>> Campaigns of Hate

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“End the Deadly Exchange” (“DX”) is an anti-Israel campaign and antisemitic conspiracy theory that falsely blames Jewish groups and Israel for police brutality and racial injustice in America. DX is based on misleading rhetoric and outright lies about US-Israel law enforcement exchanges, which focus on preventing terrorism and saving lives from threats like gun violence. This dangerous campaign is the latest in a long history of Jews being scapegoated and falsely blamed for major societal problems and injustices.

 

Law enforcement exchange programs in Israel help keep Americans safe, at a time of rising white supremacist attacks and other forms of terrorism.

 

• Law enforcement leaders and first responders meet with both Israeli and Palestinian counterparts to hear about their challenges and learn from them. The goal is to build awareness of the communities they protect and to see stakeholders on a human level.

• Sessions enhance their effectiveness in preventing and responding to terrorism, active shooters, and other mass casualty situations through teaching about deterring or disrupting attacks, de-escalating dangerous situations, implicit bias training, and understanding extremist ideologies.

• The exchanges include training about how to build up community resiliency after emergency situations, as well as dealing with psychological trauma and PTSD.

• The Anti-Defamation League (ADL), a leading Jewish civil and human rights group, runs one of the exchanges and also offers law enforcement seminars in the U.S. about managing implicit bias, understanding the Constitution and individual rights, and combating hate crimes.

 

The DX campaign is based on smears and misleading narratives about these programs.

 

• The trips are for senior leaders, not patrol officers. A tiny fraction of the 1.1 million full-time and 100,000 part-time police personnel employed by 17,985 US state and local law enforcement agencies have trained in Israel.[1] They are leaders who are responsible for protecting their communities from terrorism and other attacks, and training first responders to save lives in emergency situations.[2]

• The exchanges do not focus on crowd control or any other practices associated with cases of police brutality in the U.S. None of the officers involved in unjustified shootings in the U.S. were trained in Israel beforehand, and there isn’t a single shred of evidence that these programs contributed to any form of police brutality.

 

• DX activists often mischaracterize these trips as “military training,” even though they have no bootcamp-style field training and are not conducted by the Israeli army. These trips can in no way contribute to any stateside militarization of police - an issue U.S. police departments are responsible for alone.

 

The DX campaign discriminates against Israel.

 

• The U.S. has police exchange programs with many countries, including Argentina, Australia, Austria, Brazil, China, Colombia, Egypt, Finland, France, Georgia, Greece, Hungary, Indonesia, Israel, Italy, Jamaica, Japan, Kazakhstan, Mexico, The Netherlands, Russia, the UK, Uzbekistan, and many others.[3], [4] The fact that only exchanges with Israel are targeted and misrepresented exposes the agenda, inherent bias and double standard of DX.

 

Prominent leaders have rejected the accusations and demands made by DX activists.

 

• Former Atlanta Mayor Kasim Reed publicly rejected the Deadly Exchange campaign. He said, “there was a demand that I stop allowing the Atlanta Police Department to train with the Israeli Police Department. I’m not going to do that. I happen to believe that the Israeli Police Department has some of the best counter-terrorism techniques in the world, and it benefits our police department from that long-standing relationship.”[5] 

• The National Organization of Black Law Enforcement Executives and Georgia Council on American Indian Concerns also expressed support for the exchanges and rejected the claims made by anti-Israel activists.[6]

• The administration at Tufts University, the first school where a DX campaign occurred, called a referendum question promoting DX “misinformed and factually incorrect… In no way did the program endorse police brutality or racial profiling, and in fact rejected them.”[7]

 

DX is part of a long history of dangerous antisemitic conspiracy theories, blaming Jews for evils and injustices in society.

 

• Historically, Jews have been falsely blamed for everything from killing Jesus and causing the Black Plague, to suffering caused by both capitalism and communism (seriously…). Jews and the state of Israel have even been accused of being behind the COVID-19 pandemic. Such antisemitic conspiracy theories must be taken seriously and exposed, because they have often led directly to racist violence.

• DX scapegoating Jewish groups and Israel for police brutality in America is yet another disturbing example of these historic antisemitic conspiracy theories. The end result can be increased hostility against Jews.

• There is evidence that the DX conspiracy theory helped influence the shooter who murdered Jews in a New Jersey deli in December 2019.[8]

 

DX fuels hate and division, and does nothing to advance racial justice in America.

 

• DX scapegoats, slanders, and dehumanizes Israelis and Jews, fueling hate, anger and division while doing nothing to help people of color in the US, Palestinians, Israelis, or any community.

• DX has exploited and attempted to co-opt the Black Lives Matter movement and the larger fight for racial justice, undermining efforts to combat hatred and discrimination.

• Scapegoating Jews and Israel makes it harder to overcome injustices in our society. It shifts attention away from the actual causes of racism and police brutality, distracting and dividing communities that often agree about the urgent need to take action on these issues.

 

 

Citations: 

[1] President’s Task Force on 21st Century Policing. 2015. Final Report of the President’s Task Force on 21st Century Policing. Washington, DC: Office of Community Oriented Policing Services. Accessed July 26, 2016. http://www.cops.usdoj.gov/pdf/taskforce/taskforce_finalreport.pdf (page 29)

[2] Georgia International Law Enforcement Exchange (GILEE) www.gsu.edu/~crirxf/gilee.htm, LEEP (Law Enforcement Exchange Program of JINSA) www.jinsa.org/events-programs/law-enforcement-exchange-program-leep/all, Anti-Defamation League, “ADL’s Leadership Seminar in Israel,” at https://www.adl.org/who-we-are/our-organization/signature-programs/law-enforcement-trainings/leadership-seminar-in-israel

[3] http://www.serendipity-russia.com/PDF/articles/Law%20Enforcement%20Exch%20Accomp.pdf

[4] Peter C. Kratcoski and Dilip K. Das, “Police Education and Training in a Global Society,” Lexington Books, (2007), p. 165

[5] The Tower Staff, “Atlanta Mayor: Israel “Has Some of the Best Counter-Terrorism Techniques in the World,” The Tower, July 22, 2016 at http://www.thetower.org/3676-atlanta-mayor-israel-has-some-of-the-best-counter-terrorism-techniques-in-the-world/

[6] Miriam Elman, “National Black Law Enforcement group backs Georgia-Israel police exchange program,” Legal Insurrection, February 24th, 2019, at https://legalinsurrection.com/2019/02/black-law-enforcement-group-backs-georgia-israel-police-exchange-program/

[7] Alexander Janoff, “Tufts will not take action in response to SJP, TREE referenda,” Tufts Daily, February 1, 2021, at https://tuftsdaily.com/news/2021/02/01/tufts-will-not-take-action-in-response-to-sjp-tree-referenda/

[8] Brandy Zadrozny and Ben Collins, “Online posts tied to suspected New Jersey deli shooter pushed anti-Semitic conspiracies,” NBC News, December 11th, 2019, at https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/social-media/online-posts-tied-suspected-new-jersey-deli-shooter-pushed-anti-n1100136; John-Paul Pagano, Twitter, December 11th, 2019, at https://twitter.com/johnpaulpagano/status/1204971915514916865