{"id":17080,"date":"2020-06-16T17:42:54","date_gmt":"2020-06-16T21:42:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/stateofthenation.co\/?p=17080"},"modified":"2020-06-16T17:44:30","modified_gmt":"2020-06-16T21:44:30","slug":"this-is-why-police-brutality-is-off-the-charts-across-america","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/stateofthenation.co\/?p=17080","title":{"rendered":"This is why police brutality is off the charts across America"},"content":{"rendered":"<h2>Atlanta mayor rejects demand to end Israel police training<\/h2>\n<p><!--more-->Rania Khalek<br \/>\nThe Electronic Infitada<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Atlanta Mayor rejects demand to stop police training with Israel\" width=\"640\" height=\"360\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/i1jkTuS4K68?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>Atlanta Mayor Kasim Reed rejected a demand from groups affiliated with the movement for Black lives to halt Israel\u2019s training relationship with local police departments.<\/p>\n<p>Following a resurgence of street protests over the gruesome police slayings of\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.thedailybeast.com\/articles\/2016\/07\/06\/new-video-shows-alton-sterling-was-not-holding-a-gun-when-baton-rogue-police-killed-him.html\">Alton Sterling<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.cnn.com\/videos\/us\/2016\/07\/07\/graphic-video-minnesota-police-shooting-philando-castile-ryan-young-pkg-nd.cnn\">Philando Castile<\/a>, two Black men killed on film in Louisiana and Minnesota, Reed held a meeting with a collective of protesters calling themselves #ATLisREADY to discuss their list of\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.atlisready.black\/demands\/\">demands<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>The first demand calls for \u201ca complete overhaul of Atlanta Police Department\u2019s (APD) training institutions,\u201d including \u201ca termination to APD\u2019s involvement in the Georgia International Law Enforcement Exchange (GILEE) program, that trains our officers in Apartheid Israel.\u201d<\/p>\n<h2>\u201cThe best counterterrorism techniques in the world\u201d<\/h2>\n<p>\u201cThere was a demand that I stop allowing the Atlanta Police Department to train with the Israeli police department,\u201d Mayor Reed acknowledged at a press conference (video above). \u201cI\u2019m not going to do that,\u201d he told reporters.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI happen to believe that the Israeli police department has some of the best counterterrorism techniques in the world,\u201d Reed insisted. \u201cAnd it benefits our police department from that longstanding relationship.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>It was an interesting choice of words considering that\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.btselem.org\/press_releases\/20151014_summary_execution_joint_statement\">Israeli<\/a>, Palestinian and\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.amnesty.org\/en\/latest\/news\/2015\/10\/israeli-forces-must-end-pattern-of-unlawful-killings-in-west-bank\/\">international<\/a>\u00a0human rights organizations,\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.un.org\/apps\/news\/story.asp?NewsID=53571\">as well as the UN<\/a>, have repeatedly condemned Israeli forces, including the police, for a range of human rights violations, particularly for their frequent extrajudicial executions of Palestinians.<\/p>\n<p>It was also recently revealed that Israeli police are\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.aljazeera.com\/news\/2016\/07\/israel-lethal-force-stone-throwers-report-160704134708993.html\">authorized<\/a>\u00a0to use lethal force as a first resort against Palestinians they suspect might throw rocks, including minors.<\/p>\n<p>An internal police report\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.haaretz.com\/israel-news\/.premium-1.730325\">exposed<\/a>\u00a0by the Tel Aviv newspaper\u00a0<em>Haaretz<\/em>\u00a0this month revealed that Israeli Border Police in Jerusalem \u201cdeliberately provoke Palestinians\u201d in order to get a violent response.<\/p>\n<p>One such manufactured provocation in\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/electronicintifada.net\/tags\/issawiyeh\">Issawiyeh<\/a>, in January, led to a confrontation in which Israeli forces shot 12-year-old Ahmad Abu Hummus in the head,\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/electronicintifada.net\/blogs\/charlotte-silver\/israels-less-lethal-weapons-take-childrens-eyes-and-lives\">causing severe brain damage<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Reed\u2019s office did not respond to The Electronic Intifada\u2019s inquiries about how Atlanta police benefit from training with forces who are effectively authorized to summarily execute children.<\/p>\n<h2>Mimicking Israel<\/h2>\n<p>The Atlanta Police Department has been sending personnel to Israel\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/atlantaga.gov\/index.aspx?page=672&amp;recordid=2912\">since 1992<\/a>, as part of the\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/electronicintifada.net\/content\/police-training-programs-twin-us-israeli-racism\/9834\">Georgia International Law Enforcement Exchange<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>GILEE, a project of Georgia State University\u2019s Andrew Young School of Policy Studies, sends high-ranking public safety officials to Israel for \u201ccounterterrorism\u201d training every year.<\/p>\n<p>It also brings Israeli police to Georgia to receive training from local police departments in drug war tactics that largely target and devastate poor Black and brown communities.<\/p>\n<p>Atlanta\u2019s deputy police chief Joseph Spillane participated in a two-week training mission to Israel in June 2015. The costs were paid by GILEE, according to\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.muckrock.com\/foi\/atlanta-325\/deputy-chief-spillanes-2015-training-trip-in-israel-25721\/#file-87972\">records<\/a>\u00a0released under a freedom of information request.<\/p>\n<figure id=\"file-39941\" class=\"media media-element-container media-figure file file-image file-image-jpeg\"><picture><source srcset=\"https:\/\/electronicintifada.net\/sites\/default\/files\/styles\/original_800w\/public\/2016-07\/georgia-israel-1.jpg?itok=gtwmbW_i&amp;timestamp=1469120852 1x\" media=\"(min-width: 72rem)\" \/><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-17083\" src=\"http:\/\/stateofthenation.co\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/06\/georgia-israel-1.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"800\" height=\"450\" srcset=\"http:\/\/stateofthenation.co\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/06\/georgia-israel-1.jpg 800w, http:\/\/stateofthenation.co\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/06\/georgia-israel-1-300x169.jpg 300w, http:\/\/stateofthenation.co\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/06\/georgia-israel-1-768x432.jpg 768w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\" \/><\/picture><figcaption class=\"group-caption field-group-html-element\">\n<h5>Personnel from Georgia police agencies participate in a GILEE training mission to\u00a0Israel in June 2015. (<a href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/BrookhavenPD\/photos\/pcb.1336213316407840\/1336212749741230\">via Facebook<\/a>)<\/h5>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>After his return, Spillane\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/news.wabe.org\/post\/atlanta-police-receive-counterterrorism-training-israel\">told<\/a>\u00a0WABE public radio that the Atlanta Police Leadership Institute is \u201cmodeled on the Israeli model.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>He also revealed that Atlanta\u2019s system for 24-hour camera surveillance of neighborhoods and public spaces \u201cmimicked\u201d an operations center Israel has installed in Jerusalem. Spillane acknowledged that many Israeli cameras are set up to \u201csecure the fence lines\u201d \u2013 in other words an integral part of Israel\u2019s occupation and system of forced segregation in the city.<\/p>\n<p>The deputy chief implicitly compared Israel\u2019s context of military occupation to policing Atlanta. \u201cThey have a very diverse population of Christians, Arabs and Jews living in the same space, and so they have similar problems with diversity as we have here,\u201d Spillane said.<\/p>\n<p>Notwithstanding the mountain of evidence to the contrary from human rights groups, Spillane praised his Israeli peers for being \u201cself-restrained as far as how far they go in regards to human rights, and the rights of the people they may be investigating.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>GILEE was founded by Robert Friedmann, an Israeli-American academic and anti-Palestinian activist who uses his influence with US law enforcement to promote Israel\u2019s discriminatory policing strategies.<\/p>\n<p>Speaking at a recent American Jewish Committee event, he justified Islamophobia. According to\u00a0<em>Mondoweiss<\/em>, he\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/mondoweiss.net\/2016\/01\/enforcement-training-terrorism\/\">told<\/a>\u00a0the audience, \u201cThere is no Islamophobia. There is knife-o-phobia.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Friedmann also\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/spme.org\/9107\/robbie-friedmann-academic-boycotts-terrorism-by-other-means\">equates<\/a>\u00a0the nonviolent Palestinian-led boycott of Israeli institutions complicit in human rights violations against Palestinians with terrorism.<\/p>\n<h2>Cheering Gaza attack<\/h2>\n<p>None of this seems to matter to Mayor Reed, a politician who has demonstrated more interest in advancing his own career than in promoting social justice.<\/p>\n<p>As a staunch Hillary Clinton supporter, Reed published a column at CNN celebrating Clinton and hammering her rival for the Democratic presidential nomination, Bernie Sanders, on the issue of gun control.<\/p>\n<p><em>The Intercept\u2019s<\/em>\u00a0Lee Fang later\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/theintercept.com\/2016\/05\/06\/hillary-super-pac-draft-oped\/\">revealed<\/a>\u00a0that Reed\u2019s column was actually written by a corporate lobbyist with guidance from Correct the Record, a pro-Clinton\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.opensecrets.org\/pacs\/superpacs.php\">super PAC<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Reed is similarly supportive of Israel.<\/p>\n<p>At an Atlanta rally in 2014, Reed joined Israeli government officials to\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.wsbtv.com\/news\/local\/more-1000-rally-israel-atlanta\/137412553\">cheer<\/a>\u00a0Israel\u2019s massive military assault on the besieged Gaza Strip that summer, which killed at least\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/electronicintifada.net\/blogs\/ali-abunimah\/balance-un-gaza-report-cant-hide-massive-israeli-war-crimes\">551<\/a>\u00a0children.<\/p>\n<p>Reed\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/atlantajewishtimes.com\/2015\/04\/israel-might-supply-streetcar-fare-system\/\">led<\/a>\u00a0a cyber technology delegation to Israel in April 2015, where he championed closer business ties between Georgia and Israel\u2019s technology sector.<\/p>\n<h2>Law and order<\/h2>\n<p>Of course Georgia\u2019s police are hardly alone in training with Israel.<\/p>\n<p>Under the cover of counterterrorism training, hundreds of US police departments have sent high-ranking officials to Israel for\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/electronicintifada.net\/blogs\/rania-khalek\/us-cops-trained-use-lethal-israeli-tactics\">lessons<\/a>\u00a0in domination and population control.<\/p>\n<p>These training programs have at least two objectives.<\/p>\n<p>First, they seek to reframe Israel\u2019s violent occupation and colonization of Palestinian land as a campaign of law and order that US law enforcement should emulate.<\/p>\n<p>Such a narrative positions Palestinians not as an occupied, dispossessed and stateless people whose rights must be restored, but as a pathologically dangerous population that must be controlled and pacified with brute force. US police then take home \u201clessons\u201d to apply in US cities.<\/p>\n<p>No less important, the junkets serve as a\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.alternet.org\/world\/racist-policing-and-mass-incarceration-shared-values-america-and-israel\">marketing exercise<\/a>\u00a0for Israel\u2019s multi-billion dollar \u201chomeland security\u201d industry.<\/p>\n<p>Though police militarization has been a topic of widespread debate since the Ferguson uprising in the summer of 2014, Israel\u2019s influence on US law enforcement remains virtually ignored by US media outlets while some, like\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/electronicintifada.net\/blogs\/rania-khalek\/politifact-denies-israeli-ties-baltimore-police-despite-evidence\"><em>Politifact<\/em><\/a>, even deny that a significant training relationship exists.<\/p>\n<p>Former Israeli prison guard and writer for\u00a0<em>The Atlantic<\/em>\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/electronicintifada.net\/tags\/jeffrey-goldberg\">Jeffrey Goldberg<\/a> suggested that those highlighting the issue are really just anti-Semites trying to pin the blame for US police violence on Jews.<\/p>\n<p>It is of course important not to claim that US police violence and institutional racism would not exist without Israel. Rather, the issue is that Israel sees opportunities to market and repackage its own repressive, racist and violent techniques tested and developed against Palestinians under occupation as \u201csmart\u201d and legitimate technologies for US authorities to use from inner cities to the\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/electronicintifada.net\/blogs\/rania-khalek\/gaza-laboratory-us-mexico-border-tunnel-warfare\">US-Mexico border<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>And this Israeli pitch has been embraced by US leaders, from mayors like Reed\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/electronicintifada.net\/content\/how-israels-war-industry-profits-violent-us-immigration-reform\/13283\">to the administration of President Barack Obama<\/a>.<\/p>\n<h2>Bringing the repression home<\/h2>\n<p>And various movements against police brutality are taking notice of the relationship. After all, there are plenty of concrete examples of US police applying Israeli tactics to their own jurisdictions.<\/p>\n<p>In Washington, DC, for instance, police\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com\/wp-dyn\/content\/article\/2005\/06\/11\/AR2005061100648_2.html\">adopted the Israeli tactic<\/a>\u00a0of keeping the red and blue lights on their cruisers flashing at all times so that their presence is always felt, particularly in poor Black neighborhoods.<\/p>\n<p>The NYPD\u2019s Demographic Unit that used to systematically spy on Muslims, was\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.ap.org\/Content\/AP-In-The-News\/2011\/With-CIA-help-NYPD-moves-covertly-in-Muslim-areas\">modeled<\/a>\u00a0in part on how Israeli authorities operate in the occupied West Bank.<\/p>\n<p>Three months after the Ferguson uprising, the St. Louis Police Department, which has\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/electronicintifada.net\/blogs\/rania-khalek\/israel-trained-police-occupy-missouri-after-killing-black-youth\">participated<\/a>\u00a0in training sessions in Israel, started\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/electronicintifada.net\/blogs\/rania-khalek\/st-louis-police-bought-israeli-skunk-spray-after-ferguson-uprising\">stockpiling<\/a>\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/electronicintifada.net\/tags\/skunk-water\">skunk water<\/a>, a foul-smelling liquid developed by Israel to break up anti-occupation protests and harass Palestinian communities.<\/p>\n<p>The substance emits a foul stench that has been described as a mix of rotting animal corpse, raw sewage and feces. The odor sticks to walls, clothing, hair and skin for days and is impossible to wash away \u2013 Israeli forces frequently\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/electronicintifada.net\/blogs\/patrick-strickland\/israel-sprays-skunk-water-palestinian-homes\">spray it indiscriminately into Palestinian homes<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Skunk water hasn\u2019t been used on US soil yet. But police departments around the country have expressed interest in acquiring it to quell demonstrations against police violence. Perhaps this is one of the counterterrorism tactics Reed had in mind when praising Israeli police.<\/p>\n<p><em>Additional research by Ali Abunimah<\/em><\/p>\n<p>___<br \/>\n<a href=\"https:\/\/electronicintifada.net\/blogs\/rania-khalek\/atlanta-mayor-rejects-demand-end-israel-police-training\">https:\/\/electronicintifada.net\/blogs\/rania-khalek\/atlanta-mayor-rejects-demand-end-israel-police-training<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Atlanta mayor rejects demand to end Israel police training<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-17080","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/stateofthenation.co\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17080","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/stateofthenation.co\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/stateofthenation.co\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/stateofthenation.co\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/stateofthenation.co\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=17080"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/stateofthenation.co\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17080\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/stateofthenation.co\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=17080"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/stateofthenation.co\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=17080"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/stateofthenation.co\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=17080"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}