Describing itself as "the most influential group on the issue of U.S.-Israel military relations," the Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs (JINSA) is a rightist Washington-based advocacy and research institution that promotes "strategic cooperation" between the United States and Israel on a plank of issues, including missile defense, high-tech conventional weapons, radical movements, terrorism, weapons export controls, and the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction to "rogue" nations. Founded as a study group in the mid-1970s aimed at learning the lessons of the 1973 Yom Kippur War—which included ensuring the that United States would come to the assistance of Israel in a conflict—JINSA transformed itself into a "defense education group" in 1979 that endeavors to create strong ties between the U.S. and Israeli militaries. It operates as a 501(c)(3) organization that receives most of its funding through private donations, including from what it claims are 17,000 paid members.
According to JINSA, the group "communicates with the Jewish Community and the national security establishment on behalf of the role Israel can and does play in bolstering American interests, as well as the link between American defense policy and the security of Israel." It has a two-fold mandate: "To educate the American public about the importance of an effective U.S. defense capability so that our vital interests as Americans can be safeguarded;" and "To inform the American defense and foreign affairs community about the important role Israel can and does play in bolstering democratic interests in the Mediterranean and the Middle East."
JINSA's president is Norman Hascoe, a financier and former engineer who was at one time included on the Forbes 400 list of wealthiest Americans. JINSA's chairman is Mark Broxmeyer, a New York-based real estate mogul. JINSA's board of advisers includes a passel of hawkish and neoconservative foreign policy elites as well as a number of retired military officers, including Anne Bayefsky, Stephen Bryen (whose wife, Shoshana, is a JINSA director), retired Adm. David Jeremiah, Michael Ledeen, former congressman Jack Kemp, former ambassador Max Kampelman, Joshua Muravchik, Richard Perle, James Woolsey, and Kenneth Timmerman. Dick Cheney, John Bolton, Douglas Feith, and the late Jeane Kirkpatrick are past advisers.
In a discussion of JINSA's influence, as well as that of another like-minded group, the Center for Security Policy, journalist Jason Vest compared the two groups and their overlapping advisory councils to the Committee on the Present Danger (CPD), a Cold War-era letterhead group that in the 1970s championed rolling back détente and implementing a confrontational anti-Soviet agenda. Wrote Vest: "Just as the right-wing defense intellectuals made CPD a cornerstone of a shadow defense establishment during the Carter administration, so, too, did the right during the Clinton years, in part through two organizations: the Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs (JINSA) and the Center for Security Policy (CSP). And just as was the case two decades ago, dozens of their members have ascended to powerful government posts, where their advocacy in support of the same agenda continues, abetted by the out-of-government adjuncts from which they came. Industrious and persistent, they've managed to weave a number of issues—support for national missile defense, opposition to arms control treaties, championing of wasteful weapons systems, arms aid to Turkey, and American unilateralism in general—into a hard line, with support for the Israeli right at its core" ("The Men from JINSA and CSP," Nation, September 2, 2002).
According to its website, JINSA's core annual activities include "sponsoring a trip for retired United States Flag and General Officers to Israel and a study program in Israel for cadets and midshipmen from the Naval Academy, the Military Academy at West Point, and the Air Force Academy. JINSA also arranges interchanges between Pentagon officials and Jewish community leadership and sponsors lectures and conferences at the national military academies and leading national security think tanks. These programs are aimed at facilitating dialogue between security policy makers, military officials, diplomats, and the community at large to increase the understanding of national security issues."
In addition to its regularly published opinion and reporting pieces appearing on its website, JINSA maintains a number of publications. These include the Observer, "a quarterly review of U.S.-Turkey-Israel cooperation" copublished by JINSA and the Assembly of Turkish American Associations; the Journal of International Security Affairs, a biannual academic-style journal edited by Ilan Berman, vice president of the American Foreign Policy Council (AFPC) and a contributing expert for the Israel-based Ariel Center for Policy Research; and the Islamic Extremism Newswatch, a rundown of media stories covering the activities of everyone from the Palestinian Liberation Organization to al-Qaida.
Of these three publications, only the Journal of International Security Affairs appears to be regularly published. The Journal's Spring 2007 edition contained articles by a number of hawkish foreign policy scholars and former officials. Henry Sokolski, a former fellow at both the National Institute for Public Policy and the Heritage Foundation, wrote a piece on the politics of nonproliferation; Henry Cooper, a former head of the Strategic Defense Initiative Organization and an early champion of the Reagan-era Star Wars missile defense initiative, wrote on the need for Washington to vigorously pursue missile defense in order to protect the American people; and John Wobensmith and Jeff Smith, both scholars associated with AFPC, wrote on the need to dramatically overhaul the nation's intelligence services. The two writers pointed to the creation of the Iran-Syria Policy and Operations Group (ISOG), a controversial formation within the State Department that many observers have likened to the Pentagon's Office of Special Plans, as "an example of the type of approach that provides hope for those of us worried that the bureaucratic, politically correct atmosphere which governs our intelligence services has become radical Islam's greatest ally and asset." They did not mention how similar operations run by the likes of Douglas Feith in the Pentagon during the run-up to the Iraq War were seriously criticized for producing highly politicized intelligence products that, although not fully vetted by the intelligence services, were used to provide faulty justifications for invading Iraq (John Wobensmith and Jeff Smith, "Reinvigorating Intelligence," Journal of International Security Affairs, Spring 2007; see also, Right Web Profile: Office of Iranian Affairs).
Many observers regard JINSA as a core element of the so-called Israel Lobby in the United States, including realist scholars Stephen Walt and John Mearsheimer, who, in their controversial 2006 paper "The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy," highlighted JINSA as one of several influential policy institutes that constitute the "think tank" arm of the “Israel Lobby.” They wrote: "Over the past 25 years, pro-Israel forces have established a commanding presence at the American Enterprise Institute, the Brookings Institution, the Center for Security Policy, the Foreign Policy Research Institute, the Heritage Foundation, the Hudson Institute, the Institute for Foreign Policy Analysis, and the Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs (JINSA). These think tanks are decidedly pro-Israel, and include few, if any, critics of U.S. support for the Jewish state."
JINSA plays a unique role. Whereas other more traditional lobbying groups, like the highly influential American Israel Public Affairs Committee, focus on influencing congressional figures' votes on legislation critical to U.S. support of Israel, JINSA works on military-to-military ties between the countries and pays special attention to weapons issues—especially missile defense—while maintaining close ties to the military-industrial complex.
According to journalist Mark Milstein, the broad contours of JINSA's work were originally crafted by Ledeen, a scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, and the husband and wife team Stephen and Shoshana Bryen. In 1979, Stephen Bryen replaced Ledeen as JINSA's executive director, after Ledeen and other early directors had successfully worked to distance the organization "from the rest of the pro-Israel establishment, and methodically [create] close ties with the U.S. defense community." Ledeen later was implicated by some Reagan officials for having helped facilitate what would become the Iran-Contra scandal. According to Milstein, under Bryen, JINSA became "fully operational, finally shedding its study group title in December 1979." When Bryen left JINSA to take a post in the Reagan administration, where he helped shape a hawkish pro-Israel line within the administration, he handed the reigns of the organization over to his wife in 1981 (Mark Milstein, "Strategic Ties or Tentacles?" Washington Report on Middle East Affairs, October 1991).
Wrote Milstein: "Bryen became a consultant for Richard N. Perle, the Reagan administration assistant secretary of defense-designate. After Perle was confirmed by the Senate, Bryen was named deputy assistant secretary of defense in charge of regulating the transfer of U.S. military technology to foreign countries. Critics at the time cited the placement of Bryen in one of the most sensitive positions at the Pentagon as evidence of the tilt in U.S. policy toward Israel under Reagan. 'They don't say no anymore to Israel at the Pentagon,' said a former high-ranking Defense Department official. 'Israel is the 51st state.' It was during the Reagan era that U.S. economic aid to Israel rose to $1.2 billion annually, and military aid to $1.8 billion annually. Bryen had a role in choosing not only what U.S. weaponry Israel would be allowed to purchase with those funds, but also what sensitive U.S. military technology would be made available to Israel for use in its own burgeoning arms industry."
Many individuals with defense industry backgrounds and affiliations have served on JINSA's board of advisers and have been involved in numerous contracts with Israel. Leon Edney, David Jeremiah, and Charles May, all retired U.S. military officers, have been consultants to Northrop Grumman, which has built Israeli ships and planes. JINSA advisers May, Paul Cerjan, and Carlisle Trost have also worked for Lockheed Martin, which has sold F-16s, flight simulators, and rocket systems to Israel. Trost has served as a member of the board of General Dynamics, whose subsidiary Gulfstream has a $206 million contract with the Pentagon ("The Men from JINSA and CSP," Nation, September 2, 2002).
Immediately after 9/11, JINSA joined other neoconservative-aligned groups like the Project for the New American Century (PNAC) in calling for an expansive U.S. military response that would not be limited to attacking al-Qaida. In a September 13, 2001 press release entitled "This Goes Beyond Bin Laden," JINSA joined a chorus of neoconservatives in and out of the Bush administration, like former Pentagon number two Paul Wolfowitz, in arguing that Iraq should be a target of the war. It argued: "A long investigation to prove Osama bin Laden's guilt with prosecutorial certainty is entirely unnecessary. He is guilty in word and deed. His history is the source of his culpability. The same holds true for Saddam Hussein. Our actions in the past certainly were not forceful enough, and now we must seize the opportunity to alter this pattern of passivity." Among its recommended list of actions to be take by the U.S. government were: "Halt all U.S. purchases of Iraqi oil under the UN Oil for Food Program and ... provide all necessary support to the Iraq National Congress, including direct American military support, to effect a regime change in Iraq"; "revoke the Presidential Order banning assassinations"; "overturn the 1995 CIA Directive limiting whom the United States can recruit to aid counterterrorism in an effort to boost our human intelligence"; "demand that Egypt and Saudi Arabia sever all remaining ties with Osama bin Laden, including ties with Saudi-sponsored nongovernmental organizations and groups abroad that raise money for bin Laden and other terrorist organizations"; "suspend U.S. military aid to Egypt while reevaluating Egypt's support for American policy objectives"; and "reevaluate America's security relationship with Saudi Arabia and the Gulf States unless both actually join in our war against terrorism."
More recently, Shoshana Bryen, in a JINSA "Viewpoint" posted on the group's website in September 2006, addressed the fallout from the Summer 2006 war between Hezbollah in Lebanon and Israel. In contrast to other neoconservative pundits, like the Hudson Institute's Meyrav Wurmser, Bryen argued that it was too early to declare the war a failure from the Israeli point of view. Instead, she argued that "the Summer War was, in fact, a battle in the larger war against terrorists and the states that harbor and/or support them. There was no possibility of a final military victory in August; long-term success or failure in the process remains at issue."
Every year, JINSA awards its favorite policy or military elite the Henry "Scoop" Jackson Distinguished Service Award. The award honors "those leaders whose careers have been distinguished by the principle that is the foundation of JINSA's work: the belief that the United States requires a strong military capability for both its own security and for that of trustworthy friends and allies. This was the cornerstone of the late Senator Jackson's visionary policy and it guides JINSA today. Senator Jackson helped define our mandate and our programming is designed to further it." Among the recipients have been Sen. John McCain (2006), Paul Wolfowitz (2002), former Rep. Curt Weldon (1999), Sen. Joseph Lieberman (1997), Dick Cheney (1991), and Jeane Kirkpatrick (1984) ("The Henry 'Scoop' Jackson Distinguished Service Award History and Past Recipients," JINSA, September 21, 2004).
After receiving the award in December 2006, McCain told his JINSA audience: "I'm grateful to receive an award and have my name associated in any way with a great leader and one of the architects of our victory in the Cold War." He added: "Tehran's continued pursuit of nuclear weapons clearly poses an unacceptable risk. Protected by a nuclear deterrent, Iran would feel unconstrained to sponsor terrorist attacks against any perceived enemy." The senator also had strong words for Palestinian leaders who say they desire peace but wage a terror war against Israel and for U.S. leaders who would push Israel to engage with such terrorists. "No American leader should be expected to sell a false peace to our democratic ally, consider Israel's right to self-defense less legitimate than ours, or insist that Israel negotiate a political settlement while terrorism remains its adversaries' favored bargaining tool" ("JINSA Bestows Distinguished Service Award Upon Senator John McCain" JINSA press release, February 9, 2007.)
Between 2001 and 2004, JINSA received nearly $8 million in gifts, grants, and contributions (see 2005 Form 990). Thomas Neumann, JINSA's executive director since 1991, once boasted: "We receive 99.9, no, 100% of our funding from private donations." He added, "We receive no money from Israel or any defense contractors." At the time of his comments (1991), donors included Ronald Lauder (of Estee Lauder cosmetics), DC lobbyist Donald Agger, Atlantic Research Corporation, a defense contractor, the Smith-Kogod family, the Air Force Association, Armed Services Foundation, and Friends of the Israeli Defense Forces (see Milstein, "Strategic Ties or Tentacles?"). According to data collected by MediaTransparency. org, between 1998 and 2005, JINSA received nearly $200,000 from several major rightist donors, including the Smith Richardson Foundation, which gave a $100,000 grant to JINSA in 2003 aimed at facilitating exchanges between U.S. and Israeli law enforcement officials involved in combating terrorism threats. Another regular JINSA donor is Irving Moskowitz, a California magnate whose controversial donating activities include aiding right-wing settler groups in the Occupied Territories. According to the 2005 Form 990 of the Irving I. Moskowitz Foundation, the bingo magnate donated $20,000 to JINSA in 2005 for "work against Islamic funded terrorism." JINSA president Norman Hascoe is also a substantial donor, having given hundreds of thousands to JINSA through his Hascoe Family Foundation (FoundationSearch.com).
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Contact Information
The Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs
1779 Massachusetts Ave., NW, Suite 515
Washington, DC 20036
Office: (202) 667-3900
Fax: (202) 667-0601
E-Mail: info@jinsa.org
Web: http://www.jinsa.org
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