Israel/Palestine post 10/7 - follow-on events/thoughts as relate to other countries

i shouldn't say much but considering how small and tame the demonstrations have actually been the media frenzy and immoderate police response feels overwhelmingly Islamophobic

this is insane (Columbia)

this is insane (Columbia)

so glad the cops are going to occupy a college campus until after graduation so that the school can continue to invest in Israeli bombardment of Palestinians.

we live in a police state

otm, and part of that means the police protect their ideological allies:

https://dailybruin.com/2024/05/01/pro-israel-counter-protesters-attempt-to-storm-encampment-sparking-violence

Fireworks, tear gas and fights broke out just after 10:50 p.m. Tuesday night and continued early Wednesday morning as around 100 pro-Israel counter-protesters attempted to seize the barricade around and storm the ongoing Palestine solidarity encampment in Dickson Plaza.

The chaos comes as Chancellor Gene Block faces criticism for improper handling of the encampment and the same day the university deemed the encampment to be unlawful, threatening students inside with suspension and expulsion. Security and UCPD both retreated as pro-Israel counter-protesters and other groups attacked protesters in the encampment – led by Students for Justice in Palestine and UC Divest Coalition at UCLA – that followed similar ones across the country.

There has been a minimal police presence on campus despite multiple events of counter-protesters antagonizing the encampment since Thursday.

fucking hell

the whole event sounds nightmarish. I saw a tweet that four Daily Bruin reporters were followed and assaulted by "counter-protesters"

Student journalists at @WKCRFM reporting that NYPD threatened arrest of student journalists and Columbia Journalism School Dean @jelani9 for leaving the Pulitzer Hall journalism department building for a better view of activity on the campus lawn

— Samantha J. Gross (@samanthajgross) May 1, 2024

Remember, this is being done all in the service of making students safe.

Two differences w/ 2020 - cracking the skulls of college kids on campuses instead of more diverse crowds in urban centers + more Democrats had to at least give lip service to supporting BLM protests since Trump was President

On the connections between Cop City, Israel & the IDF, and police brutality at Emory:
https://www.thenation.com/article/archive/at-emory-university-cops-are-using-a-sledgehammer-to-crack-a-nut/

NEW: ALL SEVEN CONTINENTS HAVE STUDENT GAZA SOLIDARITY PROTESTS 🤯 https://t.co/BVJxZbcd76 pic.twitter.com/4tX2ODKfZW

— Saul (@saaaauuull) April 30, 2024

<3

WOW

Effin. A. Love this. I'd have to go WAY back (few months-ish so, forever) but there was video of this tactic of looking up/calling out cops on the spot being used before and... Oh yeah I forgot I made a video edit someone requested!

Great way to throw them off. https://t.co/pdfuVpceqj pic.twitter.com/vytrZ5Otfk

— Jen (@jenelaina) May 1, 2024

that's a great example of making the internet work for you. everything is public and verifiable. go get em.

Yeah that’s great

Last time I saw Antarctica get involved in protests was the Iraq war.

This is so gross:

#HAPPENINGNOW: An incredible scene and proud moment as we have assisted @CityCollegeNY in restoring order on campus, culminating in raising Old Glory once again on their campus flagpole. 🇺🇸@NYPDPC @NYPD1stDep @NYPDChiefOfDept @NYPDChiefPatrol @NYPDnews pic.twitter.com/XZWFmvXcUs

— NYPD Deputy Commissioner, Operations Kaz Daughtry (@NYPDDaughtry) May 1, 2024

yeah I posted that on the Abolish the Police thread

see also this: https://bsky.app/profile/joshuajfriedman.com/post/3krgqsgggvs24

Minouche Shafik wrote a 2021 book - 'What we owe each other' - where she proposes a reset of the social contract to improve intergenerational fairness.
Then she went to Columbia and brought a notoriously violent police force into that social contract https://t.co/sI3aGz1wCR pic.twitter.com/QcdZWZrHw3

— Daniela Gabor (@DanielaGabor) May 1, 2024

Does NYC have a budget deficit or is it in a good financial place? … Not to discount the repressive impulse of cops, but they are also motivated by OT pay

Maybe they feel righteous going after privileged college kids… what’s the racial makeup of the students?

Nyc is realizing that paying 6B to cops leads to cutting library hours and other things people like

i can't believe the cop really did the gulp + tug collar thing, i thought that was just in cartoons

that was so good lol

Does NYC have a budget deficit or is it in a good financial place? … Not to discount the repressive impulse of cops, but they are also motivated by OT pay

― sarahell, Wednesday, May 1, 2024 12:02 PM (eighteen minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

Maybe they feel righteous going after privileged college kids… what’s the racial makeup of the students?

― sarahell, Wednesday, May 1, 2024 12:05 PM (fifteen minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

I don't think this is very mysterious. The NYPD has been deeply, systematically racist against Muslims and people of Middle Eastern descent since 2001 (at least). Also, like other US police depts the NYPD has also done joint training with Israeli police.

Of course basic greed, reflexive hatred of leftists & activists, and other forms of racism could of course be involved as well

don't know the stats offhand but ccny is definitely a very diverse school and wouldn't be surprised if it was majority-minority

Obviously none of us can read these pigs' minds, but the symbolism of taking down and contemptuously tossing aside the Palestinian flag then hoisting the American flag like they've just recaptured Iwo Jima strikes me as clearly evoking the War on Terror

Also, like other US police depts the NYPD has also done joint training with Israeli police

I know people love this as a talking point, but training sessions involving a few dozen NYPD going to Israel are not the reason crowd policing tactics exist. The police have always been the police. It wasn't "zionists" sicking water canons and dogs on civil rights protesters in the 60s.

I'm not 100% sure how extensive the NYPD's collaborations have been; my current understanding is that a) police training is Israel is very widespread throughout the US and b) it's especially strong in Georgia. I mentioned it mostly as evidence that the NYPD are likely to view pro-Palestinian activists as terrorist sympathizers, not to say Israel is the source of their racism. Again, I see that as most strongly growing out of the post-9/11 era

It gets used all the time to imply that Israel somehow planted the seed of police brutality in the US, which is just totally ahistorical and absurd. Small groups of American police officers spending a week in Israel at some seminars on explosives--or even if one of them concerns crowd control--does not fundamentally shape the nature of US policing.

I think it’s more alarm that communities are paying cops to go on walkabout to learn best practices (enhanced and efficient forms of violence) from a ‘foreign entity’ rather than the israeli government being the origin of police violence

I dont think anyone on the activist or activist-leaning left actually thinks the israeli government exports more brutality than the US does

I 100% agree that Israel is not the origin of US police brutality nor does Israeli training "fundamentally shape the nature of US policing." People making that claim are dead wrong.

However, I think you are downplaying the substance of these exchange programs somewhat. Just as one example, this happened on 10/7:

NYPD brass was part of a metro-area law enforcement delegation attending a counterterrorism and anti-Semitism training near the Gaza Strip when radical Islamic militants launched a deadly surprise attack on Israel this weekend, sources said.

The 32-member group arrived in Israel on Thursday and were just 20 miles from the border when Hamas attacked Saturday, the sources said.

https://nypost.com/2023/10/08/nypd-brass-part-of-delegation-in-israel-when-hamas-launched-surprise-attack/

I have no insight into the nature of Israeli police training for American cops on antisemitism. But I don't think it's totally absurd to think that this could have some, likely small but not nonexistent, influence on how NYPD leaders thinks about antisemitism and pro-Palestine protesters in the aftermath of 10/7

#HongKong police trapping hundreds of students inside #PolyUniversity. Won’t let them leave. Apparently want mass arrests. These actions by Beijing-backed govt raise question whether #China is in violation of its 1984 Joint Declaration commitments https://t.co/tc7akTgyZK

— Josh Hawley (@HawleyMO) November 18, 2019

xp
But my point here was absolutely not "this too is Israel's fault"; it was that the NYPD are sympathetic to Israel in addition to being Islamophobic and racist towards people of Middle Eastern descent. TBC the latter is not a result of training in Israel.

I think it's fair to assume that the "counterterrorism summits" U.S. cops are paid to attend in Israel consist mostly of sales pitches by the exact same spread of U.S. and Israeli defense firms that you would find at a law enforcement conference in Texas.

idk, speaking as much to myself as you here, it's probably best not to assume anything about them without concrete evidence? sorry if that sounds absurd after my posts :/

I thought this was interesting, on the ADL's involvement: https://jewishcurrents.org/scoop-internal-adl-memo-recommended-ending-police-delegations-to-israel-amid-backlash

I dont think anyone on the activist or activist-leaning left actually thinks the israeli government exports more brutality than the US does

To give a new twist to an old Stokely Carmichael adage: If my city's chief of police wants to buy the department a tank after visiting Israel, that's his problem. If he has the budget to do it, that's my problem.

Afaict US police forces have been gradually shifting towards military policing of civilian populations for quite a while now

Yes, it's police militarization that is the larger problem. I haven't read Radley Balko's book on it (Rise of the Warrior Cop), but I believe the basic thesis is that in the US it was the War on Drugs that drove the development of SWAT teams and other military-style police techniques.

This got more serious post-9/11 when you saw stuff like the Dept of Defense's equipment transfer program and Homeland Security's grants for counterterrorism equipment: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/aug/20/police-billions-homeland-security-military-equipment. And yes, giving cops tanks is clearly more of a problem than training programs.

lol my last line was an xpost

To give a new twist to an old Stokely Carmichael adage: If my city's chief of police wants to buy the department a tank after visiting Israel, that's his problem. If he has the budget to do it, that's my problem.

One can also make the simplistic argument that after the cold war ended, the weapons industry needed to find new markets for their products

Military hardware sellers gotta eat!

Military hardware sellers gotta eat!

after the cold war ended

But did it really?

I think we had warmer relations with the USSR than we do with the Russian Federation

_after the cold war ended_

But did it really?