Experts on antisemitism and civil liberties say the training reinforces a police culture that treats Palestinians (and Arabs and Muslims more broadly) with suspicion, while doing little to curb antisemitism. “They are actively conflating any care for Palestinian humanity or rights—and in some cases, Palestinian existence itself—with antisemitism,” said Dove Kent, the US senior director for Diaspora Alliance, a group that fights antisemitism and its weaponization. “None of this does anything to increase Jewish safety.”
Instead, the trainings serve to worsen a situation where “law enforcement is on the front lines of violent anti-Palestinian repression—beating student protesters, surveilling them, and raiding them both on and off campus,” said Dylan Saba, a staff attorney at Palestine Legal (and a contributing editor for Jewish Currents). “With this training, police are being fed a description of pro-Palestinian students that, merely on the basis of their political expression, categorizes them as a security threat.” (The NYPD, the New York City mayor’s office, CAM, and POE did not return requests for comment.)
: Just call everything antisemitism! Then if someone accuses of genocide, we can screech antisemitism while denying the Holocaust at the same time!