This is not a moment to highlight the similarities between law enforcement violence in the US and Palestine says Nada Elia, but to work in solidarity to topple the violent system of racial supremacy in the United States.
The BDS movement calls on Palestine solidarity activists in the US and elsewhere to stand with the Movement for Black Lives and other Black-led organizations in their righteous struggle for justice.
Amidst fear and mourning, the Jewish community is turning towards antiracist solidarity to create real safety. “One thing is clear,” JVP member Jay Saper writes, “our shared enemy is white supremacy and our shared solution is one another.”
We need to stop the Georgia International Law Enforcement Exchange (GILEE) program in light of recent officer-involved shootings in Georgia.
Atlanta activists are reigniting their fight against the Georgia International Law Enforcement Exchange (GILEE), a program where law enforcement officials receive training from human rights violators such as Israel.
Students for Justice in Palestine and the Palestinian Youth Movement write a letter to the University of California’s Task Force on University wide policing drawing the linkages between divestment from Israeli colonization/occupation and the need to remove the presence of police and policing from UC campuses: “Students recognize that these patterns and structures of oppression are deeply interlinked, often enabling and sustaining one another, and that the call for prison and police abolition, even in local spaces/contexts, is consistent with the imperative to support Palestinian freedom and liberation.”
When activists learned that the Northampton, MA, police chief had accepted an invitation from the Anti-Defamation League to train with Israeli “counter-terrorism” experts, they mobilized and the chief decided not to go. The ADL is seeking to enforce a highly-politicized mission of supporting Israel on law enforcement agencies that are supposed to be above partisanship. More and more police forces in the Northeast are declining to go.
Durham, North Carolina became the first city in the country to ban local police exchanges with Israel on April 16, when the city council unanimously passed a resolution opposing any international “military-style” training for police officers. The victory was the result of a two-year campaign by a coalition of 10 local organizations, as well as the deep legacy of intersectional and internationalist solidarity in the U.S. South.
Late Monday evening, Durham voted unanimously to become the first city in the U.S. to prohibit police exchanges with Israel, after broad community pressure and popular petition by the Demilitarize! Durham2Palestine coalition, an affiliate of the Deadly Exchange Campaign. The policy, which states that, “the Council opposes international exchanges with any country in which Durham officers receive military-style training,” was voted into official policy of the City of Durham during heated debate at City Council.
Devyn Springer reflects on the legacy of Black activists in the South organizing in solidarity with Palestinians: “No, solidarity organizing for Palestinians is not contained to the South. In fact, this organizing likely occurs across the country at varying rates probably higher in other places. However, the South has a legacy that cannot be ignored in this fight; one that is being reckoned with, actualized, and drawn upon as political and emotional spectacle to form its new movement for Palestine.”