Screenshots by WMJ via @klettocracy

Milwaukee police officers and MPD Chief Jeffrey Norman sit on the front row during a public meeting last month before the Police and Fire Commission dominated by comments about Norman’s counter terrorism 2025 training in Israel. 

A new channel of communication formed Thursday between the Wisconsin Muslim Civic Alliance and the Milwaukee Police Department in the aftermath of public concern and outrage about MPD Police Chief Jeffrey Norman’s counter terrorism training in Israel.

WMCA Executive Director Fauzia Qureshi and MPD Chief of Staff Heather Hough met for over an hour Thursday afternoon to discuss concerns about the training and other issues affecting Milwaukee’s Muslim community. 

“Our mission at WMCA is to make sure our community can be seen and heard,” WMCA executive director Fauzia Qureshi told the Wisconsin Muslim Journal in an interview after the meeting. “There needs to be constant engagement and that is what we are trying to build. Although an unfortunate incident made this happen, it’s an opportunity for WMCA to build bridges with the Milwaukee Police Department.”

“For the Department and for myself, I am grateful that Executive Director Qureshi took the time to have this important conversation,” MPD Chief of Staff Heather Hough told WMJ this morning. “Our goal is to serve the entire community, and having open lines of communication with those who can educate us on culture and religion helps us to do our work better.”

Both Qureshi and Hough confirmed that, as Hough put it, “This is not a one-and-done meeting but the beginning of an ongoing relationship between MPD’s leadership and WMCA.” 

Chief Norman and Hough are committed to continuing engagement with WMCA in the long term, Hough told Qureshi and confirmed to WMJ. Our goal will be to build bridges with Milwaukee’s Muslim community and to develop cultural awareness about the Muslim community throughout the MPD, which may include cultural competency training for MPD officers, Hough told Qureshi.

Milwaukee Police and Fire Commission Executive Director Leon Todd (center), FPC Chair Miriam Horwitz (left) and other commissioners listened to more than three hours of public comment largely about the MPD chief’s training in Israel.

Public criticism of police chief’s training trip

Community outrage and concern expressed during comments at a recent Fire and Police Commission meeting prompted the meeting between Qureshi and Hough. 

Chief Norman and other uniformed MPD officers attended, as well as the full Fire and Police Commission. (See the complete recording of the Jan. 22 Fire and Police Commission meeting on the City of Milwaukee website post.)

Hundreds attended the more than three-hour public comment portion of the Jan. 22 Fire and Police Commission meeting, most raising concerns about Chief Norman’s training trip to Israel. Members of the public spoke about the dangers it posed of militarizing a municipal police force and the moral questions raised by learning from a state actively committing genocide. 

Angela Lang, co-executive director of BLOC, Black Leaders Organizing for Communities, noted, “I think there is something to be said that there is an overflow room here tonight, not only with BLOC members, but with community members from all across the city.

Angela Lang, Black Leaders Organizing Communities founder and co-director

“The first time I understood the intersection between the Palestinian struggle and the Black struggle was in 2014 when Mike Brown was murdered in Ferguson,” Lang told the commission. “Folks would go on Twitter and Palestinians would say, ‘This is how you deal with tear gas, this is how you deal with police tactics.’ How did they know? Because they experienced it in Palestine. For this police chief, in this political climate, when there is a genocide happening right now, to go learn tactics to further oppress our communities is shameful.”

Photo by Rob Randolf

Emilio de Torre, executive director of the Milwaukee Turners

Emilio De Torre, executive director of the Milwaukee Turners, Milwaukee’s oldest progressive civic group, addressed several concerns “at a time when trust in our police department is eroding, at a time when the federal government is running amok and deploying poorly trained ICE troops in undisciplined and probably illegal ways in Chicago, Minnesota, Los Angeles and soon Maine. The MPD seems to be courting them rather than sending a clear message to the city that they will be upholding state statutes and are constitutionally protected rights,” he said.

“We also just learned our chief has now gone to Israel to study anti-terrorism training with an army that is responsible for killing 73,000 Palestinians in the last two years, 80% of whom are civilians.

“What is he hoping to learn from an army that has an 80% civilian-kill ratio, and how is he hoping to apply that to our civilian population?”

Ned Littlefield, Ph.D., a visiting scholar at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee Center for Latin American and Caribbean studies, explained he studies the process through which “policing becomes more like soldiering.” Before obtaining his doctorate degree, Littlefield was under contract with the U.S. Department of State, evaluating assistance the federal government provided through these types of trainings and international exchanges to police in Costa Rica, Honduras, Guatemala and El Salvador, he said.

Through this process of policing becoming more like soldiering, several risks emerge, he noted:

  • Law enforcement agents enact more violence upon civilians.
  • Oversight institutions like the Milwaukee Fire and Police Commission become less able and, in some cases, less willing to hold law enforcement officers accountable for this violence.
  • Police forces are less subject to civilian justice and control.

Dr. Littlefield urged the Fire and Police Commission to consider if participation in these types of international exchanges will lead to increased violence in Milwaukee and how oversight institutions like the Fire and Police Commission, the Milwaukee Common Council and the Mayor’s office will prevent policing from becoming more like soldiering. How will the community establish control over the policing in our city?

Ned Littlefield, Ph.D., a University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee visiting faculty member and research scholar

A woman who identified herself as a lifelong Milwaukee resident said she is “disgusted by the Milwaukee Police Chief Jeffrey Norman’s receiving law enforcement training from the Israeli state on behalf of the Jewish Institute of National Security of America. This is a profound moral failure. Why are we seeking instruction from a regime whose curriculum is written in the tactics of occupation, apartheid and genocide? … The IDF enforces a Jim Crow system of apartheid in the West Bank. Is this what we want in Milwaukee?”

“I’m here because I strongly condemn the police chief’s recent trip to Israel, which is a genocidal state engaged in settler colonialism, ethnocentrism and the eradication of the Palestinian people,” said a young woman who identified herself as a Palestinian junior in high school and the 3rd District Representative on the Milwaukee City Youth Council. “Is that what we want to support? I don’t, and it’s obvious to me Milwaukee citizens don’t support it either because of this packed room.” She called for immediately banning all training exchanges with Israel and any other international exchanges involving military-style training.”

Other Palestinian Americans at the meeting described their first-hand, personal experiences and experiences of family members with the harsh control the Israeli military exerts over the Palestinian population in Gaza and the West Bank.

Palestinian American Ihsan Atta told the commission that “this isn’t a routine training exchange. By traveling to an apartheid state, the chief has aligned our law enforcement with a government whose top leadership faces arrest warrants issued by the International Criminal Court for War Crimes and Crimes Against Humanity.”

Ihsan Atta, a Milwaukee businessman and Palestinian American

In an email exchange with WMJ last week, Atta referred to Chief Norman’s interview with the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel the day after the commission meeting, saying, “It is unfortunate that despite all those who testified, every one of whom rejected the chief’s travel to apartheid ‘Israel,’ the chief expressed no remorse or regret for his bad decision. In fact, he still tried to defend it.  I don’t know what power the FPC has, but I do feel he should be fired.”

Chief Norman’s training in Israel

Chief Norman attended training funded and organized by the Jewish Institute for National Security of America. According to its website, JINSA is “dedicated to advancing U.S. national security in the Middle East … by conducting both educational programs that build ties among American, Israeli and other Middle Eastern partner military leaders, along with in-depth research and actionable recommendations to influence U.S. policy.” 

JINSA’s Homeland Security Program, founded after 9/11, brings participants “from the FBI, DEA and other federal agencies, as well as various police chiefs, sheriffs, state Homeland Security directors and state police commissioners to training assisted by the Israel National Police, Ministry of Internal Security and Shin Bet, the Israel Security Agency. 

Since its inception, “over 200 law enforcement executives from almost as many municipal, county, state and federal agencies” have participated, the website says. Among them, three from Wisconsin are listed on the website: MPD Chief Jeffrey Norman in 2025, Waukesha County Sheriff Eric Severson in 2024 and Dane County Sheriff David J. Mahoney in 2013.

Milwaukee Police Chief Jeffrey Norman listened to comments from local citizens who opposed his training in Israel. He was not called upon to speak or answer questions at the meeting.

Since the Fire and Police Commission meeting

WMCA released a statement to the press Jan. 26, Serious concerns over Milwaukee police chief’s training trip to Israel, that summarized concerns about Chief Norman’s training trip raised by members of Wisconsin’s Muslim community. Qureshi also sent the statement to the MPD.

MPD Chief of Staff Hough responded to Qureshi’s email asking for a meeting.

During their meeting, in addition to establishing a new, ongoing channel of communication, Hough addressed points raised in the WMCA statement, as follows (both Qureshi and Hough confirmed):

  • The Fire and Police Commission is currently reviewing the materials from Chief Norman’s training in Israel.
  • There is no ongoing collaboration between JINSA and MPD, and there never was.
  • That Chief Norman understands and acknowledges his actions hurt the Muslim community.

Qureshi also shared information about WMCA’s work, including its upcoming Advocacy Day on Feb. 11, when WMCA will take more than 50 Muslim participants to the Wisconsin Capitol in Madison to meet with legislators. Registration is still open. Sign up here.  

MFP Commissioner Krissie Fung said it was a “critical failure” of the commission’s oversight duties not to vet the chief’s travel before it was set, “in particular, travel to a genocidal state.”

Two main topics will be addressed, Qureshi said. 

  • A resolution to make Eid a recognized holiday. “That doesn’t mean it will be a paid holiday,” she explained. However, it will make it easier for Muslims employees and students to take the day off to celebrate. The resolution shows respect and inclusion of Muslims in Wisconsin at a time when Islamophobia is on the rise.”
  • Assembly Bill 446, which advocates adopting the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s working definition of antisemitism. 

Critics, including the IHRA’s definition’s lead drafter Ken Stern, argue it may be used to target anti-Israel speech. Stern told Wisconsin Public Radio the definition was intended to “take the temperature” of feelings toward Jews. However, beginning in 2010, he saw it used to police speech, particularly on college campuses. Stern, who is Jewish, told WPR he opposes its use as a tool to go after issues such as pro-Palestinian activism.

“It conflates criticism of Israel with antisemitism and labels criticism of Israeli policies as antisemitic,” Qureshi said. “It is an attack on constitutionally protected speech and ultimately denies the Palestinian people the right to tell their story. 

“So all the people who spoke at that (Milwaukee Fire and Commission meeting) hearing, if they said anything that criticized Israel, that would be defined as antisemitic!”