[act-ma] ACTION ALERT: Rally to Stop US/Israel Police Exchanges & End Collaborations with the ADL

[Kevin Heaton]

Hello comrades!

Please join local anti-racist and Palestine Solidarity groups for this rally<https://twitter.com/BDSBoston/status/1507437985809240074?cxt=HHwWlMC4kZC3v-spAAAA> happening Thursday March 31st. The rally will start at 4:30pm outside of Boston City Hall.

We are rallying to demand an end to the participation of Massachusetts law enforcement in ADL-sponsored "counterterrorism" trainings in Israel, and to call upon Boston area organizations to end all collaborations with the ADL. Since the 1930s, the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) has collaborated with US police, the FBI, and other US government officials to surveil<http://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1999-sep-28-me-15044-story.html> and repress<http://www.myjewishlearning.com/article/julius-and-ethel-rosenberg/> anti-racist activists and other dissidents. In the midst of the heightened climate of racism and Islamophobia which followed the 2013 Boston Marathon Bombings, the ADL of New England stepped up collaborations with Massachusetts law enforcement, coordinating all-expenses paid training trips to Israel for leadership from over 100 Massachusetts police departments as well as leadership from the Boston field office of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), New England Homeland Security, the US Marshalls Service, the US Secret Service, and County Sheriff’s Offices. (See for example: here<http://www.muckrock.com/foi/burlington-255/burlington-police-chief-israel-trip-26589/#file-98408>) The ADL of New England also regularly hosts "counterterrorism" trainings for law enforcement right here in Massachusetts. As one example, in 2019 the ADL of New England coordinated a "Law Enforcement Seminar<https://www.muckrock.com/foi/concord-259/discriminatory-training-concord-police-department-82011/#file-822006>" in Foxboro MA, which featured a presentation from an "Israeli counterterrorism expert" on "The Ten Commandments of Counterterrorism" and "Actionable Strategies for Securing Events and Open Spaces in Communities."

Prisons, police, ICE, bombs, walls, and settler nation-states don't keep anyone safe, and they don't make anyone free. We in the Palestine Solidarity movement know from experience that we are the ones who support and protect one another. And we also know, from experience, how to rise up together and fight back against institutions that are harming our people. The ADL of New England is one of those institutions.

We hope you will join us Thursday at 4:30pm for this important rally.

Yours,