WASHINGTON (CN) – With billions in pending aid payments to Israel, the government and a researcher are at loggerheads about a gag order that keeps U.S. officials from releasing any information about Israel’s nuclear weapons program.
Israel’s nuclear program is one of the country’s worst kept secrets, and one that successive U.S. presidents since Gerald Ford have avoided publicly acknowledging.
Grant Smith, director of the Institute for Research: Middle East Policy, complained in a federal complaint this summer that money Israel receives from the United States violates a long-standing ban on giving foreign aid to clandestine nuclear powers. But the Department of Justice said in a Dec. 12 opposition brief that Smith lacks evidence and standing.
“As an initial matter, plaintiff has not suffered any ‘particularized’ injury stemming from the government’s provision of foreign aid to Israel,” the brief states.
Smith fought back in a reply brief on Dec. 18, revisiting his argument that the combination of improper government classification and threatened prosecution creates a de facto gag order.
By creating a policy of “willful ignorance,” Smith says the government is muting his efforts to tell the public how Israel’s nuclear program destabilizes the Middle East. More