Some US Police Departments Are Ending Their Training with the Israeli Military
By: Nathan Matsko
AJ Colores via Unsplash
State College — The city of Durham, North Carolina will no longer allow its officers to be trained by Israeli military personnel.
The cooperative effort was banned shortly after nationwide protests erupted following the death of George Floyd at the hands of Minneapolis police officers. The global outcry and demonstrations have led to increased scrutiny of police departments and their attitudes towards the Black community across the country.
Israel has also been facing a similar controversy. Iyad Hallak, a Palestinian man with Autism, was shot by Israeli police after the officers in question falsely believed that Iyad had a weapon. Protests arose after this particular killing, criticizing alleged racial profiling and inherent bias of Israeli police.
The US’s law enforcement training programs with Israel began in large part after the September 11th attacks in 2001. Since then, hundreds of police departments and federal agencies have sent their officers to Israel—or invited Israeli military officials to the US—to enhance their counterterrorism training. In more recent years, however, riot control has also been a vital part of the regiment.
According to a report by Amnesty International in 2016, several police departments, including the Baltimore Police Department (BPD), utilize antagonistic Israeli military tactics that seek to neutralize a threat rather than deescalate a situation. Amnesty cited a Department of Justice report to criticize BPD for these strategies.
“The Department of Justice report cited 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. For years, Amnesty International has found Israeli military, security and police forces responsible for the same behavior.”
Some Israeli and Jewish commentators have been quick to condemn the conversation surrounding the connection between US police and Israel. A piece in the Jerusalem Post referred to it as a “hijacking of the cause”, and labeled many of those using this information to advocate against the training programs as Anti-Semitic.
Israel has moved to reject the claims, stating that Israeli forces do not utilize techniques in which a knee is placed on the back of the neck and that none of the counterterrorism training programs involving US police officers included such a technique.
Pro-Palestinian voices on social media have disputed this claim, sharing videos and images showing IDF soldiers using near-identical variants of the restraint.