Israel and the U.S. Police Exchange

American police departments send officers to Israel to learn counterterrorism prevention and response from a country that has had a lot more practice at it. In the summer of 2020 people were blaming those exchanges for police violence against Black Americans. So AIC put three people who know the programs firsthand on a Zoom panel, and Cheryl Dorchinsky moderated.

Gina Hawkins, the police chief in Fayetteville, North Carolina, spent two weeks in Israel in 2015 through GILEE, the Georgia International Law Enforcement Exchange. She said she never saw anything in the program like the cartoon going around, with an Israeli soldier and an American cop each kneeling on a man’s neck. What the trip did was make her a better executive and manager, and she still uses what she learned there.

Robert Friedmann founded GILEE at Georgia State. He said the program teaches leadership development, and the people attacking it don’t understand what it does. Joshua Washington of the Institute for Black Solidarity with Israel said tying American police brutality to Israel is a lie, and that blaming Israel does nothing for the Black community.

Israel InSight co-sponsored, and twelve organizations helped promote it.