Press Release: JINSA Questions Obama Administration’s Middle East Policy

WASHINGTON–(BUSINESS WIRE)–The Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs today called into question the Obama Administration’s approach to the Middle East.

Executive Director Tom Neumann said, “We had hoped this administration would be tough on dangerous proliferators and terror sponsors like North Korea and Iran, but instead they are castigating Israel at every opportunity. We must now seriously ask: what is the administration’s agenda? Where is President Obama taking the country? And to what end?”

WASHINGTON–(BUSINESS WIRE)–The Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs today called into question the Obama Administration’s approach to the Middle East.

Executive Director Tom Neumann said, “We had hoped this administration would be tough on dangerous proliferators and terror sponsors like North Korea and Iran, but instead they are castigating Israel at every opportunity. We must now seriously ask: what is the administration’s agenda? Where is President Obama taking the country? And to what end?”

Neumann observed that many American Jewish leaders were deluded by political rhetoric assuring the community that the crisis was merely a bump in the road, that the special relationship between Israel and the United States was intact and that the Obama Administration remained committed to Israel. “This is clearly not the case,” Neumann declared.

This past week, a JINSA statement signed by 56 retired American admirals and generals contended that the proliferation of weapons and nuclear technology across the Middle East and Asia requires American cooperation with Israel in intelligence, technology and security policy. Their statement concluded, “It would be foolish to disengage–or denigrate–an ally such as Israel.”

Several weeks ago, Neumann said, it was believed that U.S.-Israel relations were in a crisis, with the disproportionately harsh rhetoric that was applied to Israel over the untimely announcement of a new procedural phase in the ongoing development of housing in Jerusalem specifically permitted under agreements reached by the White House and Prime Minister Netanyahu’s government. Then it was thought that the relationship had hit bottom when President Obama subsequently treated Prime Minister Netanyahu disrespectfully.

Today, Neumann continued, it appears that the White House has further degraded relations by enforcing a new policy to deny visas to technicians working at Israel’s Dimona nuclear research center to travel to the United States for ongoing university education in physics, chemistry and nuclear engineering. Until now, such visas were routinely granted. Furthermore, it has been reported that the U.S. government has imposed an unofficial embargo on American companies selling Israel any product that would be used at Dimona no matter how innocuous. America does not provide nuclear fuel to Israel.

For further information or to arrange an interview with Tom Neumann, JINSA Executive Director, contact Jim Colbert at 202-667-3900.