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Jewish Institute for National Security of America

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The Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs (JINSA) is a Washington, D.C.-based non-profit think-tank focusing on issues of United States national security. JINSA's stated aim is three-fold: to ensure a strong and effective U.S. national security policy; to educate American leaders on what it views as the vital strategic relationship between the United States and Israel; and to strengthen U.S. cooperation with democratic allies, including Taiwan, Jordan, Hungary, Turkey, India, and NATO member nations, amongst others.

JINSA's advisory board includes such notable figures as Michael Ledeen, Richard Perle, and James Woolsey, while Vice President Dick Cheney, US ambassador to the United Nations John Bolton, and Undersecretary of Defense for policy Douglas Feith were all on Jinsa’s board of advisers before they entered the Bush administration. JINSA is officially a non-partisan organization.

Policy positions

JINSA's policy recommendations for the U.S. government include:

  • Enhanced WMD counterproliferation programs.
  • National ballistic missile defense systems.
  • Curbing of regional ballistic missile development and production worldwide.
  • Increased counter-terrorism training and funding, prior to September 11, 2001 Terrorist Attacks.
  • Increased defense cooperation with Israel.
  • Substantially improved quality-of-life for U.S. service personnel and their families.
  • Support for joint U.S.-Israeli training and weapons development programs.
  • A rejection of any peace process with the Palestinians that is not prefaced by a full and unconditional renunciation of terrorism and a full and effective Palestinian effort to combat terrorism in Palestinian Authority-controlled areas, and
  • Regime change in "rogue" nation-states known to provide support or knowingly harbor terrorist groups, including Iraq, Iran, Syria, Lebanon and Libya, and supports a re-evaluation of the U.S. defense relationships with Egypt and Saudi Arabia.

Programs

General and Flag Officer's program

One of JINSA's most important programs is to invite, with the assistance of the Pentagon and the U.S. Department of State, retired U.S. senior military officers to Israel and Jordan. The General and Flag Officer's program, as it is known, includes meetings with Israeli and Jordanian political and military leaders.

More than 200 retired Admirals and Generals, including Shock and awe theorist Adm. Leon "Bud" Edney, USN, Lt. Gen. Jay Garner, USA, Maj. Gen. David L. Grange, USA, Maj. Gen. Jarvis Lynch, USMC, Maj. Gen. Sidney Shachnow, USA, Adm. Leighton "Snuffy" Smith, USN, Adm. Carlisle Trost, USN and Brig. Gen. Thomas E. White, USA, have participated in the trips over the last 21 years. Participation in the program makes no requirements of the invitees to make statements, form opinions or maintain any further relationship with JINSA, yet many trip alums have participated more than once, and 50 past participants co-authored a statement on violence in the Palestinian-controlled territories that appeared in the New York Times in October 2000.

Jason Vest, writing in the The Nation[1], describes the program this way:

"The bulk of JINSA's modest annual budget is spent on taking a bevy of retired US generals and admirals to Israel, where JINSA facilitates meetings between Israeli officials and the still-influential US flag officers, who, upon their return to the States, happily write op-eds and sign letters and advertisements championing the Likudnik line."

United States-Israeli law enforcement exchange

In 2002, JINSA initiated a program aimed at exchanging counter-terrorism experience and tactics between U.S. law enforcement agencies and their counterparts in the Israeli national police. The primary focus of the program is to bring U.S. law enforcement executives (chiefs, sherrifs, deputies, etc.) to Israel for an intensive two week program aimed at educating U.S. law enforcement officials on the possible threats posed by the specter of domestic terrorism in the United States. Over the course of two trips, nearly 30 police chiefs and sheriffs from departments in major American metropolitan areas, including Los Angeles, California; Orlando, Florida; Minneapolis, Minnesota and the Port Authority Police Department (PAPD) of New York and New Jersey, already lead to massive changes in local law enforcement counter-terrorism tactics and training.

In addition, the Law Enforcement Exchange Program (LEEP) has Israeli police and counter-terror officials to the United States for a series of intensive two-day seminars that have trained more than 1,500 law enforcement officers and officials around the U.S. LEEP has also played a life-saving role in training members of the U.S. Marine Corps in how to better protect civilians and soldiers, alike, against the threat of car and suicide bombers in Iraq.

Others

JINSA presents a Distinguished Service Award in honour of US Senator Henry M. Jackson

JINSA publishes a collection of U.S. policy-related publications: The Journal of International Security Affairs, Security Affairs - a quarterly newsletter, Islamic Extremism Newswatch, and recently published a reference book: Profiles In Terror: A Guide to Middle East Terrorist Organizations by Aaron Mannes. James Colbert is the Institute's communications director.

Each fall, JINSA presents an annual Distinguished Service Award, named in honour of the late-Senator Henry M. "Scoop" Jackson to U.S. government leaders (generally a Senator or two members of the United States House of Representatives) for their career dedication to U.S. national security. Past honorees have included: Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz (2002), Senator Joe Lieberman (1997), Senator Max Cleland (2000), then-Defense Secretary Dick Cheney (1991), all three Secretaries of the U.S. Armed Services (2001), Congresswoman Jane Harman and Congressman Jim Saxton (2003) and Indiana Senator Evan Bayh (2004).

In addition, beginning in 2003, JINSA has honored six enlisted representatives of the U.S. Armed Services and U.S. Special Operations Command, each selected by their respective services, with the "Grateful Nation Award" for duty that, while exemplary, might otherwise go unrecognized.

History

Founded in 1976, JINSA began as the only U.S. think tank that put "the U.S.-Israel strategic relationship first," citing a concern that U.S. leaders were mistakenly neglecting the relationship between the United States and Israel. JINSA's founding, according to Jason Vest[1], was prompted by "neoconservatives concerned that the United States might not be able to provide Israel with adequate military supplies in the event of another Arab-Israeli war."

In the late 1980s, JINSA underwent a profound repurposing of mission which, although retaining the interest in maintaining and strengthening the U.S.-Israeli defense relationship, widened its focus to general U.S. defense and foreign policy, with missions and meetings with national leaders and military officials from countries as diverse as Ethiopia, Belgium, South Korea, India, Bulgaria, Italy, the Republic of China, Uzbekistan, Costa Rica, Spain, Eritrea, Jordan, the People's Republic of China, Hungary, United Kingdom and Germany, to name a few.

JINSA, is a charitable USC 501(c)(3) organization, maintains a staunchly non-partisan stance in its official policies and statements. This is unlike According to critics, JINSA is closely associated with the neoconservative movement and US Military Industrial Complex.

Criticism

Jason Vest, writing in the The Nation[1], alleges that JINSA, along with Frank Gaffney's Center for Security Policy, are "underwritten by far-right American Zionists" and both believe strong that

"'regime change' by any means necessary in Iraq, Iran, Syria, Saudi Arabia and the Palestinian Authority is an urgent imperative. Anyone who dissents -- be it Colin Powell's State Department, the CIA or career military officers -- is committing heresy against articles of faith that effectively hold there is no difference between US and Israeli national security interests, and that the only way to assure continued safety and prosperity for both countries is through hegemony in the Middle East -- a hegemony achieved with the traditional cold war recipe of feints, force, clientism and covert action."

Frontline, an Indian current affairs magazine that leans to the left-wing, asked rhetorically[2] in 2003 why the administration of George W. Bush that seemed "so eager to please [Bush's] Gulf allies, particularly the Saudis, go out of its way to take the side of Ariel Sharon's Israel?" Frontline answered:

"Two public policy organizations give us a sense of an answer: the Washington Institute for Near East Policy (WINEP) and the Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs (JINSA).... While WINEP tended to toe the line of whatever party came to power in Israel, JINSA was the U.S. offshoot of the right-wing Likud Party. Set up in 1997, JINSA draws from the most conservative hawks in the U.S. establishment for its board of directors: Richard Cheney (now Vice-President), John Bolton (now Under-Secretary of State), Douglas Feith (now Under-Secretary of Defence), Paul Wolfowitz (Deputy Secretary of Defence), Lewis Libby (now Vice-President's Chief of Staff]]), Zalmay Khalilzad (now special envoy to Iraq and Afghanistan), Richard Armitage (now Deputy Secretary of State), Elliott Abrams (now National Security Council Adviser), and Richard Pearle (formerly on the Defense Policy Board).

Colin Powell, according to Karen DeYoung's 2006 biography of Powell[3], stated that JINSA had influenced Vice President Richard Cheney[4] and others in the Bush administration to rid Israel of Palestine's supporters and protect Israel's security by neutralizing Iraq, Iran, Syria, Lebanon and Libya by invading and changing those regimes to democracies.

See also

References

  1. ^ a b c Jason Vest, The Men From JINSA and CSP, The Nation, September 2, 2002
  2. ^ The myth of the `Jewish lobby', Frontline (magazine), 20(20), September 27 2003, accessed August 30 2006.
  3. ^ DeYoung, Karen, Soldier: The Life of Colin Powell, Knopf, October 10, 2006, ISBN 1-4000-4170-8
  4. ^ [1] Lelyveld, Joseph. "The Good Soldier;" New York Review of Books, 2 November 2006. Accessed 19 March 2007.
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