What is this violent and inhumane military force teaching our police?  

We are members of the Phoenix community who are committed to justice, dignity, and human rights from #PhoenixtoPalestine. We call on the membership of the Phoenix City Council to immediately halt any present and future partnerships between the Phoenix Police Department and the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) because it exacerbates the existing crisis of police violence in the US and endorses Israel’s systems of military occupation of the Palestinian people.  

There is no ambiguity about the atrocities committed by the IDF. Since 1948, the Israeli military regime has been a system rooted in totalizing control over the Palestinian population, one that does not tolerate opposition or dissent of any kind. Take just a recent example: in 2018, the IDF used snipers to kill over 180 protestors and wounded and maimed more than 16,000. Despite international outcry and condemnation, US law enforcement delegations meet with Israeli military, police, and intelligence agencies to collaborate on tactics to silence civil dissent.  

Given the well-documented human rights violations committed by the Israeli military, the Phoenix Police Department must cease their partnership with this force of oppression. It is important to recognize that this relationship is being facilitated by the Anti-Defamation League’s (ADL) National Counter-Terrorism Seminar (NCTS) program. The ADL developed the NCTS program immediately after 9/11 in order to bring top-ranking US law enforcement officers as well as homeland security, border patrol and ICE, to Israel for cross-training exercises with Israeli police, military and intelligence officials. As recently as July 2018, the Phoenix Police Department sent one of their highest ranking officers, Executive Assistant Chief Michael Kurtenbach, to Israel to participate in the NCTS program. This information was confirmed via public record request and phone calls with Phoenix Police Chief Jeri William’s office.

On these cross-training trips, high ranking American officers train with the very same Israeli agencies who carry out the country’s policies of occupation and apartheid via control, shoot to kill policies, surveillance, racial discrimination, restrictions of movement, repression of social movements, torture, excessive force, child kidnappings, and more. Israel’s oppressive tactics of population control have been widely condemned by the United Nations, Amnesty International, and Human Rights Watch (among many others) for violating the most basic rights of Palestinians. American law enforcement trainings in Israel demonstrate an endorsement of Israel’s use of invasive surveillance, blatant racial profiling, and brutal force as a model for policing.

• What is this occupying, unaccountable military teaching the Phoenix Police?  

• What practices, tactics, and weapons of war has our police department brought back to our communities here in Phoenix?

• Why would the City of Phoenix invite the ADL to lead these dangerous cross training programs?  

Military-style tactics of controlling and dehumanizing communities of color in the US have been in place long before Israel became a state in 1948. The roots of US policing lie in the formation of slave patrols, the preservation of white-owned property, and the maintenance of white supremacy within all facets of law enforcement. The question our community must ask itself is How have US-Israel cross trainings further intensified an inherently violent police department targeted towards communities of color and poor communities on the whole?  

While we believe that banning any existing and future cross-trainings between Phoenix Police and Israel is a small step in demilitarizing and defunding law enforcement, the Phoenix to Palestine campaign fully supports and echoes calls by local organizations to defund all Central Arizona policing departments.

The partnership between the ADL, Phoenix Police, and the Israeli Military is reckless and partisan. It deepens Israel’s systems of military occupation, and exacerbates the existing crisis of police violence in the US.

To the Phoenix City Council, we as community members of conscience demand that you support justice and true collective safety. We call on you to halt any present and future partnerships that the Phoenix Police Department has or could enter into with the IDF and/or the Israel Police, including but not limited to:  

• Anti-Defamation League’s National Counter-Terrorism Seminar (NCTS)
  
• Anti-Defamation League’s Advanced Training School
  
• Any exchange program between the Phoenix PD and the IDF
• Any exchange program between the Phoenix PD and the Israel Police

You have a responsibility to ensure the safety of the residents of Phoenix. You have a duty to protect our civil rights. We need to ban all US & Israel cross training partnerships. We need to bar the ADL from coordinating these police exchanges. This is just one step, among many others that we must take in peeling back the layers of militarization that have come to define our police.  

Do what is right. Do what is just. From Phoenix to Palestine!

The #PhoenixtoPalestine campaign was launched by Arizona Palestine Solidarity Alliance (Phoenix Chapter)

The following LOCAL ORGS have co-signed this petition:

Anakbayan Phoenix
Arizona Palestine Solidarity Alliance - Southern Arizona
Black Lives Matter Phoenix Metro
Black People's Justice Fund
Black Phoenix Organizing Committee
CAIR (The Council on American-Islamic Relations) Arizona
Communist Party USA - Phoenix
Democratic Socialists of America - Phoenix
Desert Diwata
Food Not Bombs - Phoenix
Mass Liberation Arizona
National Lawyers Guild - Central Arizona
Palabras Bilingual Bookstore
Party for Socialism & Liberation - Phoenix
Poder In Action
Progressive Democrats of America - Arizona
RE:FRAME Youth Arts Center
Shot in the Dark
Students for Justice in Palestine - Arizona State University
Sunrise Movement Phoenix
Trans Queer Pueblo
Veterans for Peace - Phoenix
White PAWS (White People Against White Supremacy)

Does your org want to co-sign this petition? Email us at apsaphoenix@gmail.com