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Justin Gardner
\nThe Free Though Project<\/p>\n
When McKinney, TX police officer David Eric Casebolt\u00a0brutally took down<\/a>\u00a0a teenage girl at a pool party in June, he was using a form of martial arts called Krav Maga in which he\u00a0trained exclusively<\/a>. These combat techniques were developed by the Israel Defense Forces (IDF).<\/p>\n This is a small reflection of a larger reality that exists in U.S. law enforcement, one that helps explain the brutality and militarization that now characterizes so many police forces.\u00a0 Since 9\/11, cops have been\u00a0traveling abroad<\/a>\u00a0to learn from one of the most repressive and dangerous State forces in the world today\u2014the Israeli military and intelligence apparatus.<\/p>\n Political commentator John Miranda\u00a0recently stated<\/a>\u00a0that police brutality is directly linked to the training some officers receive in Israel.<\/p>\n \u201cAs for the increase in police brutality within the United States, I think this definitely can be pointed towards the Israeli training that the Department of Homeland Security is giving all of American police officers.<\/p>\n Some police officers are actually being flown to Israel for the training, not all of them but some, and then those that are flown to Israel, they come back home and they train the head officers in the training that they\u2019ve gotten in Israel.<\/p>\n All these incidents, it is not just happening to African Americans. Police are literally being brutal with all Americans.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n At least 300 high-ranking U.S. sheriffs and police from all over the country, as well as FBI and US Customs and Border Protection agents, have traveled to Israel to learn first-hand the most efficient means of subduing populations. \u00a0The purported reason is counterterrorism, but protests and crowd control methods are commonly discussed.<\/p>\n Police are not learning from the Israeli criminal law sector that deals with Jewish residents.\u00a0 U.S. police are learning from Israel\u2019s military justice system, which controls Palestinians through paramilitary and counterinsurgency tactics. \u00a0Residents of Gaza and the West Bank live in what is essentially a giant prison camp, where oppression and brutality from the IDF is a way of life.\u00a0 The use of excessive or deadly force for crowd control is rarely questioned.<\/p>\n Three organizations are responsible for sending U.S. cops to Israel for training\u2014the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), the American Jewish Committee\u2019s Project Interchange and the Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs.\u00a0 The ADL\u00a0insulted victims of police brutality<\/a> last month when it honored the St. Louis Police Department (SLPD) just days ahead of the anniversary of Michael Brown\u2019s killing.\u00a0 The SLPD was the first department to enroll in ADL\u2019s training program.<\/p>\n The St. Louis Chapter of Jewish Voices for Peace issued a scathing statement in response: \u201cWe have cringed as the ADL positions itself locally as a champion of racial profiling legislation while sending US police \u2013 including former St. Louis County Police Chief Tim Fitch \u2013 to train on population control in Israel, an apartheid police state with more than 60 years of sophisticated expertise in racial profiling, mass incarceration, settler colonialism, and ethnic cleansing targeting the non-Jewish indigenous Palestinian people.<\/em>\u201d<\/p>\n This occupation-style policing has made its way to U.S. cities and towns and has become standard operating procedure at any protest of government.\u00a0 Also, the very same equipment used by Israeli military for crowd control\u2014tear gas grenades, triple chaser gas canisters, and stun grenades\u2014were used at demonstrations in Ferguson, Oakland and Anaheim.\u00a0 The LRAD (long-range acoustic device) was also used by both Ferguson police and Israeli military forces.<\/p>\n Rashid Khalidi, the Edward Said professor of modern Arab studies at Columbia University, notes how militarized U.S. police reflect the training that is received in Israel and spread throughout the ranks.<\/p>\n \u201cIf American police and sheriffs consider they\u2019re in occupation of neighborhoods like Ferguson and East Harlem, this training is extremely appropriate \u2013 they\u2019re learning how to suppress a people, deny their rights and use force to hold down a subject population.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n To complement this Israeli military training that ramped up in the mid-2000s, the Pentagon and Homeland Security started the\u00a01033 program<\/a>\u00a0which funneled billions of dollars of military-grade equipment to local law enforcement.\u00a0 MRAPS and military weapons have become all too familiar on American streets.<\/p>\n What order-following, state-sanctioned thug is going to refuse the most advanced tactics and tool of repression?<\/p>\n Shakeel Syed, executive director of the Islamic Shura Council of Southern California, described how U.S. police tactics are \u201ca near replica\u201d of Israeli military crowd control tactics.<\/p>\n \u201cWhether it is in Ferguson or L.A., we see a similar response all the time in the form of a disproportionate number of combat-ready police with military gear who are ready to use tear gas at short notice. Whenever you find 50 people at a demonstration, there is always a SWAT team in sight or right around the corner.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n This increasingly common scenario is indicative of law enforcement that views the populace as the enemy.\u00a0 Peaceful protests of unjust government practices are fundamental to the progression of society.\u00a0 Police with militarized tactics and gear are the progenitors of violence.<\/p>\n