[Analysis of BlueLeaks trove also shows police received training
on domestic ‘Muslim extremists’ from pro-Israel groups]
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US POLICE AGENCIES TOOK INTELLIGENCE DIRECTLY FROM IDF, LEAKED FILES
SHOW  
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Jason Wilson
December 8, 2023
The Guardian
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_ Analysis of BlueLeaks trove also shows police received training on
domestic ‘Muslim extremists’ from pro-Israel groups _

A police officer in Berkeley, California, on 14 September 2017.,
AFP/Getty Images

 

Hacked police files show US law enforcement agencies for decades
received analysis of incidents in the Israel-Palestine conflict
directly from the Israeli Defense Forces and Israeli thinktanks,
training on domestic “Muslim extremists” from pro-Israel
non-profits, and surveilled social media accounts of pro-Palestine
activists in the US.

The Guardian’s analysis of documents from the BlueLeaks trove
[[link removed]] of internal law enforcement
documents found no indication that this was balanced by information
from other Middle Eastern sources or US Muslim community groups. Nor
is there any indication that pro-Israel activists were subject to any
specific scrutiny.

At a time of polarized reactions to the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza, the
analysis raises questions about the scope of police
intelligence-gathering in the US and the influence of Israel and its
supporters on those efforts, and how this has shaped the treatment of
activists and social movements, especially those who are
pro-Palestinian.

Mike German, a fellow at the Brennan Center for Justice
[[link removed]], former FBI
undercover agent and author of Disrupt, Discredit, and Divide: How
the New FBI Damages Democracy
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of such documents and receipt of such training was damaging the
practice of good law enforcement.

“It’s frustrating that we’ve developed this national law
enforcement intelligence-sharing network that basically takes
disinformation straight from the rightwing social media fever swamps
and puts it out under the imprimatur of law enforcement intelligence,
so it becomes an amplifier of disinformation rather than a corrective
to that disinformation,” German said.

The BlueLeaks trove was obtained and released by self-described
hacktivists in June 2020. It contains material from more than 200 law
enforcement agencies, including intelligence material disseminated by
federally sponsored umbrella bodies such as fusion centers
[[link removed]] and high-intensity
drug-trafficking area (Hidta) programs.

One body whose internal archives were exposed in the hack, LA Clear,
is tasked with providing “analytical and case support” in
narcotics investigations in southern California, according to its
website. It was established as a joint project between the Los Angeles
County Police Chiefs Association, the California department of
justice, and the Los Angeles county sheriff’s department in 1992.

Despite its ostensible mission to combat drug trafficking, the LA
Clear archive of training materials (labeled “lacleartraining”)
included in the BlueLeaks trove has several analyses of previous
episodes of widespread conflict in Gaza and the West Bank that are
sourced directly from the IDF and closely aligned Israeli thinktanks.

One of the documents is a reproduction of a PowerPoint-style
presentation dated 11 April 2011, badged with the insignia and name of
the Strategic Division of the IDF, and entitled “Escalation in the
Gaza Strip”.

The presentation is marked “for official use only”, a US
government designation
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documents which are not for public release.

The document asserts that “there has recently been a sharp increase
in terrorist attacks emanating from the Gaza Strip intentionally
directed at Israeli civilians in southern Israel”. The presentation
offers evidence including Israeli counts of rocket attacks from Hamas,
the Sha’ar HaNegev school bus attack
[[link removed]] and
the killing of a family in “the Jewish community of Itamar” on 11
March 2011. (Later in 2011, two cousins from the nearby Palestinian
village of Awarta were convicted of the murders and sentenced to
multiple consecutive life sentences.)

The document does not present the long history of conflict between
residents of Itamar, which the international community considers an
illegal West Bank settlement, and neighboring villages. In 2010,
a Human Rights Watch report
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out Itamar’s settlers with allegations of land theft, raids on
Palestinian villages and extrajudicial killings.

Elsewhere in LA Clear’s training materials is another
PowerPoint-style presentation authored by the Dado Center, a military
studies department of the IDF. The presentation offers a retrospective
analysis of “Operation Cast Lead”, the IDF’s name for the 22-day
military assault on the Gaza Strip that commenced on 27 December 2008.

That document is labeled “FOUO”, an abbreviation of “for
official use only” and appears to be a cursory visual aid for a
spoken presentation. It points to “unique geo-strategic conditions
(Gaza encircled by Egypt and Israel)”; “unique operational
conditions (air supremacy, intelligence superiority)”; and “unique
adversary (multiple identities, limited capabilities)”.

The presentation, which only includes the IDF’s perspective, also
highlights challenges including “legitimacy (external & internal,
strategic narrative)” and “media coverage (a controlled
information environment)”.

Amnesty International alleged in a 2009 report
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during Operation Cast Lead, the IDF targeted civilians, carried out
“indiscriminate attacks that failed to distinguish between
legitimate military targets and civilian objects”, and used
munitions containing white phosphorus, the use of which against
civilians is a violation of international law
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according to the World Health Organization.

Another document in the trove is a longer 2011 report assessing
“terrorism from the Gaza Strip since Operation Cast Lead” produced
by the Meir Amit Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center (ITIC).
The ITIC is an Israeli research group whose founding director
and current director
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previously IDF intelligence officers. The thinktank reportedly
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an office at the Israeli defense ministry.

None of these documents mention narcotics trafficking or criminal
activity in the US. LA Clear’s archive and the BlueLeaks trove do
not appear to contain any alternative accounts of the Israel-Palestine
conflict.

The Guardian contacted LA Clear for comment through the body’s
website but received no response.

Elsewhere in the BlueLeaks trove, there is ample evidence of a close
relationship between law enforcement agencies and US-based pro-Israel
organizations.

The archive shows how close the relationship is between a range of law
enforcement agencies and the pro-Israel civil rights non-profit the
Anti-Defamation League (ADL).

JASON WILSON is an investigative journalist based in Portland,
Oregon

THE GUARDIAN. Help us deliver the independent journalism the world
needs. Support the Guardian by making a contribution.
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