Anti-Israel efforts at the local government level in the United States have ramped up in recent weeks, particularly in progressive cities. First, there was a push from the Seattle City Council to cut off police cooperation with Israel, followed by a resolution endorsing BDS from the Burlington (Vermont) City Council. Both these cities, known for their “woke” culture and progressive stances, seem to be completely tone deaf when it comes to modern antisemitism.
In the case of Burlington, the vote was ultimately withdrawn after it became clear the resolution would contribute to antisemitism. If the resolution had passed, it would have been the first US city to formally endorse BDS. Similarly, Seattle initially tabled their resolution, but they, unfortunately, deliberated on the issue again this week.
As someone born in Seattle myself, I’m ashamed that instead of focusing on improving life for the citizens of Seattle, city council members preoccupied themselves with legislation smearing a country thousands of kilometers away and blaming Israel for Seattle’s policing problems. Ironically, they criticized Israel for their own local problems when the Israeli law enforcement exchange program was working to prevent police brutality.
The Seattle proposal seeks to end collaborative efforts between Seattle’s police department and law enforcement professionals in Israel, and has been used as a platform for anti-Israel activists to falsely declare a correlation between police brutality in the US and Israeli-Palestinian relations. The implication, of course, is that Israel is the racist “white” party actively harming the people of color, which is preposterous given Jews aren’t white and in fact the majority of Israel is of Mizrahi origin. These attempts to conflate two different situations are unfounded and serve only to fan the flames of antisemitism.
To set the record straight: America, like many other countries, does have a police brutality issue which must be addressed. By and large, Americans support police reforms to combat and end abuses of basic civil liberties. To avoid incidences of brutality – and discrimination – many American police departments have enlisted the help of our allies in Israel. Because Israel is home to one of the most diverse populations and complex security situations on the planet, Israel has been working with American police to address these issues for decades. Many of these trainings are focused on de-escalation tactics to allow law enforcement to better work toward the safety of their communities. For Seattle, the training also focuses on enhancing community policing and relationship building.
The legislation by the Seattle City Council promotes false antisemitic tropes that claim Israel is liable for police brutality and widespread racism in the United States. This is laughable, of course, as these trainings began in the 1990s and obviously America’s problems with law enforcement brutality can be traced much earlier than that. However, without any substantive evidence of a link between these trainings and police brutality in the United States, these claims mirror historic antisemitic conspiracy theories which blame the Jewish people for all of the world’s problems.
Sadly, we have seen across the country that whenever anti-Israel bills like this are introduced, antisemitic slurs and violence are soon to follow, putting the local Jewish community at risk. Both Burlington and Seattle must recognize this.
During the peak of the Black Lives Matter protests, posts of cartoons paralleling the inhumane treatment of George Floyd to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict went viral. This false parallel is dangerous and makes a mockery of serious calls for police reform. There is nothing progressive about antisemitic tropes, and the positive cooperation between Seattle law enforcement and Israel is certainly not a stimulant for increased violence – unless of course we’re looking at violence against Jews as a result of the very same antisemitic attitudes that resulted in the above-mentioned legislation.
I firmly oppose the unwarranted and antisemitic actions of self-proclaimed progressive activists who try to amplify their own platform by tethering two unrelated social issues. Ironically, the entire purpose of the law enforcement exchange program is that it equips Seattle police to better handle situations without excessive force or brutality, yet the anti-Israel groups – and apparently the Seattle City Council members as well – care more about bashing Israel than they do about improving their own police force and helping their own community. Any endorsement of resolutions of this type provide further evidence of how the progressive movement has been hopelessly linked to the rise in antisemitism today.
The writer is the CEO of Social Lite Creative LLC and a research fellow at the Tel Aviv Institute.