"VTR" <vexjorge@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote in message
news:WJqdnTc0M4iokbbVnZ2dnUVZ_qbinZ2d@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> Israel’s 60 years of nuclear proliferation
> By Jerry Mazza
>
>
>
> May 13, 2008, 00:19
>
> Perhaps it began before 1948, when Israel and Palestine were partitioned
> by the UN into two
> separate but equal states. Perhaps the nuclear notion occurred to David
> Ben-Gurion and friends
> in 1945, as they observed two atomic bombs dropped by the US on the
Empire
> of Japan (mostly
> civilian populations) to end WW II. In fact, the nuclear solution
brought
> about an immediate
> surrender.
>
> In 1948, many highly-skilled Jewish scientists who came to Palestine
> during the 1930s and
> 1940s, in particular Dr. Ernst David Bergman, who became the director of
> the Israeli Atomic
> Energy Commission and founder of his new nation’s efforts to develop
> nuclear weapons, joined in
> sup****t of Ben-Gurion. Those scientists scoured the Negev Desert for
> uranium deposits on orders
> from the Israeli Ministry of Defense. By 1950, low-grade deposits near
> Beersheba and Sidon were
> found, and their discoverers worked on a low power system of heavy water
> production.
>
> After all, Israel, having created itself as a Jewish island in a sea of
> angry Arabs, must have
> been impressed by the US bombs. Here was a way for David to slay
Goliath,
> a nuclear slingshot,
> so powerful that it dared any new Holocaust seekers to attempt another.
> That nuclear stone,
> properly aimed, powered and fired, would neutralize the would-be
attackers
> in their own
> Holocaust, if necessary Thus began the tyranny of the rogue nuclear
power
> while the Goliaths of
> America and Russia were nuclear arming themselves to the teeth.
>
> In fact, as US Army Lt. Col. Warner D. Farr, retired, tells us of this
in
> his must-read 27-page
> history of Israel’s Nuclear Weapons -- The Third Temple’s Holy of
Holies,
> “As payment for
> Israeli participation in the Suez Crisis of 1956, France provided
nuclear
> expertise and
> constructed a reactor complex for Israel at Dimona (Beersheba) capable
of
> large-scale plutonium
> production and reprocessing. The United States discovered the facility
in
> 1958 and it was a
> subject of continual discussions between American presidents and Israeli
> prime ministers.” A
> bit of war guilt for the Nazi and Vichy governments was mixed in as
well.
>
> As Farr re****ts, “Israel used delay and deception to at first keep the
> United States at bay,
> and later used the nuclear option as a bargaining chip for a consistent
> American conventional
> arms supply. After French disengagement in the early 1960s, Israel
> progressed on its own,
> including through several covert operations, to project completion.
Before
> the 1967 Six-Day
> War, they felt their nuclear facility threatened and re****tedly
assembled
> several nuclear
> devices. By the 1973 Yom Kippur War, Israel had a number of
sophisticated
> nuclear bombs,
> deployed them, and considered using them. The Arabs may have limited
their
> war aims because of
> their knowledge of the Israeli Nuclear weapons. . . ." And so it goes.
>
> With one of the world’s largest nuclear facilities, the actual reactor
> nested in a deeply set
> basement, not available for “nuclear opacity,” Israel was on its way to
> becoming one of the
> world’s larger nuclear powers and skirting observation. Israel
leader****p
> must have breathed a
> sigh of relief at this Pandora’s Box gifted them, as if from heaven. Dr.
> Bergmann in fact
> continued to work closely with the newly created Weizman Institute of
> Science from 1949 on. In
> fact, they would contribute to France’s development of nuclear weapons,
as
> well, to help it
> catch up with the US, USSR, UK, and Canada.
>
> Of course, by 1958, the Dimona plant, alternately called a manganese
> and/or textile plant, was
> photographed by US U-2 spy planes and identified as a likely site of a
> reactor complex. The
> French, swarming like ants about the complex, were hard to hide as well
in
> Beersheba, so much
> so that Charles DeGaulle, France’s president, wanted a promise from
Israel
> not to make nuclear
> weapons, and to announce the “project” to the world. Before Israel did
> that, they were
> preempted by the US State Department announcing the secret plant. Even
the
> NY Times announced
> on December 21, 1960 that Ben-Gurion was building a 24-megawatt reactor
> “for peaceful
> purposes.” Sure it was.
>
> This led to a strain in relations between the two nations, with
> inspections beginning in 1962
> until 1969. In fact, the US inspectors only saw the buildings above
> ground, not the many levels
> underground. The above ground areas had simulated control rooms. Access
to
> the underground
> plutonium reprocessing plant was kept so secret that elevator entrances
to
> it were actually
> bricked over, a highly conscious deception that would cause a country
like
> Iran today a great
> deal of flak, to say the least. In fact, Ben-Gurion continued to talk
> about peaceful uses of
> the plant as it sunk deeper into making nuclear weapons. This as Israel
> dodged the 50’s and
> 60’s NATO and US nuclear umbrella.
>
> The French continued to partner, hand in hand, sharing even nuclear
tests
> and data, the French
> re****tedly re****pping reprocessed plutonium back to Israel as payback
for
> scientific assistance.
>
> 1963-1973, project completion
>
> Cutting through this bizarre web (all of which you should read in Farr’s
> article), the French
> continued work with Israel at Dimona, the sole purpose being to use the
> underground processing
> plant for one use, and one use only, nuclear weapons. In fact, for
> accidentally passing into
> Dimona’s airspace, Israel shot down one of its own Mirage fighters
during
> the Six-Day War and a
> Libyan airliner in 1973, with 104 passengers on board, when it strayed
> over the Sinai. Extra
> heavy water to run the reactor at a higher rate was provided not only by
> France, but Norway,
> while the US provided the uranium for “Operation Plumbat.”
>
> After the '67 war, France cut off uranium supplies to Israel; supplies
had
> come from former
> French colonies, Gabon, the infamous Niger (as in yellowcake), and the
> Central African
> Republic. Small quantities of uranium came from Israel’s Negev phosphate
> mines, while it bought
> quantities from Argentina and South Africa. The West Germans had a front
> company for high seas
> transfer, which delivered 200 tons of yellowcake, delivered by the
> smugglers in 560 sealed oil
> drums labeled “Plumbat,” which means lead. How clever. The complicity of
> these nations remained
> underground as well, so as not anger the Soviets and Arabs. MOSSAD info
on
> former Nazi then
> German officials helped with motivation.
>
> The first extraction of plutonium, under Prime Minister Levi Eshkol,
> occurred in 1965.
> Unfortunately by that time, the Egyptian Air Force had overflown Dimona
> and most probably
> recognized the presence of a nuclear reactor. Additionally, 50 American
> HAWK anti-aircraft
> missiles half-ringed the plant. Yet Israel consider Egyptian overflights
> of May 16, 1967, as
> possible pre-strike reconnaissance, one source listing the flights as
trip
> wires that drove
> Israel to war. Unfortunately, if one has powerful weapons the impulse is
> to use or threaten to
> use them, even if cause needs to be fabricated. Fortunately, Nasser
vetoed
> an Egyptian military
> plan to attack Dimona at the start of any war. Israel put together two
> nuclear bombs and 10
> days later went to war. The nuclear option was being played out.
>
> And so it went, through the 60s. Lyndon Johnson was more willing than
John
> Kennedy to look the
> other way, even as Israel pressed him for A-4E Skyhawks first and F-4E
> Phantoms later, with an
> agreement not to use them to deliver nuclear weapons. Sure. The F-4s
were
> delivered on
> September 5, 1969, with their nuclear capable hardware intact. So it
goes.
> Israel and the world
> dig themselves deeper into a nuclear hole. See the Farr article for
> complete details. The next
> section, from 1974-1999, is called Bringing the Bomb up the Basement
> Stairs, that is into
> artillery pieces to fire nuclear shells.
>
> By 1976, even the CIA believed that the Israelis were using plutonium
from
> Dimona and had 10 to
> 20 nuclear weapons available. In 1985, whistleblower Mordechai Vanunu
> re****ted the number of
> nuclear fission bombs at 200 or more, with boosted devices, neutron
bombs,
> F-16 deliverable
> warheads and Jericho warheads. “The Vanunu photos show a sophistication
> that inferred to the
> requirement for testing,” comments Farr.
>
> Indian Ocean tests?
>
> On September 22, 1979, a bright familiar flash in the south Indian Ocean
> was seen by an
> American satellite. It was believed to be a South Africa-Israel joint
> nuclear test. It was, as
> Farr re****ts, “according to some, the third test of a neutron bomb. The
> first two were hidden
> in clouds to fool the satellite and the third was an accident -- the
> weather cleared.” Though
> experts differ on these tests, other writers re****t that scientists at
Los
> Alamos National
> Laboratory believed it to have been a nuclear explosion. This as a
> presidential panel decided
> otherwise.
>
> Controversy over possible nuclear testing continues until this day. In
> June 1998, Farr re****ts,
> “a Member of the Knesset accused the government of an underground test
> near Eilat on May 28,
> 1998. Egyptian ‘nuclear experts’ have made similar charges. The Israeli
> government hotly denied
> the claims.”
>
> In addition, the Israelis have been interested in American nuclear
weapons
> development data,
> especially from US intelligence. Farr tells us, “American-born Israeli
spy
> Jonathan Pollard
> obtained satellite-imaging data of the Soviet Union, allowing Israel to
> target accurately
> Soviet Cities [after discovering they, Israel, were on a Soviet target
> list]. This showed
> Israel’s intention to use its nuclear arsenal as a deterrent political
> lever, or retaliatory
> capability against the Soviet Union itself.
>
> “Israel also used American satellite imagery to plan the 7 June 1981
> attack on the Tammuz-1
> reactor at Osiraq, Iraq. This daring attack, carried out by eight F-16’s
> accompanied by six
> F-15’s punched a hole in the concrete reactor dome before the reactor
> began operation (and just
> days before an Israeli election) . . . The blasts shred the reactor and
> blew out the dome
> foundations, causing it to collapse on the rubble. This was the first
> attack on a nuclear
> reactor [Itals mine].” So Israel, US, Russia, France, et al, where do we
> go from here?
>
> Perhaps to Gordon Thomas, re****ting at Globe Intel in his article,
Mossad
> and the Russian Mafia
> Plutonium Connection, 11/21/03. Here is a sample. You can read the rest
.
> . .
> <>“Scientists at the European Trans-Uranium Institute at Karlsruhe in
> Germany, tracking the
> movements of all fissionable material from the former Soviet Union's
> nuclear arsenal, have
> raised suspicions that Mossad has purchased some of the material to
> allegedly stop it falling
> into the hands of Islamic and other terror groups.
>
> “But there is also the real possibility that Israel has gone into the
> nuclear black market to
> buy fissionable material to bolster its own huge nuclear arsenal. Israel
> already has one of the
> world's largest arsenals -- more than capable of decimating all its Arab
> neighbors. Its 200
> nuclear bombs and missiles are stockpiled in the Negev desert.
>
> “The suspicion that Israel has also started to buy material stolen from
> the former Soviet Union
> surfaced a year ago when a quantity of Uranium-235 was found in the
Paris
> apartment of three
> criminals known to broker arms deals with terror groups like al-Qaeda. .
.
> ."
>
> So, now we have a Wild East situation, with Israel purchasing nuclear
> material supposedly to
> stop it from falling into the hands of Al-Qaeda. It would seem said
> material is no safer in
> Israel’s hands than in those of the fictional Al-Qaeda, a CIA brand name
> for terror, originally
> created, funded, and armed to fight the Russians in 1979 in Afghanistan.
> Its name was used
> again in 2001 to describe the patsies for 9/11, those 19 Muslim
characters
> whose presence on
> the four ill-fated airliners has never been fully validated. This brings
> us full circle to
> Israel’s own participation in 9/11, a story for another day, but a very
> real story.
>
> Bottom line
>
> I have not written this article to condemn Israel on its 60th
anniversary
> as a quasi-legal
> state, quasi to question the UN’s legitimacy to create it, and quasi for
> Israel’s subsequent
> actions to ingest and destroy the Palestinians. My aim is to point out
> Israel’s own hypocrisy
> regarding Iran’s possible possession of nuclear capability not just for
> peacetime power. Beyond
> the Cold War, it is Israel that has historically been edging us into a
> worldwide nuclear
> conflagration; and doing so since 2001 with the hegemonic boobs
presently
> running the USA and
> sup****ting Israel’s misguided efforts with billions of dollars of aid
for
> arms in the hope that
> it will keep the Arab world intimidated and give us its oil.
>
> I also understand the motivation of the Israeli founders in seeking a
> nuclear option as a
> deterrent to another Holocaust. But they have created now what Seymour
> Hirsch noted as “The
> Samson Option,” which is to bring down the whole world on our heads to
> prevent what seems a
> self-fulfilling prophecy of Holocaust.
>
> As a rogue nation, under its own impetus, Israel should invoke its
> Talmudic and biblical
> conscience, take a breath, and rethink where they are, who they are,
what
> they are doing, and
> to whom. The survival of Israel’s Zionist State of Mind should not be
> contingent on the
> potential destruction of the world. That is as simply, as
compassionately,
> as reasonably as I
> can state it. After my voice, will come voices far more strident and
ugly,
> as you can imagine.
>
> Trust me. Put aside your arms and put aside your bunker mentality to
talk
> peacefully.
> Jerry Mazza is a freelance writer living in New York.
|
