The first JINSA Young Leadership Council (YLC) event of 2013 took place the evening of February 21. A cocktail reception was followed by a compelling discussion of Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood led by Eric Trager, the Next Generation Fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. JINSA YLC members were given a firsthand perspective of the Islamist organization and Egypt's revolution as an ongoing struggle against western influence and values.
JINSA held its 2012 Spring Board Meeting on June 3-4 in Washington, DC. Highlights of the meeting included a briefing by Major General Gadi Shamni, the Israel Defense and Armed Forces Attaché to the United States & Canada. JINSA's Board also spent a day at the Pentagon as guests of the U.S. Special Operations Command.
On February 22, 2012, Farid Ghadry, co-founder of The Reform Party of Syria, briefed JINSA members via conference call on the situation in Syria. Mr. Ghadry discussed a post-Assad Syria including the role of Islamists in the civil war, prospects for sectarian violence, and anticipated changes in Syrian foreign policy.
On February 1, the JINSA New York Cabinet hosted Navy SEAL Leif Babin, who recently left active duty. Babin spent 13 years on active duty with the U.S. Navy, including nine years in SEAL Teams. He deployed three times to Iraq (2004, 2006, 2009-10) and supported forces deployed to Afghanistan and elsewhere.
On February 2, the JINSA Los Angeles Cabinet kicked off its 2012 programming with a briefing by Bret Stephens of the Wall Street Journal. Dubbing 2012 “the year of decision,” Mr. Stephens discussed the rise of Islamism and Iran’s quest for nuclear weapons against the backdrop of a weakening West.
