Seattle Police Department

One of the organizations that organize and sponsor these trainings is the Jewish Institute for National Security of America (JINSA). JINSA is a think tank that advocates for US-Israeli security cooperation, increased domestic military spending, and military aid to Israel, and has board members with close ties to US defense contractors. JINSA launched its Law Enforcement Exchange Program (LEEP) shortly after 9/11, and since 2002 has run annual trips to Israel for US federal, state, and local law enforcement. Over 11,000 additional American law enforcement officials have attended LEEP conferences nationwide, which bring in Israeli security officials as experts.

The Police Department of Seattle, Washington, is among the departments that have sent delegates to Israel. Gil Kerlikowske served as Chief of Seattle Police Department between 2000 and 2009. Chief Kerlikowske attended a training in Israel with JINSA as a delegate of the LEEP program. After visiting a Jerusalem mall during a JINSA LEEP training in how the private sector works hand-in-hand with the Israel National Police, he said, “I think I need to do a much better job of embracing them [private security] and going after them, not waiting for them to knock on my door.” There are multiple excessive force cases from the Seattle Police Department under Kerlikowske’s leadership.

Kerlikowske resigned in 2009 and accepted an offer that year by the Obama Administration to become Director of the Office of National Drug Control Policy Director. In 2014, after being nominated by the Obama administration, he became the Commissioner of the US Customs and Border Protection until 2017. He previously served as President of Major Cities Chiefs Association, president of the Police Executive Research Forum, and a Distinguished Visiting Fellow and Professor of the Practice in Criminology and Criminal Justice at Northeastern University. He is currently a Fellow at the Institute of Politics at Harvard Kennedy School and a Nonresident Fellow at Rice University’s Baker Institute Mexico Center.

Other officials from the Seattle Police Department also attended a training in Israel with the ADL as delegates of the National Counter-Terrorism Seminar in 2015.

“The meetings also serve to build bridges between law enforcement agencies in two democracies, and officers who take part in visits of this sort come back and they are Zionists. They understand Israel and its security needs in ways a lot of audiences don’t.”” David C. Friedman, director of the ADL’s national law enforcement initiatives, on the Seattle Police Department’s training in Israel