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04/02/2016
Who Occupies Whom in Israel-Palestine? Don't Ask an American
A new poll published by the Institute for Research: Middle Eastern Policy, shows that a plurality of Americans misunderstand a fundamental fact about the Middle East. Specifically, a statistically representative sample of Americans and three other nationalities were asked a simple question about Israel and Palestine. The wording of the question and the results are shown below:   More
occupy_poll
 
3/25/2016
Most Americans Believe Palestinians Occupy Israeli Land
...The U.S. adult internet population is alone in North America believing that Israelis are under a Palestinian occupation. A simultaneous survey of Canadians reveals that 51.4 percent correctly believe Israelis occupy Palestinian land, while 54.6 percent of Mexicans also believe Israel occupies Palestinian territory...More
 
c-span03/18/2016
Israel's Influence in the U.S.: Panelists talked about Israel's influence in the U.S., including on members of Congress and the U.S. media
 
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wapo3/18/2016 
U.S. Policy toward Israel called harmful to both countries at conference
U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East was criticized as being unfairly tilted toward Israel, to the detriment of both countries, at a conference Friday examining whether pro-Israel lobbying groups have an undue influence on Congress and government agencies.

Several hundred people attended the event sponsored by the Washington Report on Middle East Affairs, a D.C.-based magazine featuring articles questioning Israeli government policies and U.S. aid to the country.

The conference was timed to precede this weekend's conference of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) at the Walter E. Washington Convention Center, a large, annual affair that this year will draw virtually all the presidential candidates as well as Vice President Biden.

Friday's conference in the ballroom of the National Press Club was an answer to AIPAC, offering a counternarrative in which U.S. support for Israel clashes with democratic and humanitarian values... More 
 
3/18/2016
YouTube playlist of the conference "Israel's Influence: Good or Bad for America" March 18

2/3/2016 
Panels & topics announced for "Israel's Influence: Good or Bad for America?" conference 
WASHINGTON, March 3, 2016 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- This release is released by Institute for Research: Middle Eastern Policy:

Organizers of the March 18 conference "Israel's Influence: Good or Bad for America?" are pleased to announce the following panel topics and keynote addresses: More
 
The Intercept_ 3/02/2016
Former AIPAC Spokesman attempts to swap out journalist Rula Jebreal for a WINEP analyst 
block...The emails, obtained by The Intercept as part of a FOIA request submitted by the Institute for Research: Middle Eastern Policy, show Block repeatedly instructing the VOA producer that Jebreal "a crazy person" and "anti-Semite" should not be booked or even acknowledged as someone worthy of hearing from. While Block blithely argued that her political perspectives and intellect should be ignored, the duo took time to have a spirited debate over her "looks." (Bakhtiar says his "editor was keen on having her on because of her looks (although she is hardly my type)" while Block excitedly exclaims: "Now that make sense!"

Instead of Jebreal, Block urged the booking of "someone like Ghaith al-Omari, who is a former PLO official and peace process negotiator." Al-Omari is a fellow at the D.C.-based Washington Institute for Near East Policy--alongside pro-Israel stalwarts such as longtime pro-Israel U.S. diplomat Dennis Ross and former Bush Treasury official Matthew Levitt--and, as such, remains faithfully within the D.C. consensus for how Israel and Palestine are discussed. The institute previously boasted as one of its fellows Israeli Defense Minister Moshe Yaalon. On news of al-Omari's joining, Haaretz described the group this way: "Established in 1985, the Washington Institute is known for its ties in the U.S. and Israeli governments..." More 
 
 
2/22/2016
Americans holding favorable views of Israel decline 16%

Favorable views toward Israel, the Palestinian Authority, and Iran, % Very/Mostly favorable (click to enlarge)

The percentage of Americans viewing Israel favorably has fallen to 59 percent. By contrast, nearly a quarter of Americans (24 percent) now view the Palestinian Authority favorably. Americans viewing Iran favorably also surged to a recent high of 16% of the adult population.

These are the results of three IRmep polls of the U.S. adult internet population fielded by Google Consumer Surveys February 19-20. The questions posed were, "What is your overall opinion of [country]?" Respondents could also fill in their own response. Most of these, representing up to 12.9% of the total responses, offered no opinion.
..

...American public opinion of Israel (survey results) has not been this low since 2004, a year Israel conducted three separate military operations against Palestinians living in Gaza. Gallup's February 2015 poll captured a small year-on-year decline at the onset of Israel's final attempt to thwart the P5+1 nuclear deal with Iran. Negative headlines and reports subsequently filled U.S airwaves with news of the Netanyahu administration's many efforts against the deal. According to reports, Israel even spied on U.S.-Iran negotiations and then leaked details to Israel affinity organization leaders working against it in the United States...More

2/16/2016
Department of Justice wears many hats in NUMEC Affair: Fighting FOIA, secretly negotiating cleanup payouts and covering for CIA

"...Although a Freedom of Information Act request for the final report on the NUMEC affair was filed with Department of Justice in 2011, DOJ claimed it could not locate any documents. On February 11, 2016 the Department of Justice, without producing any solid evidence, told the US District Court of the District of Columbia to move on, and close down the CIA NUMEC FOIA lawsuit. Presumably, any release of CIA files revealing that NUMEC was a criminal smuggling front from the very start rather than a legitimate business with liabilities that could be legally assumed by successors--would undermine DOJ's efforts to extort millions of dollars from both BWXT and unsuspecting US taxpayers who might otherwise prefer that the government of Israel pay for the Pennsylvania cleanup..." More

2/3/2016
Top Experts Analyze Israel's Influence on America March 18 at the National Press Club

WASHINGTON, FEBRUARY 3, 2016-- The March 18 all-day conference Israel's Influence: Good or Bad for America? at the National Press Club will feature the following experts:

Susan Abulhawa is executive director of Playgrounds for Palestine, author of the bestselling novel Mornings in Jenin, and plaintiff in a lawsuit against the U.S. Treasury over illegal settlement funding flows from U.S. charities.

Kirk J. Beattie is a professor at Simmons College and author of a new book, Congress and the Shaping of the Middle East. The book dissects the enormous power of lobbies, like AIPAC.

Rula Jebreal is an award-winning journalist, author, and foreign policy analyst. See news release.

Maria LaHood is deputy legal director at the Center for Constitutional Rights, where she defends the constitutional rights of Palestinian advocates in the US.  More

 
12/16/2015
Keynote speakers announced for "Israel's Influence: Good or Bad for America?" conference
WASHINGTON, Dec. 16, 2015 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Rula Jebreal is an award-winning journalist, author, and foreign policy analyst. Her first novel, Miral, sold two million copies and was made into a major motion picture. She frequently appears on CNN, HBO and Bloomberg News, and has contributed op-eds to The New York Times, the Washington Post, Foreign Policy, The Guardian, Newsweek, The Nation, and San Jose Mercury News. Jebreal has anchored multiple television shows in both Italy and Egypt, and reports extensively from across the Middle East, Europe, and the U.S., frequently challenging Islamophobic rhetoric and media on coverage of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Jebreal will be discussing why lumping all Muslims into one monolithic, extremist-linked bracket is actually a victory for ISIS, as well as how and why the media abrogates its responsibility to cover all sides of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
montage_IIGBA
Gideon Levy is a journalist for the Israeli newspaper Haaretz, and is widely considered the "dean" of Israeli journalism. His columns about politics, money, how Israel's military occupation is changing Israeli society and about U.S.-Israel relations are widely read and discussed around the world. Video of Levy's presentation at last year's conference has gone viral and received over 200,000 views. Levy will outline what politicians, members of Congress and media elites visiting Israel should know about the situation on the ground--as opposed to what hundreds are told on junkets organized by the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC). More
 
12/03/2015
The Jonathan Pollard Affair: Unanswered Questions Abound

Jonathan Pollard's release from federal prison on November 20 has triggered a flood of superficial stories in the establishment media. Few of them address lingering mysteries or contextualize huge changes in U.S.-Israel relations. Pollard was charged with (PDF) "Gathering or delivering defense information to aid foreign government" in 1986. The spy used his courier status and security clearances as a U.S.-Navy intelligence analyst to deliver a huge volume of U.S. intelligence to Israel from the NSA, CIA and DIA. The Defense Intelligence Agency--Israel's biggest victim--even used the Pollard affair as the case study for a counterintelligence training video.

Yet in court, Pollard expected to be treated with extreme leniency and be merely slapped on the wrist and deported to Israel. In his own words "it was the established policy of the Department of Justice not to prosecute US citizens for espionage activities on behalf of Israel." A huge public relations campaign, some spurred on by former AIPAC Near East Report editor Wolf Blitzer, framed the boundaries of acceptable public debate about Pollard while calling into question aspects of the criminal investigation.

Pollard was therefore shocked to receive a life sentence in 1987 from Judge Aubrey Robinson. This immediately followed a classified memorandum in aid of sentencing from Secretary of Defense Caspar Weinberger that had a huge impact on the judicial decision. Yet three decades later, core questions about conduct of government with huge relevance to Americans remain unaddressed: More Scott Horton Show interview about Pollard.

11/9/2015
"Israel's Influence on America" conference March 18 at the National Press Club
iigba

WASHINGTON, Nov. 9, 2015 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- "Israel's Influence: Good or Bad for America?" is the theme of a daylong conference at the National Press Club in Washington, DC, on March 18, 2016. Expert panelists and keynote speakers will analyze the enormous impact Israel's influence has on Congress, establishment media, academia and other major institutions. They will explore the costs and benefits in terms of foreign aid and covert intelligence, foreign policy, America's regional and global standing, and unbiased news reporting. "Israel's Influence" is co-sponsored by the American Educational Trust, publisher of the Washington Report on Middle East Affairs, and the Institute for Research: Middle Eastern Policy (IRmep). Attendees receive lunch and an invitation to a special attendee-speaker reception.Register online today at http://IsraelsInfluence.org/.

More

 
September 2015
Ask Not What Israel can do for America: Michael Oren's book "Ally"

....Even Michael Oren must know that the American public has grown less infatuated with Israel each passing year. The Internet, alternative media watchdogs and Wikileaks are buttressing American popular will that their country not be drawn into more Middle East conflicts on false pretenses by pro-Israel forces. The secrecy-powered "united front" Oren and many other Israel affinity groups pine for is both bankrupt and simply no longer possible.

In his last pages, Oren finally admits--in what may be the understatement of the century--that the so-called alliance "is not, of course, symmetrical." In his first pages he claims "vocal segments" of the American Jewish community are "vital component of the alliance." Uniting the two provides the book's key unintentional insight. The "special relationship" is not in fact an alliance, because it is all cost and almost no benefit to the U.S. It is rather a corrupt linkage that exists only because of the constant machinations of a small--and declining--subset of Americans who in their zealotry work as hard as Oren to bind America to Israel. Unlike Oren, most never have to finally turn over their U.S. passports, put on a uniform, or move to Israel. As an insider's catalog of the demands and surface mechanics of this "undue influence," Ally is somewhat useful to those well-read enough to distill unintended insights from Oren's pithy anecdotes, soaring rhetoric and stomach-wrenching propaganda. More

09/22/2015
Everyone's kicking AIPAC now that it's down

...Finally, not the mainstream media, but part of the trend. The Institute for Research Middle East Policy has filed a request with the Justice Department to regulate AIPAC as a foreign agent.

According to Grant F. Smith, director of IRmep, the case for reregulating AIPAC as a foreign agent immediately is compelling. AIPAC was designed to supplant the American Zionist Council as the arm of the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs in the United States after the DOJ ordered the AZC to register as a foreign agent. As such, Americans should have full public access to biannual FARA registrations detailing AIPAC's publicity campaigns, lobbying expenditures, funding flows, activities of its offices in Israel and internal consultations with its foreign principals "particularly over such controversial issues as illegal settlements and US foreign aid." More Request for new Attorney General to enforce FARA (PDF)

9/10/2015
Grant F. Smith Discusses Arrest of Mordechai Vanunu on RT International
9/8/2015
CIA releases files about Illegal weapons-grade uranium diversions from US to Israel

WASHINGTON, Sept. 8, 2015 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- The Central Intelligence Agency released 130 pages of reports, memos and other files about the 1960s diversion of weapons-grade uranium to Israel from the Nuclear Materials and Equipment Corporation NUMEC formerly headquartered in Apollo, Pennsylvania. (PDF of CIA files and release statement). The August 31 CIA release came in response to a lawsuit (Lawsuit PDF) filed by the director of the Institute for Research: Middle Eastern Policy (IRmep) on February 13, 2015...

...Today the razed NUMEC facilities sites near Apollo will cost $350 to $500 million to toxic waste cleanup over the next decade according to US Army Corps of Engineers estimates. CIA Tel Aviv Station Chief John Hadden, whose findings are redacted from the new release, publicly characterized NUMEC as "an Israeli operation from the beginning..."

IRmep plans to further court actions to obtain full release of CIA operations files that would allow Apollo residents to sue the Israeli government directly for cleanup costs and massive health-related damages caused by the smuggling front, or have the funds deducted from Israel's annual $3.5 billion package of foreign aid from the United States. (See the IRmep Center for Policy and Law Enforcement for the lawsuit, oral argument transcripts and other legal updates.) More

9/7/2015
CIA Cover-Up Thwarted FBI's Nuclear Diversion Investigations:
Evidence that missing uranium went to Israel withheld since 1968

According to formerly top-secret and secret Central Intelligence Agency files (PDF) released August 31 in response to a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit (PDF), the agencys long retention of key information ultimately stymied two FBI investigations into the 1960s diversion of weapons-grade uranium from a Pennsylvania-based government contractor into the Israeli nuclear weapons program.

The Nuclear Materials and Equipment Corporation (NUMEC) was a nuclear fuel processing company founded by legendary chemist Zalman Mordecai Shapiro and financed by entrepreneur David Luzer Lowenthal. According to the Department of Energy, during Shapiro's reign at NUMEC, the company lost more weapons-grade uranium "337 kilograms after accounting for losses" much of a particularly unique and high enrichment level than any other U.S. facility. Losses only returned to industry norms after Shapiro, who later unsuccessfully tried to get a job working on advanced hydrogen bomb designs, was forced out of NUMEC...

...Unknown to the FBI, every CIA director was complicit in withholding a key clandestine operational finding from investigators. According to a May 11, 1977 report by Shackley, the "CIA has not furnished to the FBI sensitive agent reporting" since the decision was made by Directors Helms, Colby and Bush that this information would not further the investigation of NUMEC but would compromise sources and methods." More Scott Horton Show interview

Courthouse News Service 9/4/2015
Researcher Scoffs at Stonewalled CIA Request

WASHINGTON (CN) - A researcher seeking budget records for intelligence support the CIA gave Israel told a federal judge that the agency is improperly claiming ignorance of its own policy.

Grant Smith, who runs the Institute for Research: Middle Eastern Policy, says he filed a request under the Freedom of Information Act to inspect the CIA's funding for Israel-related intelligence.

The CIA denied the request by claiming it could neither confirm nor deny that such a budget exists, according to a federal complaint Smith filed Wednesday. Smith said he filed the suit after the agency did not respond to his appeal in the time allotted under the law.

The agency's refusal to even acknowledge its support of Israel goes directly counter to public statements President Barack Obama made in August at American University, according to the action.

Smith says Obama touted his administration's "unprecedented" financial commitment to Israel's security through intelligence and military efforts in those remarks.

"We want to know, is it $3 billion a year?" Smith said in an interview Thursday. "Is it $3 million? Has it varied over time?" Israel is the largest recipient of U.S. foreign aid, despite the country's history of spying and the presence of laws that should prevent such assistance to countries with nuclear stockpiles, Smith says in the complaint.

More

08/26/2015
Israeli nukes are finally newsworthy as US gov't both releases and gags info

One of the side effects of the Iran Deal debate is that Israel's nukes are also being discussed. There are signs of pressure on Israeli nukes inside the US media and government.

In this article, Phil Weiss will summarize the recent news, and Grant Smith, the lead investigator of the Institute for Research Middle East Policy, follows with a report on a gag order affecting disclosure of US federal information about the Israeli nuclear program.

Weiss first. More

 
cp July 31, 2015
Leading Bibi's Army in the War for Washington
Let's call it from now on the United States of Israel. Because many times when someone looks at the relations between Israel and the United States, one might ask, who is really the superpower between the two? And those questions become much more valid in the recent days when you see what is going on in Iran.  We are dealing now really with almost questions of sovereignty. We are dealing, needless to say hat no state in the world would have dared to do it, and no statesman in the world. And I will tell you frankly, it's not Israel's fault. Israel is doing whatever it can, it's the one who enables it".

Gideon Levy, Haaretz, speaking in Washington DC, April 10.

Gideon Levy, Israel's most well-known journalist outside of Israel, and the most controversial inside of it, was referring to the royal welcome given to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu by a joint session of the US Congress a month earlier and to his announced plans to pressure the US Congress to kill any deal that might be negotiated with Tehran over its nuclear enrichment program that would leave Iran with any semblance of national sovereignty.

Levy made his remarks at an all-day conference on the Israel lobby at the National Press Club, organized by the Institute for Research/Middle East Policy and the Washington Report for Middle East Affairs which, despite its venue and distinguished cast of speakers, received nary a mention in the nation's mainstream or leading alternative media outside of a commentary by Ralph Nader in CounterPunch remarking on that very fact. More
 
7/27/2015

Poll: Most Americans oppose compensating Israel for Iran nuclear deal

pol
More    Poll Data
 
 
07/07/2015
US Still Won't Confirm Israeli Nukes

Retired Gen. (and former CIA Director) David Petraeus "who despite recent scandals is (according to CNN) still advising the White House” was asked at a recent Aspen Institute event about Israel's nuclear weapons arsenal and replied "I can't comment."

This seems to be part of long-standing U.S. and Israeli government policy not to confirm the existence of Israel's nuclear weapons arsenal. This policy has apparently taken the form of official gag orders on the issue, as Grant F. Smith, director of the Washington, D.C.-based Institute for Research: Middle Eastern Policy, has noted. More

BOAS logo 06/18/2015
Of weapons programs in Iran and Israel, and the need for journalists to report on both

...Similarly, there has been little coverage of documents from 1969 that were declassified a year ago; these documents show that the United States--at that moment in time--was quietly working to prevent Israel from acquiring nuclear weapons and to steer that country towards joining the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT). Instead, Israel offered the United States only an ambiguous description of its plans, saying that Israel would not be the first country to introduce weapons to the Middle East, but pursued nuclear weapons in secret and declined to become a member state of the NPT. Israel still is not a member of the NPT, and its unacknowledged nuclear program angers many countries that are members. In fact, the NPT Review Conference recently collapsed without an agreement on a final document, at least partly because a group of countries wanted to begin a long-promised conference on a weapons of mass destruction-free zone in the Middle East within a set time frame, and the United States and United Kingdom--supporters of Israel, which opposed such a conference--refused to go along.

And it is surprising how little mainstream media coverage there has been about a 1987 Pentagon report, released this spring in response to a Freedom of Information Act request, that confirms that the Pentagon knew many details of Israel's nuclear program in 1987 and promptly covered them up. (A notable and praiseworthy exception to this lack of interest has been The Nation)... More

06/07/2014 IRmep poll about Israeli nuclear weapons discussed on C-SPAN
Former State Department Official: No Doubt Israel has Nukes, No need to Officially Acknowledge
6/8/2015
Poll: Israel's nuclear weapons program should be acknowledged and inspected

Nearly 65 percent of Americans believe Israel's clandestine nuclear weapons program should be officially acknowledged. Almost 55 percent believe the program should be subject to international inspections.

The IRmep poll, with a margin of error of plus or minus 2.4 percent, was fielded June 4-6 by Google Consumer Surveys and received 1,518 responses. The poll may be viewed online at:

http://www.google.com/insights/consumersurveys/view?survey=2mu7fqxjo3sfc&question=1&filter&dataGen=33

In May the US, UK and Canada blocked a United Nations initiative to create a nuclear weapons-free zone in the Middle East in order to avoid any review of Israel, which is not a signatory to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. In contrast, the new poll finds broad popular American support for bringing the region's only existing program out of the shadows.

Israel maintains a "nuclear ambiguity" policy of neither confirming nor denying possession of nuclear weapons. Since the Nixon administration, American presidents have enforced a gag policy in the US. Federal employees are currently banned from discussing Israel's arsenal under threat of losing security clearances, job loss and criminal prosecution. Major news media organizations generally fail to cover Israel's impact on proliferation citing lack of official acknowledgment. In 2009 President Obama refused to answer a direct question about the arsenal. More at Antiwar.com

May 2015
CIA Sued for "Thousands" of Files on Israeli Theft of U.S. Weapons-Grade Uranium

...The federal government not to mention Israel has presumably been content to see NUMEC's diversion secrets bottled up forever. But now the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers will begin a cleanup of NUMEC's waste dump estimated to cost a half-billion dollars, to be paid by American taxpayers. It is this insult to injury that triggered IRmep's second major lawsuit in federal court.

Based largely on research compiled for the book Divert! (available from AET's Middle East Books and More), the Freedom of Information Act lawsuit asks the court to compel release of sufficient classified CIA material on the diversion to allow subsequent lawsuits against the Israeli government for cleanup and heath-related costs.

Although the initial CIA lawsuit may seem like a long shot, late in February IRmep's separate court action against the Department of Defense (DoD) produced a stunning report that officially confirms--for the very first time--the advanced state of Israel's nuclear weapons program" (see Jan./Feb. 2015 Washington Report, p. 28). A major premise of the DoD lawsuit was that U.S. taxpayers were being forced to pay for aid packages to a state that is simply not eligible...  More

04/03/2015
Israel Junkets Pump Disinformation into Congress: AIPAC's AIEF Briefing Book Leaked

...That no AIEF briefing books are publicly available should come as no surprise to the observant. AIEF is not functionally separate from AIPAC, a lobby for the Israeli government ever since it split off from the defunct American Zionist Council in 1962. AIEF is housed in the very same offices as AIPAC , with 66% of its board of directors drawn from AIPAC. (PDF) On annual tax charitable returns, AIEF (which raises $45 million in yearly tax-deductible donations) claims to have no employees. It doesn't need any since according to materials accompanying the briefing book AIPAC employees like the "Grassroots and Missions Director" and "Israel Seminars Assistant" accompany travelers to Israel.

AIEF, like AIPAC, echoes the rhetoric of the Israeli government. Members of Congress on junkets are told by AIEF that "Jerusalem is Israel's largest city not a settlement." There are no longer any final status issues to be negotiated despite UN insistence to the contrary because according to AIEF Israel later incorporated the eastern half of the city and declared the unified Jerusalem to be the capital of Israel." AEIFs "case closed" approach to what the rest of the world considers to be open issues probably did at least prepare junket-attendees for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's election-time declaration that there would be no Palestinian state on his watch.

The AIEF briefing book is full of flattery to Congress, declaring that "Congress has regularly recognized Jerusalem as Israel's capital in various resolutions and law." Yet how representative of America are such "regular" resolutions? More

April 10, 2015 9AM-5PM

The Israel Lobby: Is It Good for the US? Is It Good for Israel? (YouTube playlist)

April 3, 2015
Don't Blame Obama for Data on Israel's Nukes

...ALAS, ALL OF THE SPECULATION is based on falsehoods. Obama had no hand in the release and the report wasn't classified. In January, Federal Court Judge Tanya Chutkan in Washington ordered the Defense Department to release the report by Feb. 12, in response to the FOIA suit by Grant Smith, head of the Institute for Research: Middle Eastern Policy, a small policy-research and education organization highly critical of U.S. policy toward Israel. The timing of the judge's decision was purely coincidental.

Under the law, the U.S. government had to obey the judge absent a written objection from Israel. The Israelis were contacted prior to the release and saw no reason to block it, a senior administration official tells me.
More

04/02/2015
End of Israeli "Nuclear Ambiguity" Good for Peace

An Israeli-conceived, U.S.-enforced farce masquerading as "grand strategy" is finally dead. For years the Israeli government refused to confirm or deny its nuclear weapons program. The February release of the Israeli section of the Defense Department-commissioned report "Critical Technology Assessment in Israel and Nation Nations" (PDF) killed off the policy while setting off an Internet conflagration last week (the most vicious unfolding over Twitter). At one side of the political spectrum, the document's release was evidence of "a shocking breach" by the Obama administration and betrayal of Israel by some media outlets for even reporting it. At the other it revealed a "highly successful partnership of American and military science" despite zero evidence the U.S. intended such "Atoms for Peace" gifts as Israel's Soreq nuclear reactor to be used for anything but peaceful purposes.

The five tragedies of "ambiguity" and benefits to be gained by its demise are only slowly emerging from the rubble.

1. Ambiguity was premised on presidential fear of the Israel lobby. The history of so-called "ambiguity" is sordid, which is why it was classified for decades. Until the very end, JFK waged a two-front battle against Israel going nuclear and the undue influence of the Israel lobby. Both the LBJ and Nixon administrations considered withholding conventional military aid in order to keep Israel from going nuclear. In the end, fear of Israel's US lobby, rather than any legitimate US national security concern, was the linchpin of "ambiguity." As recently declassified administration papers put it, fears of a "Zionist campaign to try to undermine" Nixon encouraged him to sign America on.
More

03/28/2015
Israel allowed for the release of a document detailing past nuclear weapons work

Last month, the United States released documentation from 1987 of its assessment of Israel's nuclear weapons capabilities at the time, required to do so by law after receiving a request filed under the Freedom of Information Act.

The document, formally titled "Critical Technological Assessment in Israel and NATO Nations," was written by Leading Technologies Incorporated for the Institute for Defense Analyses, and commissioned by the Department of Defense. Its contents are based on visits by US experts, in coordination with the US embassy in Tel Aviv and with the guidance of the Pentagon, to various facilities and laboratories across Israel.

While Israel has never publicly declared itself a nuclear weapons state, its arsenal is widely acknowledged by the international community. Israel is not a signatory of the UN Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.

This document, however, summarizes in detail Washington's understanding of the nature and purpose of that program as it stood in the 1980s.

3/25/2015
Revealing Israel's Nuclear Secrets: The Pentagon Declassifies a Surprising 1987 Report

In early February, the Pentagon declassified a 386-page report from 1987, exposing for the first time ever the actual depth of top-secret military cooperation between the United States and Israel--including, amazingly, information about Israel's unacknowledged nuclear program.

In view of the caustic tension that has increased lately between Washington and Jerusalem, the timing of the publication's declassification, after a long legal process, might raise a few eyebrows. I have some knowledge about the build-up process of Israel's nuclear capacity and after reading the report in question I must express my astonishment: I have never seen an official American document disclosing such extensive revelation on subjects that until now were regarded by both administrations as unspeakable secrets. More

03/20/2015
It's Official: The Pentagon Finally Admitted That Israel Has Nuclear Weapons, Too

While the Washington press corps obsessed over Hillary Clinton's emails at the State Department, reporters were missing a far more important story about government secrets. After five decades of pretending otherwise, the Pentagon has reluctantly confirmed that Israel does indeed possess nuclear bombs, as well as awesome weapons technology similar to America's.

Early last month the Department of Defense released a secret report done in 1987 by the Pentagon funded Institute for Defense Analysis that essentially confirms the existence of Israel's nukes. DOD was responding to a Freedom of Information lawsuit filed by Grant Smith, an investigative reporter and author who heads the Institute for Research: Middle East Policy. Smith said he thinks this is the first time the US government has ever provided official recognition of the longstanding reality.
More

02/25/2015
Israel Should Pay for Weapons-Grade Uranium Smuggling Site Cleanup in PA- IRmep Lawsuit
A federal lawsuit seeks disclosure of thousands of Central Intelligence Agency files revealing why the CIA is convinced that Israel stole enough U.S. government-owned weapons-grade uranium in the 1960's to manufacture over a dozen atomic weapons.

The 147-page complaint (PDF) filed in DC's U.S. District Court contains exhibits about how U.S. weapons-grade uranium was illegally diverted from the now-defunct Nuclear Materials and Equipment Corporation (NUMEC) in Apollo, Pennsylvania into the clandestine Israeli nuclear weapons development program. The CIA WASHINGTON, Feb. 25, 2015 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- A federal lawsuit seeks disclosure of thousands of Central Intelligence Agency files revealing why the CIA is convinced that Israel stole enough U.S. government-owned weapons-grade uranium in the 1960's to manufacture over a dozen atomic weapons.

The 147-page complaint (PDF) filed in DC's U.S. District Court contains exhibits about how U.S. weapons-grade uranium was illegally diverted from the now-defunct Nuclear Materials and Equipment Corporation (NUMEC) in Apollo, Pennsylvania into the clandestine Israeli nuclear weapons development program. The CIA for decades has blocked researcher Freedom of Information Act access to its core files on the NUMEC diversion.

The lawsuit against CIA comes at the conclusion of IRmep's courtroom victory this month against the U.S. Department of Defense to release a report (PDF) on the Israeli H-bomb development program, laser enrichment of weapons-grade material and 1987 status of its nuclear weapons production sites. More Lawsuit (PDF)
 
Courthouse News Service 2/23/2015
CIA Documents Sought on 1960's Transfer of Enriched Uranium From U.S. to Israel
In the depths of the Cold War, a legendary Israeli spy made a visit to a Pennsylvania plant that processed government-supplied U-235 uranium into fuel for the U.S. Navy. Around the same time, hundreds of kilograms of uranium disappeared from the plant.

Traces of uranium were found outside Israel's Dimona nuclear facility in the 1960's and later revealed to carry the unique signature of uranium from the Philadephia [Apollo] plant.

The mystery of how the uranium traveled from one place to the other is what a Washington-based researcher is trying to unravel through a federal court complaint filed Friday.

The complaint asks for CIA files regarding "the unlawful diversion of U.S. government-owned weapons-grade uranium from the Nuclear Materials and Equipment Corporation (NUMEC) into the clandestine Israeli nuclear weapons program."

Filed by Grant Smith, who directs the Washington D.C. based Institute for Research: Middle Eastern Policy, the complaint follows Smith's victory earlier this month winning release of a 1967 [1987] Defense Department report titled "Critical Technology Assessment in Israel and NATO Countries." More
New details on Israel's nuclear weapons, Netanyahu's role in krytron smuggling
Dennis Bernstein of Flashpoints on Pacifica radio interviews Grant F. Smith on the newly released report "Critical Technology Assessment in Israel and NATO Nations."  Interview follows the Corries and Gareth Porter on Iran's civilian nuclear program.
Download MP3
02/14/2015
US Confirmed Existence of Israeli H-Bomb Program in 1987

The 1987 report's confirmation of Israel's advanced nuclear weapons program should have immediately triggered a cutoff in all U.S. aid to Israel under the Symington and Glenn Amendments to the US Foreign Assistance Act of 1961. Although 100 copies of the tightly-controlled report were apparently published, none seem to have made their way into the office of the President in time to cut off any of the $82 billion in aid subsequently delivered to Israel--or publicly issue the required waivers. This is done in the case of other countries with weapons programs operating outside the Nuclear Non-Proliferation regime such as Pakistan.

Similarly, the US did not move to curb as required Israel's weapons-related work using the Soreq reactor, lab and testing facilities--provided by US taxpayers in the late 1950's under Eisenhower's Atoms for Peace Program under the provision they not be used for weapons programs. More 

Released report

Partial court docket

Courthouse News Service 2/12/2015
DOD Report Details Israel's Quest for Hydrogen Bomb

In the midst of controversy over the Israeli prime minister's plans to address Congress next month, a researcher has won the release of a decades-old Defense Department report detailing the U.S. government's extensive help to Israel in that nation's development of a nuclear bomb.

"I am struck by the degree of cooperation on specialized war making devices between Israel and the US," said Roger Mattson, a former member of the Atomic Energy Commission technical staff.

The 1987 report, "Critical Technology Assessment in Israel and NATO Nations," compares the key Israeli facilities developing nuclear weapons to Los Alamos and Oak Ridge National Laboratories, the principal U.S. laboratories that developed the bomb for the United States.

The tightly held report notes that the Israelis are "developing the kind of codes which will enable them to make hydrogen bombs. That is, codes which detail fission and fusion processes on a microscopic and macroscopic level."

The release comes after Grant Smith, director of the Washington, D.C.-based Institute for Research: Middle Eastern Policy filed filed a FOIA request last year and followed with a lawsuit in September seeking to compel release of the report. More

January/February 2015
Lawsuit Challenges U.S. "Ambiguity" Toward Israel's Nuclear Arsenal

Congress has never debated or held open hearings on Israel's nuclear weapons program. A 2008 congressional report on nuclear proliferation excludes Israel and simply does "not take a position on the existence of Israeli nuclear weapons." The penalties for lower level government officials making even passing references to Israel as a nuclear weapons state are swift and harsh. Los Alamos National Laboratory nuclear analyst James Doyle wrote candidly about Israel's nuclear weapons for a magazine in 2013. After a congressional staffer read the article, which had passed a classification review, it was referred to classification officials for a second review. Doyle's pay was then cut, his home computer searched, and he was fired.

Two gag rules are known to exist as a result of Doyle's unsuccessful appeals to get his job back. GEN-16 is a "no-comment" policy on "classified information in the public domain" (which President Obama apparently invoked). The other is "DOE Classification Bulletin WPN-136 on Foreign Nuclear Capabilities," which is secret but presumably forbids publicly stating that Israel is a nuclear power.

While it is difficult to deny that the "ambiguity" muzzle has greatly benefited Israel and its U.S. lobby, it is an ongoing and costly disaster for American taxpayers. According to a September Google Consumer Survey, 64 percent of Americans believe Israel has nuclear weapons, while 6 in 10 think U.S. foreign aid to Israel is "too much..." Yet because it is official U.S. policy to pretend the existence of Israel's arsenal is unknown, a $3 billion-plus taxpayer giveaway of top-shelf American military aid, cash and intelligence support is delivered annually, despite Israel having long possessed the ultimate military deterrent. And researchers and historians have long been stymied by the withholding of key U.S. government documents locked securely away from the public in National Archives and Records Administration vaults. More

02/04/2015
Obama, what about Israel's nuclear arsenal?

It is disappointing, if not disturbing, that US President Barack Obama avoided airing any views about the decades-long Palestinian-Israeli conflict in an hour-long interview about US foreign policy issues with CNN's much-respected anchorman Fareed Zakaria.

One possible explanation is that Obama had told Zakaria that he did not want to discuss the issue, or Zakaria thought it wiser not to raise the subject since US-Israeli relations have hit rock bottom. Whatever the case, the fact remains that the American president has avoided the issue ever since he and his Secretary of State, John Kerry, failed to bring the two parties any closer, which prompted the Palestinians to successfully approach the United Nations. The obvious reason in the view of many Palestinians is that Israel has strong support within the American establishment.

But a Washington-based think-tank, the Institute for Research: Middle Eastern Policy (IRmep) recently painted a different, and more appealing, picture. A "special report" written by its director, Grant F. Smith, focused on a lawsuit that it has filed challenging "US ambiguity towards Israel's nuclear arsenal". More

01/28/2015
Poll: Netanyahu should be investigated for nuclear weapons tech smuggling before US visit
A majority of Americans believe Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu should be investigated by the FBI for nuclear weapons technology smuggling before being allowed to enter the United States according to a new poll. Poll Results  News Radio Interview

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