Training for #NYPD Officers Categorized the Keffiyeh and Watermelon as Antisemitic Symbols (Jewish Currents, 2025-04-24)

https://jewishcurrents.org/training-nypd-keffiyeh-watermelon-antisemitism-israel-palestine
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>> a training on combating antisemitism [led by the Combat Antisemitism Movement (CAM) with George Washington University’s Program on Extremism (POE)] … [alleged] to teach the police “how to recognize and address antisemitism in its many contemporary forms”… ” But the presentation itself, … was in large part concerned with pro-Palestine activism, casting the Palestine solidarity movement as a significant threat to Jewish safety … The training, which focused heavily on student protesters, repeatedly conflated antisemitism with anti-Zionism. It categorized campus demonstrators as extremists tied to Hamas, and branded as antisemitic Palestinian symbols like the watermelon and the keffiyeh, as well as phrases such as “settler colonialism” and “all eyes on Rafah.”

> to be cont.
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  • AK@hcommons.socialOP
    2·
    5 days ago

    [cont.] Training for NYPD Officers Categorized the Keffiyeh and Watermelon as Antisemitic Symbols
    https://jewishcurrents.org/training-nypd-keffiyeh-watermelon-antisemitism-israel-palestine

    >> Experts on antisemitism and civil liberties say the training reinforces a police culture that treats Palestinians (and Arabs and Muslims more broadly) with suspicion, while doing little to curb antisemitism. “They are actively conflating any care for Palestinian humanity or rights—and in some cases, Palestinian existence itself—with antisemitism,” said Dove Kent, the US senior director for Diaspora Alliance, a group that fights antisemitism and its weaponization. “None of this does anything to increase Jewish safety.”

    >> … #CAM was founded in 2019 … One of [its] main goals is lobbying elected officials around the country to adopt the controversial International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (#IHRA) definition of antisemitism—which classifies some anti-Zionist speech as antisemitic—into state law.

    @[email protected] @[email protected] @israel
    #FakeAntisemitism