The Israelification of the NSW Police Force

How interesting:

"The NSW Police Force has been ordered to publish an apology and implement racial vilification training for senior officers after a tribunal found a police training exercise in October 2017 racially vilified Palestinians and Arabs and portrayed them as potential terrorists.

"'Exercise Pantograph' featured hundreds of police... at Sydney's Central Station as though they were responding to a terrorist event... During the exercise, two officers pretending to be 'active armed offenders' wore headscarves as they boarded a train, simulated stabbing and shooting people, held hostages, then tried to escape before being caught by police. The pretend offenders displayed the Islamic State flag during the exercise, pushed people to the floor, held train passengers at gunpoint, and held up their index fingers in a salute notoriously associated with Islamic State." (From Police to apologise for 'vilifying Arabs' in terrorism exercise, Georgina Mitchell, Sydney Morning Herald, 3/5/19)

No mention here, you'll note, of how the hapless commuters managed to cope with this kind of treatment, but, hey, who, in this neoliberal police state, gives a stuff about them? (Anyone btw who thinks my use of the term 'police state' a tad hyperbolic, might like to peruse the article NSW: moving to a police state, Ugur Nedim, Sydney Criminal Lawyers, 19/9/16)

To continue:

"Yesterday, two members of the NSW Civil and Administrative Tribunal (NCAT) found the headscarves were not necessary and would have been recognised by the public as keffiyehs, used by Palestinian and Arab communities. The use of the headscarves had the capacity to encourage members of the public to believe, 'Palestinians and/or Arabs were to be feared, despised, hated, and/or held in serious contempt as possibly or probably being terrorists', especially given that it was NSW Police who used them, NCAT found."

Now there's a backstory to this, but, predictably, you won't find anyone alluding to it in mainstream media outlets. For one thing their memory's too short. For another they're running scared.

As the posts filed under my 'NSW Police' label indicate, since the election of the Liberal O'Farrell/Baird/ Berejiklian NSW state governments (2011-), the boys in blue have displayed what can only be described as an extraordinary, even Zionist, interest in anyone in the state seeking to draw attention to the plight of the Palestinians.

But why? Maybe the following snippet provides a clue:

"Police officers in NSW will take part in a seminar where they will be taught about the threat of terrorism faced by Jews and Israelis, the history of Zionism and the Jewish community's connection to the Holy Land. The course... is being conducted by the NSW Jewish Board of Deputies (JBD) and the Communal Security Group (CSG) for members of the police forces' anti-terrorism unit." (Israel 101 course for police, The Australian Jewish News, 28/10/11)

My post on that is titled Israel 101 for Cops, 28/10/11, but feel free to read through the other 11 posts on this subject and be amazed at just how focused the NSW Police have been on pro-Palestinian activism. Oh, and enjoy your next train ride.