Perhaps the most troubling aspect of the intelligence unit's activities is who and what it is modeling itself after: the activities of the Israeli occupation forces in the West Bank. The unit uses a "debriefing programme" that singles out "young Middle Eastern men" who've been arrested for any offense, even if it has nothing to do with terrorism, to try to turn him into an informer. It has even sent officers into Muslim neighbourhoods to look for any reason to pull over people, even the most minor traffic infraction like a non-working headlight.

Such practices are quite similar to the long-standing and much abused Israeli practice of arresting young Palestinians for meaningless offenses and then, once in detention, putting pressure on them to become collaborators - offering them money, medical help for sick family members or other incentives, as well as threats depending on whether or not they comply. This is precisely what the NYPD is today doing.

Essentially, the police department's goal with such activities is to "map the city's human terrain" along the model of "how Israeli authorities operate in the West Bank," according to one former police official. What seems to be lost on the NYPD and even the AP report's authors is that the West Bank is occupied territory, the Israeli intelligence agencies operating there systematically engage in actions - illegal detention, kidnapping and even murder - that violate international law.

If the way the Israelis manage an occupied population is a model for NYPD intelligence activities, we have to ask whether they are treating the city's Muslim community as an occupied population, and if so, how long it might be before young, angry Muslim New Yorkers, start behaving like their Palestinian counterparts, and if that occurs, whether the NYPD would accept any responsibility for that development? Probably not; indeed, it would, as in Israel, just lead to even more intensive and intrusive spying on the community, perpetuating a vicious cycle that would benefit no one except the corporations who are raking in unprecedented profits supplying the technology and even personnel for these programmes.

http://english.aljazeera.net/indepth/opinion/2011/08/2011826101842777735.html