A still from the antisemitic “Deadly Exchange” video listing US Jewish organizations “implicated” in police violence. Photo: Screenshot.

The rabidly anti-Zionist and pro-BDS group that styles itself “Jewish Voice for Peace” (JVP) took a step toward open antisemitism this week with the release of a video that blames “Jewish institutions” in America for a “deadly exchange” between US and Israeli law enforcement that has supposedly resulted in the fatal shootings of African-Americans by police officers.

In a comprehensive analysis of the video, Andrew Bennett — a Berlin-based academic who monitors JVP’s activities — noted that while the group has a long history of “indulging” antisemites, its actions could no longer be explained in terms of its long-established role in shielding the BDS movement from accusations of antisemitism.

“On June 4, 2017, JVP intentionally targeted a group of queer youth in a perfidious counter-protest of the Celebrate Israel Parade [in New York City],” Bennett wrote. “The incident was covered fairly extensively in the media, and there is no particular reason to recount the full details here. What went unnoticed but nevertheless caught my eye was what was emblazoned on the JVP demonstrators’ shirts: ‘DEADLY EXCHANGE.'”

Bennett explained that “Deadly Exchange” was “a JVP campaign to blame Jews for police violence in the United States.” Highlighting the fact that police exchange programs exist between the US and Israel — as both nations also have with other countries — JVP’s video stressed the role of Jewish groups (“the majority of the programs are run by Jewish organizations,” the video claims) in running and funding the exchanges.

At the heart of this theory of  a “moneyed Jewish conspiracy to murder innocent Americans,” Bennett said, was JVP’s accusation that police tactics in American inner cities were determined by “Israeli military personnel.”

“The Deadly Exchange campaign video continues with a montage of guilt-by-association to blame Israel for the NYPD’s Islamophobic policing, the Trump administration’s increases in deportation rates, and police brutalization of black and brown communities,” Bennett said.

“If there was any doubt as to the antisemitic conspiracism of the video, the narrator’s answer to the question ‘who is responsible for this deadly exchange?’ should remove all traces of it: Those responsible, those deserving of blame, are Jewish organizations,” Bennett concluded.

Despite its self-description as a “Jewish” organization, JVP stands completely outside the common institutions of the US Jewish community. A recent examination of its funding sources by the Israeli watchdog NGO Monitor — based entirely on publicly-available information — demonstrated that JVP “received funding from a broad range of foundations and charitable trusts, many of which, unsurprisingly, also contribute to other organizations promoting active anti-Israel agendas.”

“The largest donations originated with Rockefeller Brothers Fund, Tides Foundation, the Firedoll Foundation, Schwab Charitable Foundation, and the Jewish Communal Fund. Most grants were for amounts less than $30,000,” the NGO Monitor report — “Uncovering the JVP Funding Network” — noted.

JVP’s largest single donor is the Rockefeller Brothers Fund, which provided a two-year grant of $140,000 in 2015. The fund said at the time that its donation was for “general support” of JVP’s “Program Goal” to “Advance Just and Durable Peace.”