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<h2 class="entry-title">Inside GILEE, the US-Israel law enforcement
training program seeking to redefine terrorism</h2>
<b><small><small><a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://mondoweiss.net/2016/01/enforcement-training-terrorism">http://mondoweiss.net/2016/01/enforcement-training-terrorism</a></small></small></b><br>
<div class="author-time">
<span><a href="http://mondoweiss.net/author/anna-simonton"
title="Posts by Anna Simonton" rel="author" class="url fn
name">Anna Simonton</a> on </span>
<time class="entry-date" datetime="2016-01-05T08:55:25+00:00"
pubdate="">January 5, 2016</time>
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<p class="sizeable">The recent wave of heightened Islamophobia in
the U.S. is not limited to the <a class="sizeable"
href="http://lasvegassun.com/news/2015/dec/07/michele-fiore-says-she-wants-to-shoot-syrian-refug/">violent
rhetoric</a> and <a class="sizeable"
href="https://gov.georgia.gov/press-releases/2015-11-16/deal-georgia-will-not-accept-syrian-refugees">cruel
policies</a> of conservative politicians; it’s also being
drummed into police through a Georgia-based program that has
sent thousands of American law enforcement officials to Israel
for counter-terrorism training.</p>
<p class="sizeable">In an unusually candid discussion about the <a
class="sizeable"
href="http://www2.gsu.edu/%7Ecrirxf/gilee.htm">Georgia
International Law Enforcement Exchange</a> (GILEE), program
director Robert Friedmann recently declared that, “There is no
Islamophobia. There is knife-o-phobia,” as he presented
decontextualized video clips of Arabs stabbing Israeli police
officers.</p>
<p class="sizeable">Friedmann’s audience was not his usual group
of high-ranking police, military, and government officials.
Rather, he was speaking to a small number of civilians at a
December 7th, 2015 luncheon held by the Atlanta chapter of the
American Jewish Committee (AJC). The talk, titled “How Safe Is
America from ISIS?” offered a glimpse into the racist ideology
underpinning the trainings that police nationwide have
undergone.</p>
<h3 class="sizeable">Robert Friedmann’s Zionist advocacy</h3>
<p class="sizeable">Friedmann, who emigrated from Romania to
Israel as a child in 1950, came to the U.S. in the 1970s to
study sociology, and found his niche in researching <a
class="sizeable"
href="https://www.ncjrs.gov/pdffiles1/Photocopy/142192NCJRS.pdf">community
policing</a> as a professor of criminology at at Georgia
State University (GSU). He founded GILEE in 1992, initially to
train local law enforcement in Israeli counterterrorism tactics
he believed were necessary to ensure security for the 1996
Olympics. The program has grown by leaps and bounds, and now
serves as a foreign exchange program for U.S. and Israeli
police; in multiple delegations throughout the year, law
enforcement officials from the U.S. travel to Israel for
counterterrorism training, and Israeli police come to Georgia to
learn about community policing and drug interdiction. According
to Friedmann’s AJC presentation, 24,000 participants have
engaged in 330 programs and 180 delegations during GILEE’s
23-year life.</p>
<p class="sizeable">Following its inception, GILEE quickly became
a vehicle for Friedmann’s Zionist advocacy, which has gained
considerable clout over the years. He served on the board of the
southeast region’s American-Israel Chamber of Commerce, is on
the professional advisory board of the Israel-based
International Institute for Counterterrorism, and is included in
the Israeli embassy’s speaker’s bureau. He also authored an
e-newsletter during the Second Intifada, through which he shared
his analyses of “Palestinian terrorism” with 400,000
subscribers. Friedmann later published a collection of the
newsletters in <a class="sizeable"
href="http://bookstore.iuniverse.com/Products/SKU-000081837/A-Diary-of-Four-Years-of-Terrorism-and-AntiSemitism.aspx">two</a>
<a class="sizeable"
href="http://bookstore.iuniverse.com/Products/SKU-000081839/A-Diary-of-Four-Years-of-Terrorism-and-AntiSemitism.aspx">books</a>.</p>
<p class="sizeable">Friedmann has simultaneously gained stature
within law enforcement and academia, serving on the
International Association of Chiefs of Police and the Georgia
Security Council. In 2007, GSU awarded Friedmann an endowed
chair worth $1 million and created specifically to support
GILEE, which is listed as a research center within the
university’s Andrew Young School of Policy Studies.. The same
year, the Georgia General Assembly passed two resolutions
commending the program. Georgia Governor Nathan Deal <a
class="sizeable"
href="http://www2.gsu.edu/%7Ecrirxf/Governor%20Deal%20hosts%20GILEE%20appreciation%20dinner.pdf">hosted</a>
GILEE’s 20-year anniversary in the governor’s mansion.</p>
<p class="sizeable">The heraldry is surprising, even in a state
like Georgia, given how blatantly Friedmann’s ideology hews to
the extreme. The GILEE website features <a class="sizeable"
href="http://www2.gsu.edu/%7Ecrirxf/Gaza-2008.pdf">StandWithUs
propaganda</a>, articles by Alan Dershowitz (along with some
penned by Friedmann who blasts Hamas for alleged war crimes
while mentioning nothing of Israel’s innumerable breaches of
international law), and a <a class="sizeable"
href="http://www2.gsu.edu/%7Ecrirxf/Yad-Vashem.htm">bizarre
tract</a> on the importance of including Holocaust education
in police training.</p>
<h3 class="sizeable">Secrecy surrounding GILEE funding</h3>
<p class="sizeable">GILEE’s rabid brand of Zionism is as
transparent as its operations are secretive. In 2011, GSU
students sought information to determine how the program impacts
policing in the United States. Their public records request was
denied and met with unexpectedly intense backlash. State
Attorney General Sam Olens told a local news station (whose
parent company sponsors GILEE) that the students were <a
class="sizeable"
href="http://www.wsbtv.com/news/news/state-info-requested-by-students-could-leak-to-ter/nFC7M/">aiding
terrorists</a>.</p>
<p class="sizeable">Olens also introduced a <a class="sizeable"
href="http://www.legis.ga.gov/legislation/en-US/display/33209">sweeping
revision</a> of Georgia’s Open Records Act, including new
exemptions that covered some of the information students had
requested. The General Assembly passed Olens’ bill shortly after
his TV interview in which he slandered the students.</p>
<p class="sizeable">That was enough to derail public scrutiny of
GILEE for a while. But over the past year, as the movement for
Black lives has forced the problem of police brutality into a
national spotlight, journalists and activists have <a
class="sizeable"
href="http://america.aljazeera.com/opinions/2014/8/ferguson-police-violenceisraeliandusmilitarizedpolicies.html">questioned</a>
how <a class="sizeable"
href="http://www.mintpressnews.com/from-nyc-ferguson-to-baltimore-american-police-are-trained-in-apartheid-israel/205650/">programs</a>
like GILEE serve to militarize U.S. law enforcement.</p>
<p class="sizeable">Mondoweiss requested public records pertaining
to GILEE and met with similar roadblocks that GSU students did
in 2011.</p>
<p class="sizeable">GSU told Mondoweiss that no school funds are
allocated to the program; it’s funded entirely by private
donors. But GSU refused to disclose who those donors are, citing
an exemption to the Open Records Act that covers the personal
information of donors to institutions of higher education. GSU
interpreted “personal information” to mean not only the names of
individuals, but of corporations and foundations as well.</p>
<p class="sizeable">However, GSU did disclose donation amounts,
which show that GILEE has raised $4.4 million since 1992. This
seemingly low figure may be explained by the fact that some, if
not all, of the exchange trips are paid for in part by public
funds.</p>
<p class="sizeable">A 2009 <a class="sizeable"
href="http://www.rockdalecounty.org/docs/8F3a.pdf">letter</a>
from Friedmann to an employee of the Rockdale County, Georgia,
Sheriff’s Office shows that only 25 percent of the employee’s
$6,000 trip to Israel was covered by GILEE. The rest was funded
by a <a class="sizeable"
href="https://www.bja.gov/ProgramDetails.aspx?Program_ID=70">grant</a>
from the Department of Justice that Friedmann apparently helped
to secure.</p>
<h3 class="sizeable">Pro-Israel donors support for GILEE</h3>
<p class="sizeable">As for GILEE’s coffers, a separate look at the
tax records of The Marcus Foundation, the personal charity of
Home Depot founder Bernie Marcus, proved it to be a major GILEE
funder.</p>
<p class="sizeable">Marcus (who served with Friedman on the
American-Israel Chamber of Commerce board) donated $720,000 to
GILEE between 2008 and 2013. If the numbers provided by GSU are
comprehensive, his contributions constitute 38 percent of
GILEE’s total funds raised for those years.</p>
<p class="sizeable">Marcus also gives generously to the pro-Israel
lobby group, CAMERA, along with Friends of the Israel Defense
Forces, and is active with the <a class="sizeable"
href="http://zoa.org/dinner2014/">Zionist Organization of
America</a>.</p>
<p class="sizeable">Both <a class="sizeable"
href="http://www2.gsu.edu/%7Ecrirxf/JGA07.pdf">GSU</a> and <a
class="sizeable" href="http://www2.gsu.edu/%7Ecrirxf/FOM3.pdf">GILEE</a>
have publicly acknowledged other donors in the past, including
UPS, Georgia Power, Equifax, and The Intercontinental Hotels
Group. They both named Jim Davis, CEO of National Distributing
Company––a wholesale alcohol distributor––as a top contributor,
though his donations are harder to trace. His personal charity,
The Covenant Foundation, has donated large sums to the Jewish
Federation of Greater Atlanta, with the stipulation that a
portion go to GILEE. GILEE received at least $12,000 in this
roundabout way in 2012.</p>
<h3 class="sizeable">GILEE participants reveal corporate-state
partnerships</h3>
<p class="sizeable">Corporations have also participated in GILEE’s
programs, which are not limited to law enforcement officials.
GSU would not disclose the names of participants, but provided a
list of the organizations they represented.</p>
<p class="sizeable">Some companies would seem to be a natural fit,
like security consultants Fortress Consulting LLC. But some
unlikely participants call into question the scope of the
program and its impact not only on policing, but on
corporate-state partnerships in the surveillance and control of
everyday life.</p>
<p class="sizeable"><a class="sizeable" style="text-decoration:
underline;" title="View GILEE Participants and List of
Agencies and Institutions on Scribd"
href="https://www.scribd.com/doc/294585754/GILEE-Participants-and-List-of-Agencies-and-Institutions">GILEE
Participants and List of Agencies and Institutions</a> by <a
class="sizeable" style="text-decoration: underline;"
title="View Mondoweiss's profile on Scribd"
href="https://www.scribd.com/user/27012941/Mondoweiss">Mondoweiss</a></p>
<p class="sizeable">For example, Central Atlanta Progress (CAP),
an elite business association that has held undue sway over
Atlanta politics since the 1950s, <a class="sizeable"
href="http://www.atlantadowntown.com/article/cap-public-safety-vp-studies-counterterrorism-in-israel">sent
a vice president</a> on a GILEE delegation to Israel in 2011.</p>
<p class="sizeable">In an effort to gentrify downtown Atlanta, CAP
has funded a <a class="sizeable"
href="http://www.securitymagazine.com/articles/85760-how-atlanta-increased-security-by-sharing-surveillance">network
of thousands of surveillance cameras</a> shared by police and
private businesses, deputized an “<a class="sizeable"
href="http://www.atlantadowntown.com/initiatives/ambassadors">ambassador
force</a>,” and allegedly <a class="sizeable"
href="http://www.dailyreportonline.com/id=1202743209087/Homeless-Shelter-Case-Must-Be-Decided-by-Jury-High-Court-Says?slreturn=20151114184703">conspired</a>
to shut down the city’s largest homeless shelter.</p>
<p class="sizeable">What lessons has CAP learned from the Israeli
surveillance state? It’s hard to say. GSU refused to disclose
GILEE training materials, and instead offered a list of 28
“topics covered in training.” The list ranges from the concrete:
“Border Policing,” to the abstract: “New Economy and its Effects
on Public Safety.”</p>
<p class="sizeable">But it’s topics like “Urban Policing,”
“Community Policing,” and “Drug Interdiction,” that touch on
GILEE’s true impact. Not only do U.S. law enforcement agents
travel to Israel to learn from an occupying force how to control
a population subjected to apartheid, Israeli police come to the
U.S. to learn what control of marginalized peoples––communities
of color, immigrants, targets of the Drug Wars––looks like here.</p>
<p class="sizeable" style="margin: 12px auto 6px auto;
font-family: Helvetica,Arial,Sans-serif; font-style: normal;
font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; font-size: 14px;
line-height: normal; font-size-adjust: none; font-stretch:
normal; -x-system-font: none; display: block;"><a
class="sizeable" style="text-decoration: underline;"
title="View List of GILEE Training Topics on Scribd"
href="https://www.scribd.com/doc/294585753/List-of-GILEE-Training-Topics">List
of GILEE Training Topics</a> by <a class="sizeable"
style="text-decoration: underline;" title="View Mondoweiss's
profile on Scribd"
href="https://www.scribd.com/user/27012941/Mondoweiss">Mondoweiss</a></p>
<p class="sizeable">These communities are seemingly viewed as
interchangeable by GILEE proponents, otherwise, what would
Israeli and American police have to learn from one another? The
existence of GILEE affirms what leaders in the U.S. have
historically denied: that communities of color are treated as
enemies of the state within their own country.</p>
<p class="sizeable">As people mobilize to change this, GILEE
participants share innovations in maintaining control.</p>
<h3 class="sizeable">GILEE and the expanding definition of
terrorism</h3>
<p class="sizeable">During his presentation at the American Jewish
Committee Luncheon, Friedmann advocated for expanding the
definition of terrorism. (This is not a new position for
Friedmann––in 2010 he <a class="sizeable"
href="http://spme.org/spme-research/letters-from-our-readers/robbie-friedmann-academic-boycotts-terrorism-by-other-means/9107/">equated
academic boycotts with terrorism</a>.)</p>
<p class="sizeable">“Counterterrorism means disrupting the
ecosystem of extremism,” he said. “Terrorism begins with
rhetoric…we need a counterterrorism agenda to address
incitement.”</p>
<p class="sizeable">Part of that agenda, he said, should be
prosecuting people for YouTube videos that “incite” terrorism.</p>
<p class="sizeable">He described a video of an imam in Israel
saying, “You need to understand the plight of the Palestinians,”
as an example.</p>
<p class="sizeable">“You know what direction it’s going,”
Friedmann explained. “Incitement is not always violent.
Sometimes it’s quite sophisticated.”</p>
<p class="sizeable">Maybe it’s no coincidence, then, that Clayton
County police––whose deputy chief went to Israel with GILEE
earlier this year––recently arrested <a class="sizeable"
href="http://atlantaprogressivenews.com/2015/10/25/bond-granted-for-latausha-nedd-as-new-details-undermine-states-case/">Latausha
Nedd</a>, a local activist, on charges of making terroristic
threats and criminal solicitation for online videos in which she
expressed anger over police brutality against Black people.</p>
<p class="sizeable">It turns out that several of the videos in
question were private video chats that were hacked by a white
supremacist group called No Thiefs Allowed, which emailed edited
clips to the Clayton County Police Department. Nedd is awaiting
trial on bond.</p>
<p class="sizeable">Another GILEE graduate made a unilateral
decision to illegally <a class="sizeable"
href="http://atlantaprogressivenews.com/2015/06/23/gammon-street-closure-escalates-racial-tensions-in-gentrifying-south-atlanta/">blockade
a public road</a> in a gentrifying neighborhood to prevent
black teenagers from using it as a route to and from school
after a white neighbor complained of “gang members” on the
street.</p>
<p class="sizeable">These cases may or may not be the direct
result of GILEE’s influence. But as long as GSU refuses to
disclose comprehensive data about the program’s participants and
funders, we are left to piece together what information we can
about an organization that is shaping how police treat perceived
threats in the U.S. and Israel alike.</p>
<p class="sizeable">As Friedmann wrapped up his talk at the AJC
luncheon, he contended that civil liberties stand in the way of
combatting terrorism, implying, as he had all along, that only
Muslims commit terrorist acts.</p>
<p class="sizeable">“The problem is, because of the First
Amendment, the FBI won’t go into mosques,” he said.</p>
<p class="sizeable">During the Q and A, a lone dissenting voice
questioned the overwhelmingly anti-Muslim tone of the
presentation.</p>
<p class="sizeable">“If we demonize every Muslim, we encourage
radicalism,” a man said.</p>
<p class="sizeable">Friedmann deftly redirected the statement,
saying that it’s the job of the Muslim community to discourage
radicalism.</p>
<p class="sizeable">“To date, there is not a single, unequivocal
condemnation of the September 11 attacks [from the Muslim
community]” he said.</p>
<p class="sizeable">In the wake of Ferguson and police killings of
unarmed Black people nationwide, demands have arisen for better
police training, training that challenges racial and cultural
bias. GILEE, it’s clear, is doing the opposite.</p>
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