What evidence has advocacy group Deadly Exchange produced linking U.S. police or federal agencies with Israeli trainers?
Executive summary
Deadly Exchange has produced a mix of research reports, databases, participant lists, FOIA-revealed documents and campaign briefings that document repeated trainings, conferences and city-to-city exchange trips between U.S. law enforcement (including local police, ICE, FBI and other federal or state actors) and Israeli military, police and security agencies; the group argues these materials demonstrate a flow of tactics, technology and relationships from Israeli security forces into U.S. policing [1] [2]. Critics dispute the causal claim that Israeli training produced specific instances of U.S. police brutality, and external organizations have pushed back, arguing the evidence does not prove that link [3] [4].
1. What Deadly Exchange documents and databases actually show
Deadly Exchange’s core published evidence is a formal research report and an accompanying searchable “Palestine is Here” database that maps instances of Israeli trainings of U.S. law enforcement across cities and agencies; the report and database enumerate thousands of participants, program sponsors and the venues where Israeli officials taught or presented in the United States and in Israel [1] [2]. The research report compiles examples of exchange programs, names of participating officers and agencies, and traces how private security vendors with Israeli ties (for example, companies selling “skunk” crowd-control agents) marketed technologies from Israeli contexts into U.S. departments after events such as Ferguson [1] [5].
2. Named participants, agencies and programs Deadly Exchange highlights
Deadly Exchange lists high-profile participants and institutional facilitators: it points to delegations that included municipal police chiefs, ICE leadership, and FBI and DHS-affiliated personnel; it cites longstanding programs and conferences organized by groups such as the Georgia International Law Enforcement Exchange (GILEE) and Israeli think tanks like the International Institute for Counter-Terrorism (ICT) [2] [6]. The campaign’s participant profiles name specific U.S. law enforcement figures—citing, for example, portfolios of leaders who repeatedly sent officers on Israeli programs—and they document hundreds to thousands of exchanges since the 1990s and early 2000s [7] [2].
3. Documentary revelations and FOIA material promoted by the campaign
Deadly Exchange and allied groups point to unearthed government records as corroboration: Jewish Voice for Peace and Deadly Exchange say FOIA documents revealed that the Anti‑Defamation League facilitated trips for senior U.S. officials, including sending the Deputy Director of ICE to Israel—evidence used to argue that organizational facilitators built institutional ties between U.S. immigration enforcement and Israeli security actors [8] [9]. Campaign materials treat these disclosures as proof of institutional linkage that goes beyond occasional conferences.
4. Claims about tactics and technology transfers — and the evidentiary jump
The campaign argues that because U.S. departments attended trainings where crowd-control, surveillance and counter‑insurgency approaches were taught, those “worst practices” migrated back to U.S. policing (examples include surveillance methods and equipment, mass‑protest tactics and the adoption of Israeli-origin products) and cites sales and deployment of technologies like “skunk” as a concrete vector [1] [5]. Those are documented connections of personnel and vendors; however, the inferential step from attendance or vendor sales to specific policy adoption or individual officer conduct is primarily argued by advocacy synthesis in the report rather than proven in courtroom-style causal chains inside the materials cited [1] [5].
5. Pushback and alternative interpretations in the public record
Multiple organizations and commentators dispute Deadly Exchange’s framing: StandWithUs and other defenders argue exchanges focus on counterterrorism and deny any direct causal link to unjustified shootings, asserting there is “no shred of evidence” that the programs contributed to U.S. police brutality and insisting that the campaign mischaracterizes the programs [3]. Mainstream reporting and Wikipedia-style summaries record both Deadly Exchange’s victories in municipal policy changes and critics’ claims that the campaign can slide into oversimplification—some critics also warn about antisemitic tropes if context is omitted [4] [9].
6. What the sources do — and do not — prove
Taken together, Deadly Exchange’s published report, participant profiles, database and FOIA-backed revelations document repeated contacts, sponsorships and the movement of people, vendors and curricula between U.S. agencies and Israeli security actors [1] [2] [8]. What these materials do not universally deliver—within the documents supplied—is a forensic, case-by-case chain proving that a named Israeli instructor taught a named tactic that was then used in a particular U.S. killing; that causal claim is where critics insist Deadly Exchange overreaches, and the campaign’s materials rely on pattern, chronology and institutional linkage rather than individual forensic provenance [3] [10].