Militarized Policing: The Deadly Exchange Lie

In 2017, Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP) concocted and launched a campaign called the “Deadly Exchange.” JVP is a Far Left organization that partners with extremist anti-Israel organizations. Their Deadly Exchange campaign essentially blamed the Israeli military for “militarized policing” and police violence in the United States.

JVP seized on the fact that "exchange" programs exist between the Israeli military and American police. They then falsely claimed that these programs had brought American police to Israel to learn the Israeli military’s “worst practices.” Namely, militarized policing. The Deadly Exchange further accused that the programs taught police “racist policies” to be used against black and brown communities.

JVP's campaign asserted American police were learning, in essence, militarized policing:

“extrajudicial executions, shoot-to-kill policies, police murders, racial profiling, massive spying and surveillance, deportation and detention.”

JVP’s Deadly Exchange campaign also targeted American Jewish organizations. This included mainstream groups such as the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) that were among the sponsors of the exchange programs.

The problem with the Deadly Exchange campaign was that it was based on entirely fabricated premises. While it was true that the exchange programs existed, participants in the programs unequivocally testified that what JVP claimed they learned couldn’t be further from the truth.

Clearly, this is the opposite of JVP's militarized policing accusations.

George Turner is the former police chief of Atlanta, Georgia. Turner took over as chief after the controversial police shooting of Rayshard Brooks. Commenting on the program, Turner said,

“I did not learn repressive kind[s] of techniques as it relates to what the narrative had been around this exchange.”

Gina V. Hawkins, the police chief of Fayetteville, NC., stated,

“Nothing that we learned had anything to do with injustice … My experience was nothing even close to what they said was the purpose of the executive level leadership training, none of the information in regards to any type of policing against any demographic, because that would go totally against my beliefs.”

Ronnie Roberts, a former police chief of Olympia, Washington, commented,

“Most of the stuff was all about high-level policy stuff … it wasn't about training or tactical or anything like that.”

Atlanta Police Chief Rodney Bryant participated in a program run by Georgia International Law Enforcement Exchange (GILEE) at Georgia State University. Bryant said,

“One of our greatest challenges in American policing is serving a community that is vastly more diverse than the local police department. Comparatively, the Israeli police are responsible for serving a variety of demographics. I was impressed by the level of community policing efforts employed by the Israeli Police to build relationships and maintain peace among such diverse populations…”

Pomerantz says,

“Participants learn how Israeli law enforcement deters, disrupts, and responds to terrorist attacks. They explore the ideology of suicide bombers and other attackers, ways to de-escalate an ongoing incident, and the intelligence-gathering and -sharing process.”

Pomerantz also stresses that participants discuss “efforts to build trust with minority communities.” They visit hospital trauma units and crime scenes. In addition, they speak to the terrorists who have committed these unspeakable acts to try to understand their mindsets. This is the opposite of militarized policing. It is nothing like the accusations of the Deadly Exchange propaganda.

Pomerantz notes, 

“One year, JINSA organized a specialized trip for American bomb squad commanders which focused on topics such as post-blast forensics and the materials used in explosive devices. There is a unique value to learning from Israel’s unfortunately extensive experience in the counterterrorism field.”

Despite these facts, JVP opted to push the Deadly Exchange, essentially a modern-day blood libel. The group accused Israel of using the trips to “advance racist ideology and target social justice movements.” It said Israel was teaching American police militarized policing.

JVP's partners, all radical anti-Israel organizations, seized on these all too attractive words.

JVP’s broader intersectional allies, who also align with the antisemitic anti-Israel crowd, were happy as well to push this libel. Groups like Black Lives Matter and the Nation of Islam became key players in disseminating the Deadly Exchange lie.

In a widely disseminated sermon, infamous antisemite and leader of the Nation of Islam Louis Farrakhan ranted,

“That's why you [the police] got to come at us … like snakes trying to wrap yourself around us so you could give us the treatment that you were taught in Israel? You mayors, you governors, stop your police from going to Israel to learn how to kill better. Your days of killing us without consequence are over, you will pay a heavy heavy price.”

By the time the American street erupted over the death of George Floyd, the Deadly Exchange had already been so mainstreamed that news outlets around the world were blaming Israel outright for the militarized policing they claimed killed Floyd. They also accused Israel of using the same tactics against Palestinians.

Commenting on the death of Floyd, Los Angeles Times staff writer Tracey Wilinson wrote,

“…the U.S. appears to be adopting many of the harsh law enforcement tactics that Israel has used for years in the occupied West Bank and Gaza …”

In the New York Review of Books, Michael Shanks, a widely-published author in mainstream media, confidently declared that the American police engage in military policing. Further, they learn their “techniques and tactics from Israeli military services.”

In an article titled “How the Police Became Paramitaries,” Shanks, sounding oddly similar to the JVP’s Deadly Exchange website, enumerated the tactics American police ostensibly learn from the Israeli military: “mass surveillance, racial profiling, and suppression of protest and dissent.”

Robert Friedmann, the director of GILEE and professor emeritus of Criminal Justice at Georgia State University, has been participating in the exchange programs for more than two decades. Friedman comments,

“It’s a hoax. Nothing in these presentations has anything to do with any violence against minorities or against anyone else … It's not just the assumption or the claim or the charge that Israel is training officers. There's no such policy. So all in all, it is simply the use of the technique of the ‘Big Lie.’ You repeat it enough times and people are starting to buy into it, not because it is true, but because it appeals to an emotional base.”

Pomerantz minces no words,

“It's another libel. The Jews are responsible for all these horrible things in history … the blood libel, the poisoning of the wells in the Middle Ages, both World Wars and now, guess what? They're also responsible for what's happening in America at the hands of police and to people of color.”

Alarmed at the level of antisemitism the Deadly Exchange generated in the aftermath of George Floyd’s death and the fact that the lie had been fully appropriated by white supremacists as well, JVP issued what many perceived as a “walkback.”

Just 12 days after Floyd’s death, JVP wrote an “Update on the Deadly Exchange Campaign” on their website. Citing the “unprecedented moment for Black liberation in the United States,” JVP claimed that,

“Highlighting these police exchange programs without enough context or depth can end up harming our movements for justice.”

JVP further explained:

“Suggesting that Israel is the start or source of American police violence or racism shifts the blame from the United States to Israel. This obscures the fundamental responsibility and nature of the U.S., and harms Black people and Black-led struggle. It also furthers an antisemitic ideology.”

Conveniently blaming only the white supremacists for the damage the Deadly Exchange lie caused Israel and Jewish people, JVP then stated,

“White supremacists look for any opportunity to glorify and advance American anti-Black racism, and any chance to frame Jews as secretly controlling and manipulating the world. Taking police exchanges out of context provides fodder for those racist and antisemitic tropes.”

Yet, nowhere in this “update” did JVP define what is the proper “context” of the exchange program. That would have meant a full-scale admission by JVP that their Deadly Exchange campaign was based on a lie, that Israel wasn't teaching militarized policing.

By November 30, 2021, there could be no doubt that JVP had decided to double down on the Deadly Exchange lie. In a statement marking the campaign’s fourth anniversary, JVP wrote,

“Since 9/11, Israeli security forces have trained US law enforcement in what Israel markets as ‘counterterrorism’. Through these trainings, US police study the tactics of illegal military occupation and an apartheid system of discriminatory laws that have been “battle-tested” on Palestinians, which only exacerbates the crisis of racist, militarized policing for communities in the US.”

JVP continued,

“JVP members, alongside a broad and powerful coalition of Palestinian- and Black-led organizations, dedicated ourselves to putting an end to these exchanges as an important step towards demilitarizing, defunding, and eventually abolishing the police.”

Apparently, JVP’s intersectional allies – as well as their anti-Zionist ideology – are more important to them than the truth.