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US law enforcement training in Israel

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An image from the Mapping Project showing the connections between the Anti-Defamation League and law enforcement infrastructure in the Boston area.

The Mapping Project shows connections between oppressive institutions where we live – including NGOs, weapons companies, computer/logistics companies, universities, biomedical research institutions, and others. The intersections between agents of oppression offer possibilities for connecting our struggles. They study us and are networked; we need to study them and form our own networks of resistance.

A poster remembering Jim Rogers and protesting police brutality. (Photo via Julia Zenkevich/90.5 WESA)

We extend our deepest condolences to the family and friends of Pittsburgh native, Jim Rogers, an unarmed Black man who was brutally murdered on October 13, 2021 by Pittsburgh police officer Keith Edmonds and other unnamed officers. The increased militarization of U.S. law enforcement agencies are a direct result of the deadly exchange programs between the U.S. and Israeli military forces, including exchanges with the City of Pittsburgh.

Police during the 2009 G20 Pittsburgh Summit (Photo: Wikimedia)

A lot of attention has been directed recently at the “training” American police receive from Israel. The point, however, is not that Israel has made US police more violent. Rather, Jeff Halper argues, it was the example of the Israeli Security State, with ready-made doctrines, para-military structures, and weaponry, that has influenced the construction of a similar American Security State.

George Floyd’s killing by Minneapolis police on May 25 has caused many to liken American policing methods to Israeli occupation policing, and to point out that US police have gotten training from Israeli officials under the sponsorship of Israel lobby organizations. The ADL sponsors such trainings, even as it says George Floyd murder exposes “systemic” racism in the U.S.