Deadly Exchange is a vile, antiSemitic campaign that blames Jews for police assaults on American Black people. It falsely claims that American police departments participating in counter-terrorism and leadership training in Israel are allegedly trained to “terrorize Black and Brown communities” in America. This is a flat-out lie. Yet promoters of a campaign to petition city officials to boycott Israeli training programs had a victory in Durham, NC, when on April 16, 2018, the city council voted to ban that city’s police department from participating in the Israeli programs.
When NCCI board member Deborah Friedman learned of the petition to ban police exchanges with Israel in Raleigh using the same lies from Durham, we were greatly concerned. We had witnessed the failure of Jewish leadership in Durham and didn’t want to see the Jewish community denigrated again. In the hope that local leaders learned from experience, we reached out to see how we might work together. We learned that some in the community were already aware of the Raleigh campaign and were working quietly behind the scenes. Since we had seen this approach fail in Durham, we thought it would be important to address the issue in a more public way, by speaking before the Raleigh City Council.
Charles Jacobs Reported His View on the Situation
We were shocked at the vehement opposition to our plans. We contacted Charles Jacobs, President of Americans for Peace and Tolerance, and others for advice. Our thought was that both public and private approaches could work in synergy. We decided to proceed with our plans. The pressure on us to remain silent, sometimes hostile and threatening, continued unabated.
As reported in our last newsletter, four of us spoke passionately before the Raleigh City Council on June 15th, bringing with us a contingent of supporters. The talks went well, although we do not yet know what the ultimate outcome would be. We reported the events to Charles Jacobs, who thought our story was important to publish to inspire others to be creative and to stand up publicly against such antisemitic resolutions.
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