Do Better is an op-ed column by writer Lincoln Anthony Blades that debunks fallacies regarding the politics of race, culture, and society — because if we all knew better, we'd do better.
On June 19, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and United States Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley announced that America would withdraw from the UN Human Rights Council, an intergovernmental body established in 2006 to protect human rights around the world.
In 2017, Haley accused the council of having a “chronic anti-Israel bias," and June's withdrawal announcement cited the council’s alleged anti-Israel bias as the motivation for the move. A few days after the announcement, Israel said it had temporarily reduced its participation in the body. The U.S. and Israel’s mutual solidarity comes as both nations face accusations of committing human rights violations: the former for ripping young, asylum-seeking migrant children from their parents' arms, the latter for its violent treatment of Palestinian protesters, many of whom were said to be unarmed.
The reason for the multigenerational relationship between the U.S. and Israel has provoked many different theories, including the two countries' common interest in fighting religious extremism and to the role that the U.S. has played in supporting and maintaining Israel's fraught borders. Regardless of the cause, the support isn’t just verbal; it is bolstered by the exchange of wealth and arms. The U.S. has given Israel $134.7 billion in aid and missile-defense funding, making the nation the largest cumulative recipient of U.S. foreign assistance since World War II.
Along with their relationships around money and weapons, Israel and the U.S. share a history of deploying over-militarized policing practices. In America, that style of policing gained attention during the St. Louis police department’s response to the 2014 Ferguson uprising, which followed the death of Mike Brown. While it was jarring to watch local police officers wearing military equipment and armed with military-grade weapons, accompanying tanks rolling through local streets, and shooting teargas at distraught citizens, it was even more troubling when a Twitter user alleged that the gas canisters shot at Ferguson protesters were the same ones that had been fired at Palestinian protesters just days before, both made in the U.S.
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Three years before the Ferguson protests, Tim Fitch — the chief of the very same St. Louis County Police Department responsible for firing teargas at activists and concerned citizens — had flown to Israel to receive training from Israeli police, intelligence, and military in a weeklong course on terrorism-focused policing.
That training was organized by the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), which has conducted its National Counter-Terrorism Seminar in Israel since 2004. The seminar, which is focused on riot suppression, counterinsurgency, and counterterrorism, attracts a variety of attendees, including local police, immigration-enforcement agencies, and even campus police. In fact, The Intercept reported that hundreds of law enforcement executives from over 100 police departments in the U.S. and abroad have attended the conference since it started. The training sessions include meetings with officials from Israel’s internal security service, Shin Bet, according to The Intercept. An investigator with the service was recently accused of torture and is facing a criminal investigation, and activists say such practices are rampant despite an Israeli Supreme Court ruling two decades ago that outlawed certain methods of interrogation, according to Al Jazeera.
Attendees have also met with the Israeli police special patrol unit Yasam, which has been accused of using excessive force against Palestinians. As Israel's approach to counterprotesting has been on display in recent months — which many perceive as inhumane — allegations of its overly aggressive police tactics have been made by Ethiopian Israelis in addition to Palestinians.
On March 30, 773 Palestinians were shot with live ammunition by Israeli soldiers. Many were unarmed, and at least 15 were killed, as tens of thousands of people, including women and children, gathered to demand the right of return for Palestinian refugees and their descendants to land in Israel. The massive demonstration, titled the Great March of Return, was intended to be a peaceful six-week protest near the Israel-Gaza border fence. Yet Israel’s military stated that most of the 17,000 Palestinians participating in the demonstration were actually rioting, citing instances in which young men ran up to the fence to throw stones, Molotov cocktails and other objects. Israel stringently forbids Palestinians from entering the land around the border fence, and Israeli snipers subsequently opened fire. Danny Danon, the Israeli ambassador to the United Nations, dismissed criticism of the mass shooting of Palestinians as being labels as an act of unwarranted aggression, saying that the protest was “a well-organized and violent terror-gathering.”
U.S. police involvement with this military force has been criticized. In September 2017, D.C. council member David Grosso penned a letter to Metropolitan Police Department Chief Peter Newsham condemning Commander Morgan Kane for attending the training session last year, telling *The Intercept*, “It just occurs to me that it isn’t a good idea, whether in Israel or another place, to go and train with a military or national police — in essence, learning from people who are better at the violent approach to conflict resolution.” He continued, “We don’t need more of that, we need more of a community-based approach.” In America, many state and local law enforcement agencies do not mandate de-escalation training for cops, and police academies are spending an estimated 110 hours training recruits on firearms and self-defense, according to Vox. Only eight hours are dedicated to conflict-resolution training.
The recent history of police violence enacted on unarmed black and brown citizens by American law enforcement mirrors the recent history of Israel treating Palestinians as violent insurgents. As the U.S. federal government has categorized some black protesters as “extremists”, directs its government agencies to enforce anti-Muslim policies, and empowers its immigration-enforcement agency to rip young kids away from their parents, the Israeli government seems to be conflating all Palestinian demonstrators with Islamic extremists, undertaking an effort to deport African migrants living in Israel and detaining thousands of Palestinian children (using U.S. tax dollars).
The training and intel that U.S. law enforcement agents have received in Israel may have influenced American policing. In addition to Fitch, Thomas Galati, who is now the NYPD’s chief of intelligence, attended one of the ADL trainings in Israel.
What’s more, the information exchange may be reciprocal: In 2016, Israel passed a “stop-and-frisk” law, much like the practice used in New York City until 2013, when it was was ruled unconstitutional by a judge who determined it was racially discriminatory and in violation of the 14th Amendment. Opponents of Israel’s “stop-and-frisk” measures have also labeled them “blatant racism.”
American law enforcement and Israeli military and law enforcement share more than similar modes of policing; they share responsibility for what many perceive are numerous human rights abuses and civil rights violations. Until both nations make serious efforts to improve their policing practices, more civilians will die.
Editor's note: The Anti-Defamation League has responded to this article with the following:
*ADL’s counter-terrorism seminar brings U.S. law enforcement officials to Israel, to share best practices and lessons learned from international law enforcement counterparts in fighting extremism. The group meets with Israeli law enforcement, including the Israeli National Police, and also meets with Palestinian law enforcement in the Palestinian territories. There is no evidence to date that any participant in our program has used what they learned in Israel to promote racial or religious profiling, police misconduct, or discrimination. In fact, the ADL works to stop police brutality and advocates for criminal justice reform at both the federal and state level.
Participants in this week-long program come from all different types of backgrounds, whether it be black, white, Latino, man, woman, LGTBQ. Our program is designed to build relationships with American law enforcement leaders and help these officials prevent and respond to extremist and terrorist threats and violence in the United States. Unfortunately, the Israelis have considerable experience on how to deter and disrupt terrorist incidents and strengthen community resiliency following terrorist acts. Program participants meet with police commanders, academics, journalists, and intelligence officials in an effort to equip them with the knowledge, understanding, and sense of accountability necessary to help protect rights and liberties, while safeguarding our communities.
ADL is the nation’s largest facilitator of domestic law enforcement training on issues of managing implicit bias; understanding law enforcement’s role as protectors of all of the people they serve and as guardians of civil rights and individual freedoms; and recognizing and responding to hate and bias-motivated crimes.*
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Related: The Israeli-Palestinian Conflict: What You Need to Know
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