Editor’s Note: JINSA Reports referred to below are published as columns by Shoshana Bryen in San Diego Jewish World
By Shoshana Bryen
WASHINGTON, D.C. –To mark the occasion of 1,000 JINSA Reports beginning in 1995, we have finished reformatting and posting them on our website – www.jinsa.org. Please take a look and let us know which JINSA Reports resonated most with you, which were your favorite, which you disagreed with, and which piqued your interest to learn more or to sound off. We looked back as well.
#49 in 1997 reminded us how long the West has been trying to limit Iran’s ability to sow terror and destruction in the Middle East. We pointed to a $2 billion French natural gas deal with the Iranian government, for which France expected – and received – no Western sanction.
#85 in 1998 reminded us that at one time the Palestinians had an airport in Gaza and passage between the Gaza and the West Bank. It is worth pondering how Israel – with Egypt – came to enforce a blockade against the Palestinians in Gaza, and it is worth understanding how both Hamas and Fatah used the world’s money and political support not to create a functional Palestinian state, but to create terrorist operations that have killed thousands of Israelis and thousands of their own people by their own hand (see #203 and #204 on “targeted killings”).
We chronicled the so-called “peace process,” its demise in the “second intifada,” (#753) and Operation Defensive Shield that proved that terrorism can be controlled by controlling territory – a lesson that American troops learned years later in Iraq. We called out the Europeans for paying PLO salaries while Palestinians were blowing up cafes and pizza parlors (#164) and the CIA for building the Palestinian “security forces” (#165). We worry a lot about a Palestinian army being built by Americans (#504, #561, #616, #664, #687, #756, #900, #948 and #993, among others), and about the U.S. training and equipping other militaries that may not share our strategic outlook (most recently #984 and #987).
September 11, 2001 was a turning point of sorts, applying the understanding that there are two kinds of people in the world – us and them – and understanding that Israel’s war against terrorists and the states that harbor and support them was our war as well (#347 is representative).
We took a stand against the phrase “Israel’s right to exist” (#574 in 2006) as if a democratic country that is fully integrated into the global economy, a participant in dozens of multilateral initiatives, and a provider of aid and assistance to victims of natural disasters across the globe had to justify continuing to breathe. We published the text of the declassified State Department memo acknowledging in 1973 that Yasser Arafat had ordered the killings of American Ambassador Cleo Noel, Curtis Moore, and Belgian diplomat Guy Eid (#630) – how long the State Department knew and how little they cared as they continued to treat Arafat like a fellow-diplomat was sickening.
We followed the run up to the Iraq war, the war, the surge, the elections and the tentative emergence of political reconstruction. We believed – and still believe – the ouster of Saddam was a blow to terrorism in the region and have been impressed by the number of Iraqis who braved the maelstrom to form political parties, publish free newspapers and vote. Last month (#979) we encouraged the Obama Administration to work closely with the Iraqis to help them form a government that will respect the results of the most recent election.
JINSA Reports have been a vehicle for our appreciation for our country and our troops, including raising money for the Fran O’Brien’s dinners (#448, #512, #564, #569, #619, #720, #757 and #991). You, our readers, have been responsible for tens of thousands of dollars going into the dinners for wounded troops recovering at Walter Reed Army Medical Center and Bethesda Naval Hospital, and you were responsible for the National Medal of Honor Society selecting Hal Koster of Fran O’Brien’s as an honoree in their “Above and Beyond” effort to recognize outstanding Americans. (You can still write a check to JINSA for Fran O’Brien’s and every nickel will go to the fund.)
We’ll stop now, but hope you will revisit the anthology of JINSA Reports online as a reminder of where JINSA has been, where our country has been, where Israel has been, and where you – our readers – have been over 1,000 Reports.
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Bryen is senior director of security policy of the Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs. Her column is sponsored by Waxie Sanitary Supply in memory of Morris Wax, longtime JINSA supporter and national board member.