July 29, 2015

Originally published in the Jerusalem Post

As the world’s largest kosher food certification agency, we at the Orthodox Union know a few things about inspection programs. Our “OU” logo is on nearly one million food products made in over ninety countries, and some age old Jewish rules about kosher supervision are relevant to the current debate over the proposed Iran Nuclear Deal.

Earlier this year, President Obama said the negotiations with Iran were premised on the notion that we shouldn’t trust Iran and that a deal must provide “vigorous, unprecedented inspections so we know at every point along their nuclear chain exactly what they’re doing…for twenty years…and…even if they wanted to cheat…we would have insights into their program we’ve never had before.” In April, Secretary of Energy Moniz, one of the Deal’s lead negotiators, told Bloomberg News that to assure of this “we expect to have anytime, anywhere access” to sites where Iran might conduct nuclear program activities.

Now that the Deal has been concluded, we see that its inspection regime falls short of the benchmarks previously stated by the President and his team. While IAEA inspectors will have access to known nuclear sites in Iran, they must request access to Iranian military or other suspected sites, and Iran can delay such access for at least 24 days — leaving plenty of space for cheating and time for it to be concealed once suspected. Here is where the lessons from kosher laws are instructive.

Click here to read the full op-ed in the Jerusalem Post.