As a result of public pressure, the Vermont State Police and the police department for Northampton Massachusetts have decided to pull out of the ADL-sponsored, all-expenses-paid “Resiliency and Counterterrorism” program in Israel. The seminar highlights methods Israel uses to “thwart terrorism within its framework of a democratic and multicultural nation.”
Police officers search house to house for Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, the surviving suspect in the Boston Marathon bombings, in a neighborhood in Watertown, Massachusetts April 19, 2013. Credit: REUTERS/Brian Snyder
By Amir Tibon: Two police departments in the northeastern United States decided over the past week to cancel their participation in a program that involves visiting Israel and meeting Israeli police officers, due to public pressure by a coalition of progressive organisations, including a number of groups affiliated with the Boycott, Sanctions and Divestment movement (BDS).
This is the first time in the program’s two decades that political pressure has led to police departments cancelling their participation.