Jewish groups in the United States are adept at creating mechanisms that benefit themselves and also frequently Israel at the expense of the American taxpayer. The proliferating holocaust museums are a good example, sometimes built by private donations but then paid for and operated by the local government. The national holocaust museum in Washington is, for example, supported by the taxpayer to the tune of $54 million per year. When one considers that the so-called holocaust occurred nearly eighty years ago and did not involve the United States at all, it is a remarkable achievement to so memorialize the claimed uniqueness of Jewish suffering, which then is used to justify other abuses and excuse Israel’s ongoing war crimes.

For those who deny that claims of the uniqueness of Jewish suffering are exploited and even promoted in order to be able to influence public opinion while also obtaining special favors from government, one might cite specific instances where that has most definitely been the case. Jewish organizations receive over 90% of discretionary grants from the Department of Homeland Security, for example, and Israel benefits from $3.8 billion in aid annually plus another $10 billion through bogus charities, trade concessions and U.S. government funded projects approved by Congress that the American public knows little or nothing about.

And benefiting Jews worldwide is also part of the agenda. Apart from the creation of the state of Israel itself, which was opposed by most of the U.S. foreign policy establishment, the first major effort to condition U.S. foreign policy to benefit Jews specifically came with the Jackson-Vanik Amendment of 1975, which made some aspects of relations with the Soviet Union conditional on that country’s willingness to let Jews emigrate. Far more outrageous was the so-called Lautenberg Amendment enshrined in the 1990 Public Law 101-167 that granted refugee status to Russian Jews even though they were not actually being persecuted or in any way endangered. The refugee status is significant as it provided food stamps, housing, social security, Medicaid and educational benefits along with a free ticket into the U.S. to an “estimated…350,000 to 400,000 Jews [who] entered the United States …”

Holocaust education is mandatory in the public schools of 15 states and Jewish groups are active in determining just what appears in textbooks about Israel, which means that the propagandizing about Jews and Israel begins early and continues throughout one’s education. Twenty-seven states have laws criminalizing or otherwise punishing anyone who advocates boycotts of Israel while the federal government has similar legislation in the pipeline and has declared that criticism of Israel is ipso facto anti-Semitism.

Given all of that it is perhaps not surprising to learn that policemen in Tampa Florida are now undergoing “holocaust training,” sponsored by the Anti-Defamation League. Conveniently, there is a holocaust museum located just down the road in St. Petersburg where the first group of officers was taken to be indoctrinated.

The training is mandatory and is reported to be the first in the state of Florida, though more such initiatives will likely be in the pipeline as governor Ron DeSantis has declared himself to be the most pro-Israel head of any state in the U.S. The newscaster discussing the training also observed in passing that “holocaust awareness training” has been mandatory “for about a decade” for all federal law enforcement officers. It is difficult to imagine what such training is intended to do in the American context, though it clearly seeks to remind trainees that in Nazi Germany policemen were involved in concentration camps and the claimed execution of Jews.

One would think that the public will eventually arrive at an “enough already” point when it comes to government and private sector efforts to exploit the holocaust and monetize Jewish suffering. Unless the Jewish creators of the “training” program honestly believe that something like Germany 1939-45 is coming to the United States and are intent on giving a warning, it would seem to be yet one more tip of the hat to Jewish power in America, quite likely also intended to send a positive message about what Israel represents. What it all has to do with U.S. national security or in benefiting the American people is, of course, irrelevant.

Joint training programs run in Israel are also being used to indoctrinate American police forces and are equally difficult to comprehend as the Israelis are clueless when it comes to conducting investigations or protecting all of their country’s citizens. Israel’s cops are at the forefront of state violence against Palestinians as well as serving as protectors of rampaging heavily armed settlers who destroy Arab livelihoods so they can steal their land. The Israeli police are also quite good at using the “Palestinian chair” for torture when they are not shooting Arab teenagers in the back, skills that American cops hopefully will not emulate.

In fact, there have been suggestions that certain policemen might well be picking up some unanticipated pointers from the Israelis. Georgia has been experiencing a surge in officer involved shootings, nearly half of the victims being unarmed or shot from behind. As this has unfolded, the state continues to pursue a “police exchange” program with Israel run through Georgia State University.

The police “exchange programs” began twenty-seven years ago in 1992 and are paid for through grants from the U.S. Department of Justice as well as from the state and local governments. Reportedly “law enforcement from [a number of] U.S. states have participated in the program, including those from Tennessee, Alabama, Arizona, Arkansas, California, Florida, Georgia, Indiana, North Carolina, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Michigan, Mississippi, Nevada, Michigan, New Jersey, New York, New York, North Carolina, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Texas, Utah, Virginia, Washington, Washington, D.C., and West Virginia.” In some states and local jurisdictions, the Israel exchange program is managed by the Anti-Defamation League, which also sponsors propagandistic seminars on Israeli “counter-terrorism” practices throughout the U.S.

Some states and cities, however, concerned over being linked to Israel’s militarized police forces and their brutal occupation of Palestinian land, are beginning to withdraw from the training program. Recently the Vermont State Police, the Northampton, Massachusetts police department and the Durham North Carolina city police have canceled their planned training in Israel.

There has been particular concern expressed over the Israeli “us-versus-them” dual track mode of policing where the 20% of the country’s citizens that are Arab are regarded as an enemy while the settlers who prey on the Palestinians are automatically protected by police solely because they are Jewish. Lethal force is frequently resorted to on a “shoot-to-kill” basis in any incident involving Arabs and Jews, even when there is no serious threat. Some critics of the training note how that type of policing is basically racial profiling while areas on what was once the Palestinian West Bank and along the Gaza border have become free fire zones for the Israeli army and law enforcement, killing hundreds of Arabs, many of them children. Palestinians injured by policemen or settlers also obtain no redress from the Israeli courts with only 3 per cent of investigations resulting in a conviction.

That some American police forces are now questioning the wisdom of training in an Israel where police officers can freely shoot and kill members of an oppressed religious and ethnic minority should not be a surprise but for the fact that it took so long. That Jewish groups in the United States get away with obtaining taxpayer money to promote an essentially criminal Israeli enterprise is perhaps just as discouraging as it suggests that Jewish power and money will continue to prevail in the brainwashing of the American public. Holocaust training and exchanges in Israel for police officers are shameful ideas, promoted by the usual ambitious government officials who pander to the Jewish lobby for their own personal gain.

Philip M. Giraldi, Ph.D., is Executive Director of the Council for the National Interest, a 501(c)3 tax deductible educational foundation (Federal ID Number #52-1739023) that seeks a more interests-based U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East. Website is councilforthenationalinterest.org, address is P.O. Box 2157, Purcellville VA 20134 and its email is [email protected].