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THE
VOLUME LXXV, ISSUE 4
INDEPENDENT
STUDENT
N E W S PA P E R
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TUFTS
UNIVERSITY
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T HE T UFTS DAILY tuftsdaily.com
Friday, January 26, 2018
MEDFORD/SOMERVILLE, MASS.
Tufts Police Chief travels to Israel for counterterrorism seminar by Liam Knox
Executive Investigative Editor
On Dec. 3, Director of Public and Environmental Safety Kevin Maguire, who oversees the Tufts University Police Department (TUPD) as well as the Department of Public and Environmental Safety (DPES), traveled to Israel for a nine-day National Counter-Terrorism Seminar (NCTS) along with a delegation of Massachusetts police officials, including: Somerville Police Chief David Fallon; officials from Boston University (BU); officials from the Plymouth County Sheriff’s office; Secret Service agents and Drug Enforcement Administration agents; and police chiefs from a number of cities, among them Worcester, Foxborough and Watertown, according to Maguire. The trip was funded by the AntiDefamation League (ADL), a non-governmental organization which, according to its website, is “dedicated to fighting anti-Semitism and hate crimes.” The ADL has been sending delegations of U.S. police officials to the seminar since 2003. According to an article about the trip in the Seattle Times, two of the officers who attended – the Watertown, MA police chief and the head of New England’s Department of Homeland Security – worked on the Boston Marathon bombing case. Tufts is one of five universities to send a police officer on this trip since its inception. All of the others are Massachusettsbased as well. Police chiefs from Suffolk University, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Northeastern University attended the seminar in 2016, according to an Arlington Patch article, in addition to Boston University, which sent officials alongside Tufts in December. Tufts Executive Director of Public Relations Patrick Collins told the Daily in an email that the trip was an opportunity for TUPD to learn how to be prepared in the event of a terror attack. “The university and DPES are committed to learning how to prepare for, prevent and respond to all types of emergencies. Terror attacks in cities throughout the U.S., including Boston, and on college campuses, such as Ohio State University (OSU), have demonstrated the need for local and university police departments to prepare for potential terror attacks and to know how to prevent and respond to them,” Collins wrote, referring to a Nov. 2016 stabbing incident at OSU, for which ISIS claimed responsibility. “The ADL seminar, which was cost-free to participants,
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was a valuable source of information that will enhance the university’s readiness to address emergency situations.” Collins added that the university learned of the seminar by direct invitation from the ADL, and that university administration approved of Maguire’s attendance. In an email to the Daily, Maguire confirmed his attendance, but deferred to Collins’ statement on the issue when asked further questions about his participation. Fallon, the Somerville Chief of Police, did not respond to two requests for comment made to his office via phone call. According to the ADL’s webpage on the seminar, officials attend the NCTS “to study first hand Israel’s tactics and strategies to combat terrorism,” learning from “senior commanders in the Israel National Police, experts from Israel’s intelligence and security services, and the Israel Defense Forces.” Robert Trestan, the New England Regional Director for the ADL, explained that Israeli forces are well-equipped to teach law enforcement strategies to American law enforcement officials because of their experience with counterterrorism. “ADL is the nation’s top non-governmental law enforcement training organization,” Trestan wrote in an email to the Daily. “The strategies and tactics learned from Israel exchanges enable American law enforcement leaders to increase their ability to protect the U.S. from attack, as well as enabling them to be prepared with effective responses after an attack.” Allegations of human rights abuse against seminar speakers Trestan did not provide information about the 2017 itinerary for the seminar “for the security of [its] participants.” Maguire also told the Daily that he was not able to provide any information about his experiences during the seminar. A 2016 itinerary for the NCTS was requested from the Orlando Police Department by journalist Alex Kane for an Aug. 2016 article in Mondoweiss and is linked to in the piece. According to the itinerary, attendees meet with a number of prominent Israeli counterterrorism officials, including Alan Moss, the former head of the Israeli Security Agency, also known as Shin Bet, as well as representatives from the Israel Defense Forces (IDF). Shin Bet has been condemned by the UN Committee Against Torture for its “institutional” use of torture tactics on Palestinian detainees, including children, according to a 2010 report by the Al Mezan Center
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The Tufts University Police Department’s front entrance pictured on Jan 23. for Human Rights and an Al Jazeera article from last January. Neither the university nor Maguire responded to questions regarding the controversial nature of the seminar. Trestan insisted that the NCTS takes “civil rights” into account. He did not deny the existence of allegations of human rights abuse against Israeli government agencies. “The presentations we’ve had with these government security officials focus on dealing with the terrorist threat while also protecting civil rights of all people,” he wrote. Amira al-Subaey, a junior at Tufts and a member of Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP), said that though TUPD’s attendance at the seminar was surprising to her, it was consistent with her view of the department. Al-Subaey is one of the co-authors of the Tufts Community Union (TCU) Senate resolution that called for Tufts to divest from four companies with financial ties to Israel’s military occupation of Palestinian territory. According to a Daily article, the resolution passed last April. “I couldn’t imagine it would be so close to home and so directly affecting our day to day life,” al-Subaey said. “I think this exchange program [is about] training our law enforcement on discriminatory practices, on a lot of the things that we see
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happening in Israel that should make us really concerned.” Controversy surrounds U.S.-Israel law enforcement exchange programs in general Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP), an activist group that advocates for Palestinian human rights, launched a campaign last May to end U.S.-Israel law enforcement exchanges. The campaign, called Deadly Exchange, condemns exchange programs like the NCTS, where, according to the campaign’s website, “‘worst practices’ are shared to promote and extend discriminatory and repressive policing in both countries.” “We’re very concerned that American police chiefs and high-ranking police officials are going to Israel to learn, under the banner of counterterrorism, some of the worst practices of oppressive policing that are used by the Israeli government to perpetuate its half-century occupation. And it goes both ways; we’re concerned about [what Israeli police might be learning from] places like the NYPD, which have a long history of Islamophobic surveillance and broken window policing,” Ben Lorber, campus coordinator for JVP, told the Daily. “All citizens of the world who are concerned in our day and age about the rights of marginalized communities see TUPD, page 2
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