JVP Blames Israel for American Police Brutality Once Again
By Joshua Beylinson, 2020–2021 CAMERA Fellow at the University of Pittsburgh
In November, the Pittsburgh branch of Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP) publicized a petition to end all training exchanges between the Pittsburgh police and Israel.
While the petition is framed as an anti-racist fight for justice, its true focus is to (incorrectly) blame Israel for police brutality in America. The petition is filled with false assertions and demonstrates that JVP is interested not in real dialogue about Israel or Zionism, but in promulgating incendiary campaigns that employ antisemitic tropes. As CAMERA’s Ricki Hollander has argued, “Such allegations of Jewish racism, power and money perverting non-Jews evoke the age-old blood libels against Jews, and are reminiscent particularly of the notorious forgery, Protocols of the Learned Elders of Ziyon, that accused Jews of using their wealth and influence to manipulate and control non-Jews to their detriment.”
The aforementioned petition states that “police in our communities are being trained to be an occupying military force” and that “these trainings are immoral and deadly.” Specifically, JVP points to three trainings that occurred within the past three years, two of which were anti-terrorism seminars hosted by the Anti-Defamation League (ADL).
These trainings were attended by the Pittsburgh chief of police and the assistant chief of police in 2018 and 2017, respectively. The third, which took place in 2019, was a larger training in Israel that several officers attended.
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