[Photo credit: Jessica Rinaldi/Reuters]
By Erik Jacobson
For many people, the security guard’s infamous actions during Aaron Bushnell’s protest in front of the Israeli embassy illustrated the stark division between the police and those who fight against multiple forms of state-sponsored violence. While Aaron was sacrificing his life to call attention to the ongoing oppression of Palestinians, the guard’s first response was to draw and aim his weapon. Unarmed and on fire, Aaron was still considered a threat that needed to be neutralized. In this way, what took place is emblematic of broader connections between policing and the struggle for Palestinian freedom.
Suppressing Dissent
Since the beginning of Israel’s latest assault on the people of Gaza, multiple protests have taken place across the United States. In many cases, police have been called out to violently shut down demonstrations and arrest large numbers of people. For example, on November 10th, police were called in to arrest students at Brandeis University who were calling for a ceasefire. On November 15th, 2023, police violently assaulted people protesting at the Democratic National Committee’s headquarters. Often times, and consistent with historical precedent, these deployments turn into police riots. Recent examples include NYPD swarming and tackling protestors getting on the subway at the conclusion of an event (March 8th, 2024). This was carried out by the NYPD’s Strategic Response Group, who are called upon to do this kind of work. Indeed, the NYPD has been captured initiating hand-to-hand combat with people who oppose the status quo. The message is clear – they are prepared to suppress dissent by any means necessary.
In addition to physically attacking protestors, New York also has a Joint Terrorism Task Force. This legacy of the post 9/11 “war on terror” surveilles the internet, looking for words that would trigger an investigation of someone who might be inclined to protest. This tracking actually goes beyond the borders of the United States. The NYPD has a Tel Aviv office that it is in regular contact with, particularly since October 7th. In fact, the NYPD has shared intelligence and carried out surveillance in the city at the request of partners in Israel.
The use of police to suppress dissent is not limited to the United States. In Israel itself, protestors are often violently attacked and arrested for simply calling for an end to the war on Gaza. There have been a number of such protests in Tel Aviv, and the scene is likely to keep repeating itself. Merely expressing sympathy for people suffering in Gaza on FaceBook was enough to get social studies teacher Meir Baruchin arrested. He is not alone in this, and police have come to people’s houses to arrest them for what they have shared on line. In the words of Israel's Police Commissioner, Yaakov Shabtai, “Anyone inciting against the State of Israel, its government symbols, elected officials, military personnel and police, should be aware that the Israel Police will respond firmly and without leniency.” In the days after October 7th, police in Jerusalem rounded up over 100 people and arrested 63. Across the country, hundreds more have been arrested for social media posts critical of the government.
Riot police officers arrest a demonstrator at Hermannplatz, Berlin on October 11, 2023 at a pro-Palestinian gathering. John MacDougall /AFP via Getty Images.
European countries have followed suit. England, France and Germany have limited or outlawed expressions of support for Palestine. In Paris, police issued a ban on the "presence and circulation of people that present themselves as pro-Palestinian." To date, they have issued over 1000 fines and arrested more than 40 people. In the UK, protestors calling for a cease-fire are routinely arrested, often without being told what the charge is. In Germany, officially equating anti-Zionism with antisemitism has meant that large numbers of Jewish protestors have been arrested. In fact, although Jews make up 1% or less of the German population, they represent more than 50% of the people who have been arrested and charged with antisemitism. The group Jewish Berliners Against Middle Eastern Violence were not granted permission to even hold a public rally. Not surprisingly, the police have used supposed antisemitism as a pretext to surveil and harass other groups that are involved in the struggle for social justice. For example, in December 2023, they raided the offices of the feminist group Zora and seized materials. Zora’s offense? Making pro-Palestinian public statements. Across all of these cases, the message is the same. Dissent will not be tolerated, and the police are the means to punish those who ideologically step out of line. That means the fight for Palestine and the movement towards abolition are inseparable.
The Power of Language
Billy clubs and guns are one way of suppressing dissent about policing and Palestine, and controlling the language we use to talk about the situation is another. This does not mean there is a small cabal in a room somewhere engaged in some nefarious plot. Indeed, that type of assertion is often revealed to be informed by long-lasting antisemitic tropes about Jews controlling the media. Rather, as Herman and Chomsky make clear in Manufacturing Consent, it is a question of what filters have been put in place that direct our use of language before we even consider why we chose the words we did. In this way, no one person or group of people needs to be scheming behind the scenes – routinized use of language does the necessary ideological work to maintain the status quo.
In the US, the media often uses what has been called the past exonerative tense (coined by William Schneider) to point to something wrong that happened without naming or blaming the people responsible. This includes the passive voice (“Mistakes were made”), but it also includes removing human agency in other ways. Here are a few examples of how the past exonerative frames the narrative when talking about police violence.
In the first tweet, there is no mention of the police who used the pepper spray. It just happened. While the second tweet features other commonly used wording. In this case, the bullet is somehow responsible on its own, rather than the officer that fired the gun. Sadly, this was the majority of coverage of the murder of Breonna Taylor - “It is tragic that that bullet found her sleeping in her bed.” By shifting the focus to the bullet, the police are not held responsible. In fact, the very term ‘officer involved shooting’ is a means of dissembling the reality of the situation – a police officer shot somebody. This framing is powerful. A recent study found that readers were “less likely to hold a police officer morally responsible for a killing and to demand penalties after reading a story that uses obfuscatory language.”
This same exonerative tense is used in reporting about Palestine. Consider this example that notably pre-dates the events of October 7th.
Inexplicably, the protesters “received” bullet wounds instead of being shot. There is no mention of who shot them. This is a consistent pattern. When Israeli forces murdered journalist Shireen Abu Akleh, the Washington Post stated - “Yet Another Palestinian Journalist Dies on the Job.” When Israeli dropped a missile on a café in Gaza, the New York Times reported, “Missile at Beachside Gaza Cafe Finds Patrons Poised for World Cup.” Thus, it is not surprising that the same language is being used to describe the ongoing genocide in Gaza and the West Bank. When 4-year-old Ruqaya Ahmad Odeh Jahalin was killed by Israel forces who shot a hail of bullets at the van she was riding in, SkyNews reported it as, “A bullet found its way into the van and killed a three or four-year-old young lady.” Again, a tragedy in which a child was killed by a bullet that wasn’t fired by anybody.
It is also worth noting the description of a 4-year-old girl as a young lady. This is also consistent pattern. At one point, The Guardian reported, “The [Israeli] hostages to be freed are women and children, and the Palestinian prisoners are also women and people aged 18 and younger, both sides have confirmed." Why is it that Israelis under 18 are children and Palestinians are not? One possible reason is that this use of words is a way to reduce empathy for Palestinians by removing the image of innocence associated with being a child. Calling Ruqaya a young lady might even suggest that she had some level of agency in this situation. There are clear parallels in the United States.
In the AP’s Today in History, 18-year-old Michael Brown, killed by a policeman, is a Black man. In their coverage of a racist massacre in Buffalo, the 18-year-old white shooter is a teenager. Language matters, and we must be vigilent in our critiques of the filters that naturalize oppression and make oppressors unacccountable.
Palestine as a Laboratory for Policing Techniques and Tools
Gaza has been called a laboratory for policing training and technology, as resources and strategies developed there are then exported to the rest of the world. In the current attack on Gaza, Israel is deploying LANIUS quadcopter drones. These devices can be used for surveillance, but also to attack. On January 11, 2024, on Al-Rasheed Street, one such drone was used to remotely fire on a crowd that had gather to wait for aid trucks. Dozens of people were killed. The developer, the Elbit Corporation, notes that “LANIUS is a highly manoeuvrable and versatile drone-based loitering munition designed for short-range operation in the urban environment.” The drone can carry up to 64 shots, which can be released quickly.
Elbit also explains that LANIUS “can autonomously scout and map buildings and points of interest for possible threats.” Mayor Adams of New York City has said he was interested to learn how the IDF was using drones for this purpose. In fact, since October 7th, the NYPD has been using their own drones to surveil protestors. They have illegally used footage obtained by the drones to arrest people. The NYPD is actually going beyond taking picture of people in public. The Queens District Attorney Melinda Katz has signed a contract with the Israeli company Cobweb Technologies to use their software to profile people via social media mapping. The hope is to be able to capture the “complete” digital lives of people.
Israel has also helped develop other hardware for surveillance. For example, the Tohono O’odham reservation is bisected by the border between the US and Mexico. The US Border Control patrols the area, by vehicle and from 160 feet tall watchtowers. These structures, built by the US branch of Elbit, have night vision scopes, thermal sensors and ground-sweeping radar with a radius of 7.5 miles. The Tohono O’odham are monitored as they move about in their own land, and there is no limit to the data that can be collected. Similar watchtowers are in place along other parts of the US-Mexico border, and the US- Canada border. Elbit advertises that these towers have been “field proven” on Palestinians.
Such “field testing” is happening right now during the assault on Gaza. Israeli forces have deployed robot police dogs developed by Boston Robotics. The company had insisted that they would not be used against people, and so their use now suggests that Palestinians in Gaza do not meet their criteria for protection. It is hard to imagine that once they have had their trial by combat, they will not be used in the United States for similar purposes. It is worth noting that Israel is not only supporting surveillance and state-sponsored violence in the US. Recently, it has supplied drone technology and cruise missiles to Morocco, currently illegally occupying Western Sahara. This is not an isolated incident. As just one example, Israel supported the violent right-wing government in Guatemala in the 1970’s and 1980’s by providing weapons and helping train their forces.
The same is true of the United States. Police leadership, including chiefs, assistant chiefs and captains have gone to Israel to train with the IDF on issues like crowd control, use of force and surveillance. Hundreds of police from 12 states and Washington, DC have participated in this training. This is certainly problematic, given the fact that the IDF’s record in these areas is terrible. They have a long history of abuse, torture and extrajudicial killings, with little or no accountability. Their consistent abuse of human rights has been documented and condemned by Israeli activists (e.g., B’Tselem) and international organizations (e.g., Amnesty International). While in Israel, according to the organization Researching the American-Israeli Alliance (RAIA), US police witnessed “live demonstrations of repressive violence in real-time, in protests across the West Bank, patrols in East Jerusalem, and visits to the Gaza border.” Not surprisingly, rather than changing the direction of policing in the US in a positive direction, it appears that such displays have emboldened police to be even more violent. A report on Baltimore police, a force that has participated in the training, found that they often escalate encounters and then use excessive force. In another analysis, police in San Diego were found to increase their racial profiling activities after the training. And yet, since 2002, the Anti-Defamation League, the American Jewish Committee’s Project Interchange and the Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs have covered the cost of these trips. However, more people are paying attention to the existence and impact of this training. Jewish Voice for Peace in Durham, North Carolina, was able to get the city to ban these trips for their officers. This victory demonstrates that it is possible take successful action if people are well organized and persistent. Hopefully resistance will spread to other municipalities.
Policing and the Creation of the Oppressed Other
Given the long history of police violence against Palestinians and those who support them, why has there not been more outrage? It is likely because at a fundamental level, policing is doing what it was intended to do - establish and maintain oppressive social and economic structures. Consider how the Palestinian experience parallels the Tohono O’odham. Palestinians have been driven off their lands, had their water and crops confiscated and continue to have their movement restricted. To go anywhere, they need to pass through multiple checkpoints, and while walking or driving are constantly surveilled. Thousands of Palestinians are seized and left to suffer in in overcrowded prisons without even being charged with a crime. Families of Palestinians accused of a crime face the collective punishment of having their houses razed. No such fate awaits the family of settlers who attack and kill Palestinians. In this way, the laws of Israel and the police who enforce them explicitly create a Palestinian community that is without rights or equal status.
Just as important are the extrajudicial actions of Israeli police. They spread terror by breaking into Palestinian homes at night to grab people, regardless if they have committed or even been accused of committing a crime. The openly abet those settlers who are killing Palestinians and seizing their land.
In Gaza and the West Bank, Israeli forces have videotaped themselves taking the possessions of the people who they have forced to flee. They kill civilians with impunity, including children and the elderly. There are documented cases of them killing non-neurotypical people because these individuals didn’t respond to the orders they gave them in the expected way. This also happened with at least one person who was deaf.
Of course, much of this is familiar to the people living in the United States. From the beginning, police in this country have been used to control the movement and freedom of Black communities, and they continue to bring both judicial and extra-judicial terror. Police continue to kill people with impunity, particularly those who are Black or Brown. In addition, non-neurotypical individuals are at much higher risk of being a victim of police violence. And again, this is not the result of policing being broken. This is what police do – they create the very existence of separate and oppressed communities. Thus, for freedom in Palestine or Pittsburg, Germany or Germantown, the abolition of policing is a necessity. There is no other way forward if we are to have a chance at saving ourselves and a world on fire.
