Why do TPS PROTECT WAR CRIMINALS?
police zionism
TPS:
A LEGACY OF ZIONISM
In 2011, the Canadian Department of National Defence and the Israeli Ministry of Defence signed the Principal Memorandum of Understanding (PMOU) increasing defence and military cooperation. This included increased cooperative arrangements.
Thus, with these agreements, Israel is exporting its "specialized policing and fighting capacity." This intertwined relationship of Israel's police and military with Canada, the USA and other states,
"is proving politically valuable to Israel by helping to shape international norms on policing more like its own" with "Israeli methods sought out and adopted for their perceived quality, largely led by the government's marketing of them."
(source: Just Peace Advocates, Submission to the Ontario Police Oversight Review, 2016)
Apartheid trips.
In the summer of 2019, the Chief of Police for the Toronto Police Services, Mark Saunders joined two dozen government officials, educators, and senior law enforcement personnel in a tour to Israel organized by Friends of Simon Wiesenthal Centre for Holocaust Studies (FSWC).
Why is this concerning?
When police, civil law enforcement, and security systems come together, this results in a para-militarization of security forces. This includes militarization of the police, including high intensity policing.
This, Halper suggests, results in a blurring of the judicial and operational separation between policing, intelligence and the military.
(source: Jeff Halper, War Against the People, Pluto Press, 2015, p. 25-6.)
The FSWC has a strong pro-Israel agenda.
The FSWC isn't neutral. While it promotes Holocaust education, it also defends Israeli state violence, equates criticism of Israel with antisemitism, and attacks pro-Palestinian activism.
Its tours frame Israel as a model while erasing Palestinian life and resistance.
Justifying the hyper-militarization of police.
These trips are sometimes framed as
"counterterrorism" learning opportunities - a term frequently used to justify the hyper-militarization of policing and the suppression of dissent.
Toronto police have already faced massive criticism for violence, racism, and impunity - participating in such a tour aligns them with systems of occupation and apartheid, not justice or peace.
Ongoing human rights violations.
In 2019, when Saunders was in "israel":
- Gaza was under blockade.
- Human rights organizations like B'Tselem and Human Rights Watch were already documenting war crimes, including unlawful killings, the use of human shields, home demolitions, and collective punishment.
- The UN had issued numerous condemnations of Israeli use of force against Palestinian civilians.
To accept a trip hosted by an entity defending that regime-with public money or official capacity-is to normalize and legitimize these actions, even if not directly endorsing them.
Public messaging & power.
When a police chief goes on a trip like this, it sends a message:
- That Toronto Police value this type of alignment.
- That it prioritizes ties to foreign security forces over the lives and voices of Indigenous, Black and Palestinian communities, many of whom view Israel as the violent, colonial state that it is.
It implies ideological support for a regime and state policies that have been internationally denounced for war crimes and violations of international law.
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