Commerce Police Department

One of the organizations that organize and sponsor these joint trainings is the Georgia International Law Enforcement Exchange (GILEE), a joint program of Georgia State University and local law enforcement. GILEE works to foster cooperation between law enforcement agencies in Georgia and Israel, educating Israeli law enforcement on community policing and training Georgia law enforcement on counter-terrorism. Since its establishment, GILEE has run law enforcement executive development and trainings to enhance homeland security, through 450 programs that reached over 33,000 law enforcement and other executives across over 25 states and 25 countries.

The Police Department of Commerce, Georgia, is among the departments that have sent delegates to Israel. John Gaissert served as Chief of Commerce Police Department between 2001 and 2015. Chief Gaissert attended a GILEE training in Israel, where he trained with the Israeli National Police and at Tel Aviv University. Chief Gaisserts training also includes serving as a state certified police instructor, teaching both in the Georgia Regional Police Academies and the United States Attorney for the Northern District of Georgia. He served as the Department of Homeland Security Intelligence Officer for the Sheriff of Jackson County, Georgia, where he chaired the county Threat Assessment Committee. Chief Gaissert studied under Dr. Boaz Ganor, the founder & executive director of the Institute for Counter-Terrorism, Lauder School of Government, in Herziliya, Israel, where he was awarded the executive certification in counter-terrorism.

In March 2009, he gave a highly Islamophobic and pro-Israel ideological testimony to the U.S. House Subcommittee on Intelligence regarding information and intelligence sharing with federal agencies, where he contextualized counter-terrorism efforts in religious terms by saying, “I place the genesis of the conflict in the Book of Genesis. It began four thousand years ago with a man named Abraham and two boys, Isaac and Ishmael. No one will have a viable paradigm to understand the current threat without a grasp of the Old Testament Canon, as well as The Koran and the Hadith. The conflict can be viewed as a continued outworking of the enmity set between these ancient protagonists.” His testimony to Congress included recommendations that the United States should make good use of the “Israeli Model” for Homeland Security.