initiative, in Jordan Valley in the occupied
West Bank, Feb. 25, 2020.
(AP Photo Majdi Mohammed)
Israel’s illegal occupation of the Palestinian
territories enters its 54th year, making it the longest
running belligerent military occupation in modern times,
and thus affording it a unique understanding into what
it takes to repress, suppress, and dominate a stressed
population that yearns for equality, justice, and
emancipation.
Its occupation management, counterterrorism, border
protection, and anti-narcotic strategies have made
Israeli police and security forces the most revered in
the world, allowing the Middle Eastern state to profit
from exporting its know-how and experience abroad,
particularly to the world’s worst human rights
violators, including China, Myanmar, India, and the
United States.
It matters not thatAmnesty
International, and even the US State Department have
accused Israeli police forces of carrying out
extrajudicial murder, unlawful killings, torture,
illicit surveillance, racial profiling, and excessive
use of force against peaceful protesters. What matters
to security forces around the world is Israel knows how
to crush political resistance and dissent.
Israeli police brutality has
been exported to cities, counties, and states’
police precincts all across the United States.
Israeli police brutality has been exported to cities,
counties, and states’ police precincts all across the
United States, including theMinneapolis
Police Department, whose officers are responsible
for the killing of George Floyd, the unarmed black man
whose murder sparked the current nationwide protests in
the US.
“When I saw the picture of killer cop Derek Chauvin
murdering George Floyd by leaning in on his neck with
his knee as he cried for help and other cops watched, I
remembered noticing when many Israeli soldiers began
using this technique of leaning in on our chest and
necks when we were protesting in the West Bank sometime
in 2006,” Neta Golan, a Palestinian human rights
activist and co-founder of International Solidarity
Movement,toldThe
Morning Star.
Israeli forces brutalizing a Palestinian man (Facebook photo)
Since the attacks of September 11, 2001, thousands of US
police officers have traveled to Israel for training,
which has not only played a central role in the recent
trend in the militarization of US police departments,
but also has no doubt contributed to the upward spike in
cases of police brutality, given Israeli security forces
are trained for urban warfare and are given a license to
kill.
In response to the public’s
outcry over police brutality, a police department in
North Carolina banned the training of its police
officers by the Israeli military.
Last week and in response to the public’s outcry over
police brutality, a police department in North Carolina
banned the training of its police officers by the
Israeli military; Durham Council voted unanimously to
adopt the ban after 1,600 residents put their signatures
to a petition.
“The Israel Defense Forces and the Israel Police have
a long history of violence and harm against Palestinian
people and Jews of color,” the “Demilitarize! From
Durham2Palestine” petition said. “These tactics further
militarize US police forces that train in Israel, and
this training helps the police terrorize black and brown
communities here in the US.”
Despite this isolated incidence of push back against
Israeli military training, the fact remains that Israel
has become the go to resource for governments that seek
a solution for suppressing restless and harassed
populations. To that end, Israel has successfully
latched onto US “war on terror” discourse, which falsely
portrays Muslim minorities as a threat to US security.
Israel has become the go to
resource for governments that seek a solution for
suppressing restless and harassed populations.
Already in 2015, the US Department of Justice
released a damningreportthat
documented “widespread constitutional violations,
discriminatory enforcement, and culture of retaliation”
within the Baltimore Police Department (BPD). According
toAmnesty
International, what was not emphasized was the fact
that Baltimore police received training on crowd control
and use of force and surveillance by Israel’s national
police, military, and intelligence services.
“Many of these trips,” Amnestyadded,
“are taxpayer funded while others are privately funded.
Since 2002, the Anti-Defamation League, the American
Jewish Committee’s Project Interchange and the Jewish
Institute for National Security Affairs have paid for
police chiefs, assistant chiefs, and captains to train
in Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territories
(OPT).”
When it comes to subjugating
Muslim minorities – under the guise of fighting
terrorism – Israel is the best of the worst
offenders.
Indeed, when it comes to subjugating Muslim
minorities in particular – under the guise of fighting
terrorism – Israel, a “chronic human rights violator,”
to borrow an Amnesty International designation, is the
best of the worst offenders. Thus why China, Myanmar,
and India have turned to the Israeli military for
guidance in their respective efforts to repress Uyghur,
Rohingya, and Kashmiri Muslim populations.
“Israel and India are partners in the battle against
this scourge and there cannot be any compromise in the
way against terrorism,” read a 2003 joint statement
between then Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and
then-Indian Prime Minister Atal Bihari.
Since then Israel has not only provided India with
weaponry and technology tailor made for suppressing
Kashmiri liberation aspirations, including Unmanned
Aerial Vehicles (UAVs), laser range-finding and
targeting equipment, and advanced air-to-ground weapons,
but also Israeli intelligence agencies routinely travel
to India to train their counterparts in
counter-insurgency strategies.
“In style and character, the power structure and
subsequent consolidation trend is quite similar to that
followed by Israel against the Palestinians,” observes Shaid
Lone, a journalist in Indian-administered Kashmir. “This
utter disregard for human brotherhood, dignity,
equality, liberty and freedom reveals how both countries
are making a mockery of open government and how the
global advocates of democracy maintain a criminal
silence to protect their own economic and national
interests.”
When the Myanmar military
launched its operation to terrorize the country’s
Muslim minority, Israel trained these forces.
In 2016, when the Myanmar military launched its
operation to terrorize the country’s 1.3 millionMuslim
minority– the Rohingya – Israelarmed
and trainedthese forces, providing
Yangon with more than 100 tanks, light weapons, and
patrol boats, which have been an instrumental tool for
attacking Rohingya fishermen.
And Palestinian children too!
In other words, Israel knowingly aided and abetted
genocide. But Israel has a long history of arming and
training oppressive regimes. It continued to provide
apartheid South Africa with tanks, guns, and military
advisors when the rest of the world had severed economic
and military ties with the African nation, and it armed
the Nicaraguan dictator Somoza when it was known he was
murdering more than 500 of his people every day.
If the United States ever reaches the point in which
it becomes truly serious about implementing genuine
reform of its police departments and criminal justice
system, then detaching police departments from methods
and strategies used by Israeli security forces must be
part of that reform. The crisis of police brutality
cannot be resolved while thousands of cops are roaming
American streets with ideas imparted upon by soldiers of
a militarized apartheid state.
~~~~
*The views expressed in this column are the author’s own
and do not necessarily reflect the views of Inside
Arabia.
First published in Amnesty International USA’s
blog on Aug 25, 2016
WITH WHOM ARE MANY U.S.
POLICE DEPARTMENTS TRAINING? WITH A CHRONIC
HUMAN RIGHTS VIOLATOR – ISRAEL
TOPSHOT – Baltimore County Sheriffs
officers gather after Baltimore Officer
Caesar Goodson Jr. was acquitted of
all
charges in his murder trial for the
death of Freddie Gray at the Mitchell
Court House June 23, 2016 in Baltimore,
Maryland. (BRENDAN SMIALOWSKI/AFP/Getty
Images)
This blog post ran on Amnesty
International USA’s blog on Aug 25, 2016,
authored by Edith Garwood, Amnesty
International USA Country Specialist
covering Israel, the Occupied Palestinian
Territories and the State of Palestine. Read
about our latest work toaddress
deadly force and police accountability.
When the U.S. Department of Justice
published areportAug.
10 that documented “widespread
constitutional violations, discriminatory
enforcement, and culture of retaliation”
within the Baltimore Police Department
(BPD), there was rightly a general reaction
of outrage.
But what hasn’t received as much
attention is where Baltimore police received
training on crowd control, use of force and
surveillance: Israel’s national police,
military and intelligence services.
Many of these trips are taxpayer funded
while others are privately funded. Since
2002, the Anti-Defamation League, the
American Jewish Committee’s Project
Interchange and the Jewish Institute for
National Security Affairs have paid for
police chiefs, assistant chiefs and captains
to train in Israel and the Occupied
Palestinian Territories (OPT).
Public or private funds spent to train
our domestic police in Israel should concern
all of us. Many of the abuses documented,
parallels violations by Israeli military,
security and police officials.
The Department of Justicereportcited
Baltimore police for using aggressive
tactics that “escalate encounters and stifle
public cooperation.” This leads, the report
said, to use of unreasonable force during
interactions for minor infractions, such as
quality of life matters. Furthermore, the
report details how an overall lack of
training leads to excessive force being used
against those with mental health issues,
juveniles and people who present “little or
no threat against others,” such as those
already restrained.
In one case, a 28-year-old Palestinian
man, not suspected of any crime except being
present during a raid, was killed in what
appears to have been an extrajudicial
execution by Israeli forces, including an
undercover police unit, during a raid on
al-Ahli hospital in Hebron November 2015.
Eyewitnesses report that when Israeli
forces entered the hospital room where the
suspect was recuperating, they immediately
shot his cousin. There was no attempt to
arrest him or to use non-lethal alternatives
before shooting him dead. This is one
example among many.
There are also documented incidents of
suppression of freedom of expression by
Israeli police. For instance,journalistscovering
protests have been assaulted or shot.
Individuals are also arrested for social
media posts or for gathering to peacefully
discuss the occupation. Police haveharassed
and arrestedIsraeli
whistleblower Mordechai Vanunu repeatedly
since he served his full sentence in 2004.
Just this past July, Vanunu was in court for
giving a news interview, moving (in the same
building) without notifying police and for
meeting with foreign nationals.
Another concern with the BPD is “systemic
deficiencies” in “accountability
structures”.Lack
of accountabilityfor human
rights violations by Israeli forces and the
environment of impunity that exists has been
a long-standing concern with human rights
organizations.
It is beyond dispute that there are some
very serious human rights problems in U.S.
policing, including in relation to the use
of force and respect for equality of all
before the law.
The people of Baltimore deserve better.
The American public deserves better.
Baltimore and other police departments
should find partners that will train on
de-escalation techniques, how to handle
mentally challenged or ill citizens, on the
constitutional rights of citizens concerning
filming and how to appropriately respond to
those using non-violent protest to express
their opinions. Israel is not such a
partner.
