In January, black leaders from Ferguson, Missouri and Dream Defenders traveled to Israel and Palestine. The reason? To connect with Palestinians living under occupation, understanding the parallels between their experiences with soldiers and the experiences of black Americans with militarized law enforcement.
These black leaders are not the only ones who have noticed the parallels between the way in which Palestinians are treated in the West Bank and African-Americans are treated on American streets. Indeed, Chris Hayes of MSNBC has noted that Ferguson, upon witnessing the police response to nonviolent protests there, seemed more like a town occupied by a military force than anything else. And for good reason. The violent suppression of protests, the excessive use of force on unarmed citizens, racist policing practices, and the profiled targeting of minors are among the many shared experiences of Palestinians and black citizens living in places like Ferguson.
Now, with the Justice Department's release of its Ferguson report, one of the more shocking violations of U.S. citizens' constitutional and human rights has come to the surface: the exclusive use of police dogs to attack African-Americans, not to counter any physical threats, "but to punish them" for being black:
These practices, which few believe are restricted to just Ferguson, are coincidentally being revealed to the American public at a time in which Israelis are confronting the exact same thing:
the use of attack dogs on unarmed Palestinians. A leaked video shot by Israeli soldiers has surfaced showing a dog being released upon a Palestinian teenager as soldiers say, "Who's the coward now?" while encouraging the dog to bite.
Video of the incident, released by the Israeli human rights group Btzelem, is below. (Trigger warning: upsetting content.)
Israeli authorities are investigating the incident as isolated, despite the fact that Btselem has been
calling upon the IDF to cease this practice for years.
It's likely not a coincidence that law enforcement in both Ferguson and the West Bank have been using such practices. There is close coordination and training between U.S. law enforcement and Israeli security forces through such programs as Urban Shield. Indeed, at least two of the agencies deployed in Ferguson to suppress protests there received training from security forces in Israel.
Now that the wider public have been made aware of the use of attack dogs on unarmed minorities, in both the U.S. and Israel, a striking truth we've known for too long is being bolstered by graphic images of people being attacked by dogs: that neither society will be just until the racism embedded in U.S. police forces and the occupation of Palestinians in the West Bank end.
This is one reason why black leaders from Ferguson, who know all too well the brutal tactics used by their police force, traveled to Israel and the West Bank. To proclaim that Palestinian lives matter. That black lives matter. That Jewish lives matter.
That all lives matter.
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David Harris-Gershon is author of the memoir What Do You Buy the Children of the Terrorist Who Tried to Kill Your Wife?, recently published by Oneworld Publications.