After Michael Brown’s death in 2014, Black protesters in Ferguson, Missouri faced a new battleground of police weaponry and military tactics. From rubber bullets to officers restraining civilians by the neck, people started investigating this heightened level of brutality.
And they discovered one reason may be a relationship the United States has with another region.
Thousands of police officers, hailing from all over the country, have trained with Israeli officials. Hundreds traveled to Israel to learn killer tactics in person! They include former Ferguson police chief, Timothy Fitch, who “studied counter-terrorism.”
It’s not hard to see the connection when U.S. law enforcement surveils Black activists as “domestic terrorists.”
Israel’s military targets Palestinians, including Afro-Palestinians, the same way. In fact, according to Amnesty International, Israel has “racked up human rights violations for years” – including torturing children and brutalizing non-violent protesters.
Israel and U.S. police even used the same U.S.-made tear gas canisters against Palestinian and Black American activists. The relationship is cozy: the U.S. has given Israel billions of taxpayer dollars in the past few decades.
From Black Americans to Palestinians, it's clear that the white supremacist system of policing is an international one. To challenge police in the United States, we have to look at their allies. Because it's a near-guarantee that those people will want us dead, too.