How Israeli Military Tactics Are Shaping American Policing

In recent decades, American police forces have increasingly looked abroad for tactical inspiration—and one of their most consistent partners has been the Israeli military. Programs designed to foster “counterterrorism cooperation” between U.S. police departments and Israeli forces have quietly embedded the logic of military occupation into domestic law enforcement.

Nowhere is this more apparent than in New York City. The NYPD, one of the largest and most well-funded police departments in the world, has long faced criticism for its use of excessive force and discriminatory policing, particularly in communities of color. These patterns of behavior, critics argue, echo the tactics used by the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) in the occupied West Bank and Gaza—ranging from mass surveillance to brutal crowd control techniques.

In October 2023, a delegation of NYPD officials was undergoing training in Israel when Hamas launched its surprise attack, forcing their emergency evacuation. The event made headlines, but the deeper story went largely unnoticed: Why is the NYPD learning from a military force operating under an apartheid system, one accused of war crimes and systemic human rights abuses and implicated in acts of genocide in Gaza?

Training With Occupation in Mind

These exchanges are made possible through networks like the Law Enforcement Exchange Program (LEEP), run by the Jewish Institute for National Security of America (JINSA), and supported by the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) and Project Interchange. Hundreds of American officers have participated in trainings where they observe Israeli tactics developed under military occupation—strategies focused not on community safety, but on domination, surveillance, and population control.

This framework, critics say, is fundamentally incompatible with the principles of democratic policing. In Palestine, Israeli forces routinely employ excessive force against civilians, using live ammunition, targeted raids, and collective punishment. This heavy-handed approach has become so normalized in occupied territories that it’s being exported—with little accountability—to American cities.

The NYPD, already known for aggressive tactics, has long mirrored this mindset. Its infamous post-9/11 Muslim surveillance program mapped entire communities without evidence of wrongdoing, echoing the IDF’s intelligence apparatus in East Jerusalem and Hebron. Stop-and-frisk, “broken windows” policing, and the suppression of Black Lives Matter protests have further cemented its reputation for violence.

Most recently, the NYPD drew sharp criticism for its crackdown on pro-Palestine protesters, particularly during demonstrations at Columbia University and across city campuses following Israel’s 2024–2025 war on Gaza. Armed with riot gear and accompanied by undercover units, officers forcibly dispersed student encampments, used pepper spray, and made mass arrests—a response condemned by civil rights groups as both disproportionate and politically motivated. The New York Civil Liberties Union called the police actions a form of “intimidation and violence,” sharply contrasting them with more peaceful negotiations seen on other campuses. For many, it was a chilling reminder that New York’s police force, like the IDF, often views dissent as a threat to be neutralized rather than a democratic right to be protected.

Cop City, Georgia, and the Southern Pipeline

The problem is not confined to New York. In Atlanta, the construction of a massive paramilitary-style training facility known as “Cop City” is generating backlash from civil rights groups and Indigenous activists. Critics argue that it reflects a larger trend toward the militarization of policing—fueled in part by the Georgia International Law Enforcement Exchange (GILEE).

GILEE, which has trained over 1,000 American officers in Israel since the 1990s, emphasizes counterinsurgency-style policing and riot suppression. The overlap between its curriculum and Cop City’s mission is telling: both aim to prepare police for conflict, not community engagement. The Atlanta Police Department’s relationship with GILEE has raised concerns that the facility will become a domestic testing ground for tactics honed in occupied Palestine.

Meanwhile, Cop City is being built on stolen Muscogee Creek land, adding yet another layer of colonial violence to its existence. Environmental activists and Indigenous groups have joined forces with racial justice organizers to oppose it—arguing that it symbolizes a future where police behave more like occupying forces than public servants.

Resistance and Reimagining Safety

In response to these developments, a growing movement is calling for the end of U.S.-Israel police partnerships. The “Deadly Exchange” campaign, launched by Jewish Voice for Peace, documents how such collaborations contribute to the normalization of racism, surveillance, and brutality on both sides of the Atlantic.

“The shared tactics of occupation and control are exported directly to U.S. cities,” the campaign states. “This makes marginalized communities in the U.S.—especially Black, brown, and Muslim communities—targets of militarized policing.”

Some municipalities are starting to respond. In 2018, Durham, North Carolina became the first U.S. city to ban police exchanges with Israel. Similar efforts are being debated in other progressive cities, but large departments like the NYPD remain deeply enmeshed in the exchange network.

Exporting Brutality, Rebranding Control

As long as these programs operate with little public awareness—facilitated by nonprofits, shielded from the public, and reframed as “counterterrorism”—police departments will continue to import military tactics designed for for occupation. What’s being sold as security, critics argue, is simply the global spread of state violence.

The NYPD’s history of excessive force, racial profiling, and impunity finds a disturbing mirror in the IDF’s treatment of Palestinians. Whether in East Flatbush or East Jerusalem, at Columbia University or Khan Younis, the results are the same: communities of color treated as enemies, resistance met with repression, and justice subordinated to control.

Until American cities reckon with this shared infrastructure of violence, they will remain complicit—not only in the militarization of their own streets but also in the global machinery of oppression. This pattern is evident in other cop cities such as Los Angeles and Chicago.