New York, NY, April 22, 2013 … A senior delegation of Israel Police commanders, led by Police Commissioner Yohanan Danino, visited the Anti-Defamation League’s (ADL) national headquarters for a meeting that helped deepen the Israel Police’s understanding of the breadth and scope of ADL’s work with American law enforcement on such issues as countering extremism, domestic terrorism and hate crimes.

The commissioner and his delegation met with Abraham H. Foxman, ADL National Director, and various ADL experts on law enforcement, extremism and counterterrorism. While the April 19 meeting had long been planned, it took place as federal, state and local authorities were engaged in an intensive manhunt for one of the alleged Boston Marathon bombers.

“The Israel Police continue to play an important role in working closely with counterterrorism experts to share their insights with American police commanders,” Mr. Foxman said. “As we were reminded by the Boston Marathon attack, terrorism knows no borders, and we are fortunate that Israel Police officials are willing to work alongside us and share best practices in counterterrorism with their American counterparts.”

Israel Police representatives have been regularly featured as speakers at ADL’s prestigious Advanced Training School (ATS) Course on Extremist and Terrorist Threats, conducted twice a year in Washington, D.C. In the course of the past decade, Israel Police officials have joined American counterterrorism officials and experts from ADL’s Center on Extremism in sharing their expertise with more than 800 law enforcement executives and commanders – including chiefs of major state and city police departments and heads of FBI field offices – representing 232 federal, state, local and military law enforcement agencies across the U.S.

Representatives of the Israel Police have also met every year with delegations of senior American law enforcement officials on ADL-sponsored counterterrorism seminars in Israel.

At the April 19 meeting, the Israel Police delegation heard presentations from several ADL experts, including analysts specializing in right-wing extremism and Americans influenced by radical interpretations of Islam. They also learned more about another training program for law enforcement, called “Law Enforcement and Society,” that ADL conducts on an ongoing basis in partnership with the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum.

Commissioner Danino was accompanied at the ADL meeting by a brigadier general who serves as Israel’s police attaché and liaison officer to the U.S. and Canada, based in Washington, D.C.; the head of the Special Anti-Crime Unit “LAHAV 433;” the police station chief of the city of Beersheba; and the chief superintendent and spokeswoman for the commissioner.