Atlanta Mayor Kassim Reed flatly rejects calls by a Black Lives Matter affiliated group to stop police in Atlanta from training with Israeli counter-terrorism officers.
We reported last week that some anti-Israel groups are blaming Israel for the shooting of black people by police in America and using it as an opportunity to push their anti-Semitic libel. Now it appears that certain arms of the controversial Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement have aligned with this anti-Semitic rhetoric and are also calling for the boycott of Israel.
On Monday, the Mayor of Atlanta, Kassim Reed, met with protesters from #ALTisReady, a group affiliated with Black Lives Matter which describes itself as a “collective of students activists, community organisers and leaders working to amplify Black and other marginalised voices in Atlanta”.
Mayor Reed met with the group to discuss how relationships between police and the community could be improved. One of the first demands they made was “a complete overhaul of Atlanta Police Department’s (APD) training institutions… [and] a termination to APD’s involvement in the Georgia International Law Enforcement Exchange (GILEE) program, that trains our officers in Apartheid Israel”
In a press conference following the meeting, Kasim told reporters:
“There was a demand that I stop allowing the Atlanta Police Department to train with the Israeli Police Department.I’m not going to do that. I happen to believe that the Israeli Police Department has some of the best counter-terrorism techniques in the world and it benefits our police department from that long-standing relationship. That was a specific demand.”
Watch the video below:
