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For Immediate Release
November, 28 2018, 11:00pm EDT
Contact:
Sonya E Meyerson-Knox, sonya@jvp.org | 929-290-0317
Junket Taking Local Police to Train with Israeli Military Embroiled in Local Controversies Across New England
Police departments in Vermont and Massachusetts withdraw after local residents’ letter-writing campaigns and public meetings
Northampton, MA
For the first time in 20 years, the all expense-paid trips to Israel where American law enforcement are trained by the Israeli military and police have run into a snag - New Englanders don't like the idea one bit. And from Montpelier to New Haven, Northampton to Providence, local residents have been declaring their opposition to their local elected officials. In Vermont, a meeting with the State Police Director was requested and residents representing a dozen organizations across the state sent emails calling on him to cancel the department's participation. In Northampton, a meeting with the Mayor was followed by a targeted letter writing campaign from concerned constituents.
Earlier this week, Vermont State Police Director Colonel Birmingham told local organizers from across Vermont that he had cancelled the Vermont State Police's participation in the upcoming Leadership, Resilience and Counter-Terrorism Seminar in Israel, scheduled Dec. 2-11. The next day, after a meeting with concerned Pioneer Valley residents, Northampton Mayor Narkewicz withdrew Police Chief Kasper from the same trip.
With the growing concern about US law enforcement's treatment of asylum seekers at the US-Mexico border, New England residents are asking if they want their local police receiving training from the Israeli military. "Our police chiefs' salaries are tax-payer funded. While they're abroad on these trainings, we're still paying their salaries," pointed out Bernadine Mellis, a professor at Mount Holyoke College and a member of the Northampton coalition. "We don't know anything about the actual content of these trainings - what the police chiefs are being told, what they're learning, what political ideologies they're being encouraged to adopt. That lack of transparency is extremely concerning." Moreover, according to the VT National Lawyers Guild chair Henry Harris, "To support shared training and tactics with the Israeli occupation is to lose all credibility and morality in public view of the people of Vermont."
The New England Leadership, Resilience and Counter-Terrorism Seminar, (previously called the New England Counter-Terrorism Seminars), have run annually since 2002 - with similar programs across the country that bring local law enforcement to Israel for training with the Israeli military, police and secret service. Organized and funded by the Anti-Defamation League, the trips' previous participants included the former Deputy Director of ICE in 2015 and other high-ranking law enforcement. This is the first time that any invitees have withdrawn, the result of the growing national campaign End the Deadly Exchange, a project of Jewish Voice for Peace, and intensive research involving over one hundred records requests.
Stefanie Fox, Deputy Director at Jewish Voice for Peace and a lead organizer of the campaign to End the Deadly Exchange, pointed out that, "The coalitions that quickly mobilized to demand cancelation - and the principled response to do so from decision-makers in the region - demonstrate the growing consensus that the Israeli military does not offer a good model, not for for the people of Israel/Palestine and not for our communities here at home."
Interviews are available with local residents active in the Vermont and Northampton campaigns, as well as with staff and members of Jewish Voice for Peace.
Northampton quotes
"As a Jew, it is essential in these times in which nationalism, racism, and antisemitism are on the rise and being institutionalized to be explicitly clear that, when we learn about partnerships between our local police or ICE and the Israeli government, we will respond with urgency and collective fire to interrupt this deadly exchange. Whether we are moved to work for justice out of moral outrage, our grounding in our spiritual obligation, or our ancestral legacies of liberation work, we as Jews will continue to show up in solidarity and fight to win."
- Dori Midnight, member JVP-Western Mass
"U.S. and Israeli authorities have militarized borders, shot and tear gassed civilians, and detained children in the name of 'national security.' For these reasons, we stand in solidarity with all people fighting to end state violence, from Ferguson to Gaza, from San Diego to Tegucigalpa. I thank our Jewish comrades for stopping the police chief from attending a seminar that teaches authorities to treat civilians and activists as national security threats. Their efforts have made our city safer."
- Diana Sierra, Pioneer Valley Workers Center
"I have always felt that our Northampton police force is on the forefront of trying to be a community police force, seeing community members as partners in safety... The ADL and the Israeli government do not speak for me as a Jew, and their model of 'security' is about targeting Palestinians, Arabs, and Muslims - which doesn't actually protect me, or do anything to stem the rising tide of right-wing, white nationalist antisemitism that I see as a real threat."
- Randall Furash-Stewart, Northampton resident
"It deeply worries me that the Northampton police chief would study the tactics used by the Israeli security forces. I want Northampton to be a safe and welcoming place for all people and I believe the best way to do that is to build our community here at home and reject the harmful tactics that are taught in seminars like these."
- Shaina Rogstad, local graduate student and member, JVP-Western Mass
Vermont quotes
"Vermonters need to push our legislature and law enforcement in the other way, breaking the glass ceiling on the Fair and Impartial Policing Policy and releasing nonviolent incarcerated people, especially people of color, imprisoned by this State."
- Henry Harris, Chair, VT National Lawyers Guild
"Our state police need to root out institutional racism in their operations, to cease perceiving people of color as threats, to uphold the dignity of all persons, and to learn how to de-escalate conflict. These are skills and attitudes they can learn here in the states. Let the decision to not learn from Israeli militarization be a catalyst for incorporating a new paradigm of non-violence and mitigation of institutional racism in Vermont according to our own laws."
- Sylvia Knight, member of Jubilee Justice Committee, Cathedral Church of St.Paul, Burlington VT
"The tactics taught are inhumane and are used in the continued killing and oppression of communities of color across the nation and the globe. Law enforcement and elected officials should understand that we as a community are watching and will hold them accountable for their actions (and inactions)."
- Mark Hughes, Justice for All
Jewish Voice for Peace is a national, grassroots organization inspired by Jewish tradition to work for a just and lasting peace according to principles of human rights, equality, and international law for all the people of Israel and Palestine. JVP has over 200,000 online supporters, over 70 chapters, a youth wing, a Rabbinic Council, an Artist Council, an Academic Advisory Council, and an Advisory Board made up of leading U.S. intellectuals and artists.
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US Gov Report Details 'Robust' Ties Between Climate Crisis and Extreme Weather Events
“The next time your community is hit by a heatwave or flash flood, lay some blame with Big Oil. This report is yet another sign that we need to break away from this dangerous, polluting industry,” one scientist said.
Jul 16, 2026
A landmark report released by the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine on Thursday concludes that the science of linking individual extreme weather events to fossil fuel-driven climate change has advanced considerably in the past decade, findings that bolster the efforts of communities to hold oil and gas companies accountable for climate damages.
The report follows on the heels of deadly heatwaves in Europe and the US that were both deemed to be "virtually impossible" without the climate emergency.
“The new report makes clear that the science linking ever-worsening extreme weather events to climate change is rigorous and sound,” John Fleming, a senior scientist at the Center for Biological Diversity’s Climate Law Institute, said in a statement. “The next time your community is hit by a heatwave or flash flood, lay some blame with Big Oil. This report is yet another sign that we need to break away from this dangerous, polluting industry.”
The report from the National Academies, or NASEM builds on a 2016 report on the same subject and tracks the progress made since then in linking specific extreme weather events such as hurricanes or heatwaves to human-caused global warming—a field known as extreme event attribution (EEA). It found that a combination of improvements in tools, datasets, and methods had made such attributions increasingly reliable, especially for events clearly related to rising average temperatures such as heatwaves, cold spells, and heavy rainfall.
“The science is clear: The extreme heat killing thousands of people in the Northern Hemisphere this summer is neither an unpredictable event nor an accident—it is the result of corporate crime."
“Significant progress has been made over the last decade, with major advancements in methods and modeling that allow for more robust assessments of extreme events,” James Hurrell, who chaired the report committee and serves as the Scott presidential chair of Environmental Science and Engineering at Colorado State University, said in a statement.
EEA could still improve when it comes to analyzing the climate footprint on smaller-scale weather events like thunderstorms and tornadoes, as well as attributing events in parts of the Global South where climate data is less available.
Hurrell continued: "The field still faces challenges, and addressing them is necessary to fully realize the value of attribution science. We hope our recommendations will guide those efforts.”
Unaffiliated climate scientists and environmental advocates welcomed the report's findings.
"The robust conclusions that have been reached by the mainstream climate research community betray the dismissive claims that continue to be made by fossil fuel industry groups, right-wing think tanks, and Republican operatives who feel threatened by the scientific progress in this particular area," wrote climate scientist and University of Pennsylvania professor Michael Mann. "They have long understood... that Americans will increasingly demand meaningful policy action on climate as they come to understand the profound role that fossil fuel burning is playing in the worsening climate crisis."
Mann continued: "Nothing connects the dots better that the increasingly dangerous, damaging, and deadly climate change-fueled extreme weather events. As an aside, I could see and smell the hazardous wildfire smoke that blanketed the northeastern US while on vacation with my family in New Hampshire this week. Increasingly, Americans are connecting the dots between our reliance on fossil fuels and the hazards we face, whether its costly and dangerous wars of choice in far-flung lands like Iran, or the threat of increasingly extreme weather events."
Carly Phillips, a senior scientist at the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS) who has co-authored attribution studies, said in a statement: “Attribution science confirms what billions of people around the world have experienced firsthand—deadly events like extreme heatwaves are occurring more often and tropical cyclones are more intense due to climate change. Despite efforts by the fossil fuel industry and its cronies to intimidate panelists and misrepresent the research, the academies’ report affirms the scientific consensus: Attribution science is based on rigorous peer-reviewed methods and provides critical information about how climate change is driving increases in the frequency or severity of extreme events."
The report is notable not only for its findings but for their context. It's publication comes amid the Trump administration's aggressive climate denial, including the Environmental Protection Agency's repealing of the so-called "endangerment finding" connecting carbon dioxide emissions to climate and public health harms.
At the same time, the fossil fuel industry and its right-wing political allies are scrambling to find a way out of the increasing number of lawsuits attempting to hold them accountable for the harms caused by the climate crisis. This has included pushing bills in the House of Representatives and Senate that would grant the industry immunity from any lawsuits over damages caused by the use of their products.
Both the fossil fuel industry and climate justice advocates see the NASEM report as a potential weapon in the fight over climate liability. Argus Insight, an opposition research firm co-founded by former Trump staffers that has a history of working to undermine climate lawsuits, sent at least nine records requests to public universities where NASEM report authors work, as Politico reported ahead of its release.
Andrew Dessler, a professor of atmospheric sciences at Texas A&M University, advised that journalists covering the NASEM report "not frame any story as 'Can we believe extreme event attribution research?' The actual story is: Fossil fuel interests are wetting their pants about this and will do anything to try to stop it."
Yet climate justice advocates argue that the report gives the advantage to communities over the industry.
“For decades, Big Oil knowingly poisoned our atmosphere and deceived the public about the impacts of burning fossil fuels—all the while lining executives’ pockets as communities continue to suffer from extreme heat, floods, and fires," Stephanie Brancaforte, climate accountability campaign director with Public Citizen’s Climate Program, said in a statement.
Brancaforte added: “The science is clear: The extreme heat killing thousands of people in the Northern Hemisphere this summer is neither an unpredictable event nor an accident—it is the result of corporate crime. With the backing of the National Academies, survivors of climate catastrophes now have strong evidence to pursue justice against fossil fuel polluters to pay for the devastation they have unleashed.”
Cassidy DiPaola, communications director for the Make Polluters Pay campaign, said: "The National Academies just gave courts, cities, and communities something they've long needed: the full weight of the country's most authoritative scientific body behind attribution science. It affirms what researchers and international bodies like the IPCC [Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change] have long recognized—that we can say, with real confidence, which extreme weather events were made worse by fossil fuel pollution, and how much damage that pollution caused."
DiPaola continued: "The fossil fuel industry understands exactly what this means. That's why they've spent years trying to discredit attribution science as a field, and why they and their allies in Congress and state legislatures are racing right now to pass liability shield laws. They can't out-argue hundreds of peer-reviewed studies backed by the country's most respected scientific institution, so instead they're trying to make the law immune to the science. They know this research doesn't just describe a hotter world, but draws a line from their products to specific floods, heatwaves, and deaths, and from there to who should pay for the damage."
"Attribution science now underpins how cities plan for disaster, how insurers price risk, how public health officials prepare for heat deaths, and how courts weigh accountability," she concluded. "The only people with an interest in pretending otherwise are the ones being asked to pay for the damage they caused."
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"They are blaming the opposition for people being killed by their police."
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As Democrats demand investigations and accountability after a pair of fatal shootings by immigration agents, the White House border czar, Tom Homan, issued an ominous warning on Wednesday: Shut your mouth or the "bloodshed" will continue.
Since July 7, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents have shot and killed two men—Lorenzo Salgado Araujo in Texas and Johan Sebastián Guerrero in Maine.
The killings, which are part of a broader rash of violent behavior by immigration agencies, briefly led DHS to suspend the use of traffic stops by agents, before President Donald Trump ordered them to continue.
Meanwhile, Democratic lawmakers have promised to launch investigations and congressional hearings. Some have threatened to withhold funding for the agency unless reforms, like body camera requirements, are enacted, while others have called for the agency to be defunded or abolished.
Homan, a senior adviser to Trump tasked with coordinating immigration enforcement across agencies, took to Fox News on Wednesday night to address this heightened scrutiny.
Just one day before, Homan had defended the decision to temporarily halt vehicle stops, saying there should be a "short-term review to make sure ICE agents are safe and doing the right thing.”
But following Trump's orders, he reversed course entirely the next day and rejected the idea that anything about the agency's tactics needed reevaluation.
He told host Laura Ingraham, "President Trump was clear, this policy is not going away."
Instead of trigger-happy agents, he said that anti-ICE "rhetoric" from Democrats was to blame for the recent killings.
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"You and I talked about this a year-and-a-half ago, Laura," he continued. "I said, if the hateful rhetoric didn't stop, there would be bloodshed."
"I'm saying it right now," Homan said. "There's still going to be more bloodshed unless they shut their mouth and let ICE enforce the laws that they enacted."
DHS has acknowledged that neither of the men who have been shot in recent weeks was the target of the ICE operations that led to their deaths.
A witness reported that Guerrero shouted, "I tried to stop" after being shot by an agent while his vehicle moved forward slowly.
ICE's use-of-force rules state that agents should only use deadly force if they believe an individual poses an imminent threat to an agent or someone else, not simply because they are fleeing arrest.
DHS claimed that Salgado attempted to "weaponize" his vehicle, but that claim has been undercut by video evidence and eyewitness accounts.
The agency said in a statement that Guerrero "attempted to flee the scene and, fearing for public safety, an officer discharged his weapon," a justification that has not been used for previous shootings.
Many Democratic lawmakers, including Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (NY), have provided information about individuals' rights when dealing with immigration agents—including the right not to answer the door without a judicial warrant, the right to decline a search or to sign documents, or the right to record law enforcement.
But Homan did not reference any particular case in which they encouraged those facing detention to "resist" by fleeing or attacking agents.
Several Democratic members of Congress, including Reps. Jimmy Gomez (Calif.), Jason Crow (Colo.), and Ilhan Omar (Minn.), among others, have published "Know Your Rights" documents explicitly warning people not to run away or resist arrest.
Agents have frequently faced criticism that they are not, in fact, "enforcing the law" as Homan claimed, but defying it by conducting indiscriminate arrests without warrants, using excessive violence, detaining legal residents and US citizens, and engaging in racial profiling.
Homan's remarks were widely seen as a deflection of blame from immigration agents and as a way to intimidate critics into silence.
"They are blaming the opposition for people being killed by their police," said Alex Nowrasteh, the senior vice president of policy at the libertarian Cato Institute.
USA Today columnist Chris Brennan said Homan was "threaten[ing] more governmental violence… unless Americans stop engaging in speech protected by the First Amendment."
Rep. Rosa DeLauro (D-Conn.) called it "extremely irresponsible and dangerous language from the Trump administration's top immigration official."
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David Michael Brouillette's ex-wife said he is the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement officer who fatally shot Johan Sebastián Durán Guerrero in Biddeford, Maine, according to Thursday reporting by The Portland Press Herald.
"He was asking me to lie for him and to cover for his character," Ashley Brouillette told the newspaper. "I told him that I was not going to lie for him. And then he tried to say that it was a justified shooting because the guy tried to hit him with his car."
According to the Press Herald, which reviewed a screenshot of incoming calls to Ashley Brouillette, she said that she'd seen video footage of the shooting and told her ex-husband that "nowhere in there does it show that this man charged at you with a car."
Common Dreams has not independently verified Ashley Brouillette's claims—which also included that he was abusive during their relationship; she previously reported concerns about the US Army veteran's mental health to his superiors in the military; and she and her family have received threats since reports of her ex’s involvement in the shooting began to spread online.
The US Department of Homeland Security, which oversees ICE, has refused to name any involved agents, and David Brouillette—a Manchester-based 37-year-old who is also a licensed real estate agent and has held various law enforcement and public safety jobs in the state—did not respond to the Press Herald's multiple requests for comment.
However, "a witness to the Biddeford shooting, Daniel Boucher, told the Press Herald he saw an agent on scene who matched Brouillette's description," the newspaper noted. "Three people who worked with Brouillette at the Manchester Fire Department also confirmed that Brouillette was pictured in images they saw from video of the scene in Biddeford after the shooting."
David Brouillette was previously identified as the shooter by TheICEList.org, a website founded by Netherlands-based immigration activist Dominick Skinner that serves as "a public, verifiable record of US immigration enforcement—incidents, agents, deaths, vehicles, and facilities—documented with sources and open to everyone."
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