Under Maintenance
January 31, 2024

Dangerous exchange: Israeli forces international training 

Netanyahu and Santos

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu (L) and Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos (R) attend a ceremony to welcome the Israeli leader at the Narino palace in Bogota on September 13, 2017. – Netanyahu is in Colombia to hold a working session and sign a cooperation agreement on tourism. (Photo by Raul Arboleda / AFP)

The Israeli regime has developed military and police international training and exchange programmes, exporting its killing skills worldwide and using its military occupation and repressive apartheid system as a selling point.

What countries are engaging in such programmes? 

The Israeli military is selling its militarized and repressive model worldwide, promoting the illegal occupation as a standard. 

Many countries have engaged in joint military and police forces training and exchanges. 

The US military funding to Israel amounts to USD$3,8 billion per year.

In addition there are constant exchanges of practices in military technology and police tactics through training programmes that bring together US police, ICE, border patrol, and FBI with Israeli soldiers, police and border agents.

These programmes promote racial profiling, massive spying and surveillance, deportation and detention, and attacks on human rights defenders.

In 2023, for the first time, Israeli soldiers took part in the “African Lion”, the biggest military exercise event of the continent which took place in Morocco.

The two regimes normalized relations after the signing of the Abraham Accords in 2020. Morocco also bought different types of surveillance and attack drones from Israel, suspected to be used against occupied Western Sahara.

The Abraham Accords’ main outcome was to increase military and police cooperation between the Israeli regime and Gulf countries. 

Since the signing, diplomatic, military and intelligence contacts and contracts have expanded  fast between Israel, the UAE and Bahrain, bound together by “concern” over Iran’s activities.

In 2021, UAE and Bahrain navies held their first joint military exercise with Israeli warships, co-ordinated by the US Navy.

Indian police services officers have been trained in “counter-terror warfare” by the Israeli Police as part of a work agreement signed between the Israel Ministry of Public Security and the Indian Ministry of Home Affairs in 2014.

Indian police is infamous for its human rights violations especially in Kashmir, which include documented torture, rape, custodial killings and the detention extended periods without legal proceedings.

The Israeli-Turkish military cooperation formally started in 1996. 

At the end of the 90s, they had an air force training exchange agreement which called for Israeli aircraft to train in Turkey four times a year. 

The ties between the two countries freezed in the mid 2000s over the continuous attacks on Gaza and the attack on the Gaza Freedom Flotilla where Israeli forces killed 9 activists, including two Turkish citizens.

In 2016, the two countries announced a reconciliation agreement and in 2022 restored full diplomatic ties.

Colombia and Israel have been exchanging military expertise for long, framing it as counter-terrorism, while refining methods of repression of  dissenting voices. 

At the beginning of 2020, 10 Israeli instructors instructed soldiers from the Colombian Army Special Forces. 

In 2021 a nationwide strike sparked in Colombia and was met with extreme violence by the police of the then far-right government of Ivan Duque, killing 44 protesters in just a month. 

Israel is the first weapon supplier to the Colombian military.