Israel´s Nuclear Weapons
Facts on the Jewish Threat against World Peace
Your gates will remain open at all times; they will not be shut during the day or at night, so that the wealth of nations may be delivered, with their kings leading the way. Indeed, nations or kingdoms that do not serve you will perish; such nations will be totally destroyed."
"We possess several hundred atomic warheads and rockets and can launch them at targets in all directions, perhaps even at Rome. Most European capitals are targets for our air force. Let me quote General Moshe Dayan: 'Israel must be like a mad dog, too dangerous to bother.' I consider it all hopeless at this point. We shall have to try to prevent things from coming to that, if at all possible. Our armed forces, however, are not the thirtieth strongest in the world, but rather the second or third. We have the capability to take the world down with us. And I can assure you that that will happen before Israel goes under."
- Martin van Creveld, Israeli professor of military history at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem. In an interview in the Dutch weekly magazine: Elsevier, 2002, no. 17, p. 52-53.Photographic evidence of Israel´s nuclear arms
Facts:
The Dimona facilitesZionist strategies - threatening the use of nuclear weapons
Inspecting Israel´s nuclear program
Appendix:
A short essay on the history of Israel's Nuclear Weapons Program
New Reports of Israeli-South African Nuclear Collaboration
Introduction
- THE NEW YORK TIMES on Oct. 20, 1991.
The Zionist state of Israel possesses the largest and most sophisticated arsenal outside of the five declared nuclear powers. Israel has never officially admitted to possessing nuclear weapons, but abundant information is available showing that the capability exists.
- A short essay on the history of Israel's nuclear weapons program
- April 1997 revelations about Israeli-South African nuclear collaboration
While Zionist infiltrated and controlled medias in the West are waging propaganda campaigns portraying a Muslim nuclear threat against the world, publishing factless and biased articles and programs on "dirty bombs", and fantastic figures on alleged Iraqi and Iranian nuclear weaponry and missiles, the very same medias are downplaying - silencing - the real facts on the racist Zionist state of Israel, its weapons programs and the persistent nuclear threat that state poses against global peace.
Israel´s possessions of these weapons constitute a major threat. Contrary to the propaganda spread by Israel´s apologizers, these weapons are primarily not intended as a last resort weapon to save Israel in case of a catastrophic military outcome in a future clash with it´s enemies, but are weapons which already today are used as means of nuclear extortion - blackmail - against the rest of the world.
The Zionist leadership doesn´t have of any moral objections against using this type of weaponry if it would benefit the Zionist state in a strategic/military way. Just the same as the use of nuclear weapons by the U.S. in WW II was not a last minute resort for the U.S. military in August 1945 but a weapon used by the already winning power to bring the Japanese people to complete submission, to comply to unconditional capitulation.
Killing of millions of the enemy isn´t something that worries the minds of Zionist leadership as their anti-humantarian ideology teaches them that they are "the chosen people", the master race - an ideology where the rest of the world are "goyim", expendable sub-humans, i.e. non-Jews - to which the Jewish bible prophecises complete destruction if they resist the Jewish God´s promise of complete Jewish domination.
As we will show Israel´s possession of doomsday nuclear arms are a well known fact among intelligence and nuclear research circles.
The fact that a majority of the public in the West are not aware of the Zionist nuclear threat indicates the present-day impact of Zionist media influence, and it´s success in keeping the general public blindfolded and misguided.
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Photographic evidence
The Dimona facility in occupied Palestine is the main centre for Israel´s nuclear research and production of nuclear arms.
During the years a number of photographs from satellites above have appeared that reveal the facilities real intentions.
1971 photos
This is an image of the Dimona facility taken by a U.S. Corona spy satellite in 1971 (Mission 1115-2, 29 September 1971, Frame: 52, 53). It is physically impossible to take a similar image within the atmosphere as Israel jealously protects the airspace above Dimona. In the 1960s an Israeli Airforce Mirage was shot down when it accidentally ventured too close to Dimona.
A closeup of the same Corona frames.
Click on image for close-upSide-by-side comparison of a Corona image and the much lower resolution SPOT commercial imaging satellite. The SPOT image lables the Dimona nuclear reactor dome and Machon 2 which houses the plutonium separation plant.
Satellite images courtesy John Pike at the Federation of American Scientists, see the FAS Intelligence Resource Program page. The SPOT Image was acquired and exploited by Peter Zimmerman.
New Photos Reveal Israeli Nuclear Capacity
The Dimona reactorNew photographs of Israel's Dimona nuclear reactor published by the Federation of American Scientists (FAS) in 2000 have confirmed that Israel has the capacity to produce 100-200 nuclear warheads.
The high-resolution photos, taken on 4 July 2000, by the Space Imaging Corporation's IKONOS satellite on behalf of the Federation of American Scientists (FAS), are shown on the Web site of the FAS, and provides important clues as to the amount of plutonium and enriched uranium the Dimona reactor can produce, which in turn can be used to estimate the possible size of Israel's nuclear arsenal.
The FAS site exhibits more than seven overview images of the Dimona complex and the surrounding locations, one of which is believed to be the burial ground of low-level radioactive nuclear waste.
"Based on plausible upper and lower bounds of the operating practices at the reactor, Israel could have produced enough plutonium for at least 100 nuclear weapons, but probably not significantly more than 200 weapons," said the FAS report.
"This again confirms Israel's possession of nuclear weapons," Fawzi Hammad, former head of the Egyptian Atomic Energy Authority, told the Egyptian Al-Ahram Weekly (Issue No. 497, 31 August - 6 September 2000). "The most significant finding is that the data confirms that Israel has 200 nuclear warheads, proving that Dimona has a big inventory, even bigger than what some of the big powers may possess," Hammad said.
Apart from commentaries in the Arab and Muslim world the new revelations passed silently in the press of the West.
A satellite photo of Dimona. Red squares indicate the development of the nuclear reactor over the past 30 years.The new IKONOS images were compared to other pictures of the nuclear complex taken by the above mentioned U.S. reconnaissance satellite in 1971. The latest images show that modest changes have taken place in the central part of the complex over the past 30 years, but dozens of smaller buildings were built during the same period.
The satellite photos also indicate a large area of excavation, which the FAS said may hide an extensive underground reprocessing facility.
The photos also reveal a nearby complex which had been built within the last fifteen years, possibly for defence-related purposes, such as deployment of the Arrow-2 anti-ballistic missile system.
Although the Dimona site already is defended by a battery of Hawk anti-aircraft missiles, they are not considered to be a reliable defence against this threat.
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Other Evidence
The most specific and detailed information to be made public about Israel´s nuclear program came from a former mid-level nuclear technician named Mordechai Vanunu. Vanunu had worked at the Machon 2 facility at Dimona, where plutonium is produced and bomb components fabricated, for 9 years before his increasing involvement in left wing pro-Palestinian politics led to his dismissal in 1986. Due to lax internal security, prior to his departure he managed to take about 60 photographs covering nearly every part of Machon 2 at Dimona.
After travelling around the world for several months Vanunu converted to Christianity in Australia and thereafter decided to make public his knowledge of Israel's nuclear weapons capability. He made contact with the London Sunday Times which flew him to London and began preparing an exclusive news story. Unfortunately for Vanunu, the Israeli government had found out about his activities and the Zionist´s Mossad staged a kidnapping that brought him back to Israel to stand trial for "treason". This earned him a 18-year jail sentence which he is still serving.
"There's a well-established body of literature, much of it by Israeli experts, on the Israeli nuclear program. Pretending it doesn't exist really doesn't help regional stability at this point."
- Anthony Cordesman, Georgetown University professor in Voice of America, May 5th, 2000, believes it's long past time that Israel be made to account for its own nuclear program.
The November 1994 issue of Jane's Intelligence Review published an article by acclaimed American military writer Harold Hough, that estimated that Israel at that point possessed 200 nuclear weapons, 50 of which could be delivered by medium-range missiles.
Hough´s article “Israel’s Nuclear Infrastructure”, also showed that Israel had built several facilities which provided it with the capability to launch tactical nuclear strikes against targets in Libya, Iraq, Iran and Saudi Arabia.
The nuclear weapons included gravity bombs, artillery shells, landmines, special demolition devices and missiles, Hough wrote. He based his estimates on space-based surveillance photos taken over Israel over a five-year period and commercially available from satellite imagery companies in France and Russia.
"There also is evidence that Israel is testing a sea-launched cruise missile in order to add another facet to its nuclear deterrent," Hough wrote in his 1994 article, something that corroborated well with more recent developments in the early 2000s.
Hough also reported that Israel at that time in 1994 lacked the ability to deliver a nuclear weapon to long-range (strategic) targets, but that the Jewish state had built bunkers around the country which housed several dozen intermediate-range (tactical) "Jericho II" surface-to-surface missiles capable of delivering nuclear warheads to targets 1,000 miles away.
Hough also said that the 30-year-old military base near Kfar Zecharya, in the Beit Shemesh area, was the principal launch point for Israel's medium-range nuclear defences. He also noted in the same article that southeast of this site there was an ultra-modern "Jericho II" missile battery known as Kefar Zekharya, which "houses 50 nuclear-tipped missiles."
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Among other literature on the subject there are several readable books like The Samson Option: Israel's Nuclear Arsenal and American Foreign Policy by Seymour Hersh (1991), Critical Mass: The Dangerous Race for Superweapons in a Fragmenting World by William E. Burrows and Robert Windrem (1993), Triple Cross: Israel, the Atomic Bomb and the Man Who Spilled the Secrets by Louis Toscano (1990), Israel´s Nuclear Arsenal by Peter Pry (1984), to just give give some examples.
The latest revelations on the subject are found in the book Israel and the Bomb (1998) by Israeli citizen dr. Avner Cohen, a book that caused an uproar when its English-language version first appeared in the United States.
Avner Cohen is a senior research fellow at the National Security Archive at George Washington University and a senior fellow at the Center for International Security Studies at Maryland.
More information on this book can be found at: http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/israel/
with interesting documental references at:
http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/israel/documents/document.htm
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Israeli admissions
Apart from works by researchers, Jewish and non-Jewish, on the subject of Israel´s nuclear ambitions, there are at times revelations by the Zionists themselves as to these facts.
In an article in the Telegraph, "Israel reveals secrets of how it gained bomb", by Inigo Gilmore in Jerusalem, filed on 23rd December, 2001, one reads:
A television documentary in which Shimon Peres, Israel's foreign minister, discloses for the first time details about Israel's acquisition of nuclear weapons is to be broadcast in the Arab world. It is intended, at a time of rising tensions, as a warning.In the documentary, Mr Peres goes further than any other Israeli official in confirming that the Jewish state has a nuclear capability. He and former French government officials give details about co-operation between Israel and France in launching Israel's nuclear programme.
The film, made by a leading Israeli documentary team, is a sign that the government may be finally relaxing its rule of absolute silence on its nuclear programme.
[...]
The documentary, The Bomb in the Basement: Israel's Nuclear Option, was shown in Israel last month and is being sold to leading Arabic television stations including Al-Jazeera, the Qatar-based satellite channel.
[...]
The film reveals how France helped Israel on its nuclear programme in exchange for support in the Suez War. In the mid-1950s, relations between the two countries were warming because of their shared anxiety over burgeoning nationalist movements in North Africa.Israel feared that the rise of Gamal Abdel Nasser in Egypt would embolden an already formidable foe, while France faced an Arab insurrection in Algeria, one of its last colonies. Their interests converged in 1956 when Israel agreed to team up with France and Britain in a war to punish Nasser for nationalising the Suez Canal.
At the end of September 1956, in Sevres near Paris, Mr Peres, then a 30-year-old Defence Ministry official, accompanied David Ben-Gurion, Israel's first prime minister, to a meeting with French and British delegations about the Suez crisis. The Israelis waited for the British delegation to leave before approaching the French on the matter of its nuclear project.
Mr Peres said: "In Sevres, when it was all over, I told Ben-Gurion, 'There's one piece of unfinished business: the nuclear issue. Before you agree, let me finish that.' Of the four countries which at that time had a nuclear capacity - the United States, the Soviet Union, Great Britain and France - only France was willing to help us."
Mr Peres is asked in the documentary whether Israel requested a nuclear reactor. He replies: "I asked for more than that. I asked for other things, too; the uranium and those things. I went up to Ben-Gurion and said, 'It's settled.' That's how it was."
Mr Ben-Gurion approved Israel's participation in the Suez campaign. On October 29, 1956, 400 Israeli paratroopers were dropped in western Sinai in the first phase of the attack on Egypt.
The agreement with France was unprecedented. Until then, no country had supplied another with the means for developing a nuclear capability. Mr Karpin believes that Mr Peres may have been motivated to speak on the subject because he hopes that it will help to secure his place in history.
In Paris, Jean-Francois Daguzan, the deputy director of the Foundation for Strategic Research, said that France's deal with Israel had been kept a secret for almost 30 years. "It was well known in military and political circles but it didn't become public knowledge until the mid-1980s after a book was published about that era and the agreement was mentioned.
"There was no suggestion that France had given Israel its nuclear capacity but it had certainly helped the country acquire it."
Here Peres reveals the Zionist desire for nuclear technology although he tries to avoid openly stating the possession of nuclear bombs.
The article "Open Secrets", by Jewish journalist Aluf Benn published in the Israeli newspaper Ha'aretz, Tuesday, March 14, 2000, is more frank:
In an appendix to the Wye agreement, President Clinton promised in writing that Israel's nuclear capabilities would be preserved if it continues its policy of 'ambiguity'The safe of Zvi Stauber, the prime minister's foreign policy adviser, contains a small strategic treasure inherited from the office's former occupants: a letter from Bill Clinton to Benjamin Netanyahu promising that the United States will preserve Israel's strategic deterrence capabilities and ensure that Middle East arms control initiatives will not damage it in the future. The Clinton letter provides written - if secret - backup to the long-standing agreement between Jerusalem and Washington over the preservation of Israel's nuclear capabilities if Israel maintains its policy of "ambiguity" and does not announce publicly that it has the bomb. The letter was an appendix to the memo of strategic understanding that the then-prime minister and Clinton signed after the Wye River Memorandum. Clinton agreed to sign it only a few months after America's global nuclear policy was shattered by the shock waves of nuclear tests in India and Pakistan.
It was Uzi Arad, Netanyahu's foreign policy adviser, who initiated the letter. At the Wye conference in the fall of 1998, he and Israel's ambassador to Washington, Zalman Shoval, hammered out the document with American officials [Zionist Jew] Martin Indyk and Bruce Reidel. This second, sensitive document reached the Prime Minister's Bureau a few weeks after the Wye agreement was signed, and Netanyahu sent Clinton a letter that Israeli sources say contained no obligations but only expressions of thanks.
Netanyahu saw Clinton's letter as one of his most important achievements, but is unwilling to discuss its contents.
This article reveals how the Zionist establishment has nothing against its medias talking openly about "Israel's strategic deterrence capabilities" and "Israel's nuclear capabilities".
Actually such Israeli articles can be considered as hidden threats as they have passed through the tight Israeli military media censorship; the Zionists wants the world to know about Israel´s capacities of creating a nuclear holocaust, but will never officially admit to it in any international forum.
It is important to remember that in Judaism the "truth" is not a fixed thing, something sacred, but rather something that can be twisted to fit ones aims and ambitions. According to Jewish ideology any lie and distortion of truth is legitimate as long as it will benefit the Jewish people and the Jewish cause.
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The Dimona facilites
The center of Israel's nuclear weapons program is the Negev Nuclear Research Center near the desert town of Dimona (the center is usually identified simply as "Dimona"). A nuclear reactor and plutonium production facility was built by France at this facility in the late 1950s and early 60s (read also the article on this subject in the appendix). All of the production and fabrication of special nuclear materials (plutonium, lithium-6 deuteride, and enriched and unenriched uranium) occurs at Dimona although the design and assembly of nuclear weapons occurs elsewhere.
As described by Mordechai Vanunu, the Dimona complex has nine buildings ("Machons", Hebrew for "facility") including to the reactor building. The plant employs 2700 people.
Control room of the Machon 2 plutonium separation plant (courtesy Mordechai Vanunu)Bomb components made of plutonium, lithium-6 deuteride, and beryllium are fabricated in level 5 of Machon 2. They are transported by convoys of unmarked cars to the warhead assembly facility, operated by Rafael north of Haifa.
The principal uncertainty in evaluating Israel's weapon production capability is the actual power level of the Dimona reactor. It has long been believed that Israel has upgraded the reactor repeatedly to increase its plutonium production. Vanunu claimed that Israel possessed 100-200 nuclear weapons (implying some 400-800 kg of plutonium) and can produce 40 kg of plutonium a year. This production figure indicates an average operating power of 150 MW thermal. Analysts generally discount figures this high, and the consensus is that it was initially operated at 40 MW and was upgraded to 70 MW sometime before 1977. A 1996 study by the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) produced a somewhat lower range of estimates, concluding that Israel has produced 330-580 kg of plutonium through 1995, enough for a stockpile of 80-150 efficient weapons (the extreme estimate range was 190 to 880 kg).
The Dimona Reactor Dome (courtesy Mordechai Vanunu)Vanunu provided information indicating that the uranium fuel is subjected to burnups of 400 MW-days/tonne, a figure similar to that used by the U.S. early in its weapons production program. This results in a high grade plutonium with a Pu-240 content of 2%. According to Vanunu 140 fuel rods are irradiated for periods of about three months before discharge for plutonium extraction. At 70 MW the Dimona reactor would consume some 48 tonnes of fuel a year and produce about 18 kg of plutonium.
Vanunu also claimed that Israel possessed fusion boosted weapons, and has developed hydrogen bomb technology. He provided information about both lithium-6 and tritium production. He stated that initially tritium was produced by a facility in Machon 2 called Unit 92 by separating it from the heavy water moderator where it is produced in small amounts as a by-product. In 1984 production was expanded when a new facility called Unit 93 was opened to extract tritium from enriched lithium that had been irradiated in the reactor. The large scale production of tritium by Israel has been confirmed by South Africa, which received a shipments of tritium totalling 30 g during 1977-79. This clearly indicates tritium production on a scale sufficient for a weapon boosting program. It is difficult to find any other rationale for such a large tritium production capability except some sort of thermonuclear weapon application.
Mock-up of an Israeli Bomb (courtesy Mordechai Vanunu)It is quite difficult to develop gas fusion boosting technology like that used in U.S. weapons and weapons tests are probably essential. Although radiation implosion weapons could be developed without testing, they would tend to be large and heavy and would perhaps be incompatible with Israel's available delivery systems. It is quite possible then that a Sloika/Alarm Clock type system has been developed using lithium-6 deuteride fuel surrounding the plutonium core (in fact a weapon mock-up photographed by Vanunu appears to be this type of weapon). Tritium could be used to spike the fusion fuel and boost the yield, just as the Soviets did with the 400 Kt "Joe-4".
Bomb components made of plutonium, lithium-6 deuteride, and beryllium are fabricated in level 5 of Machon 2. They are transported by convoys of unmarked cars to the warhead assembly facility, operated by Rafael north of Haifa.
Jewish author Seymour Hersh reports that Israel has developed an extensive array of tactical nuclear weapons: efficient compact boosted fission bombs, neutron bombs (allegedly numbering in the hundreds by the mid-eighties), nuclear artillery shells, and nuclear mines. With an arsenal that is quite possibly in excess of 100 weapons it is likely that some of the nuclear materials would be applied tactical weapons. Boosted bombs are doubtful, as are neutron bombs, due to problems with development in the absence of a significant testing program. Neutron bombs also require very large amounts of tritium (20-30 g per weapon) which would impact the production of plutonium quite seriously (each gram of tritium displaces 80 grams of plutonium production). Artillery shells are also doubtful due to their wastefulness in plutonium. Tactical weapons are probably aircraft or missile delivered, or are pre-emplaced mines.
Authors William E. Burrows and Robert Windrem in Critical Mass claim that Israel has produced 300 warheads, including those that have since been dismantled. They place the current arsenal at about 200 weapons.
Several reports have surfaced claiming that Israel has some uranium enrichment capability at Dimona. Vanunu asserted that gas centrifuges were operating in Machon 8, and that a laser enrichment plant was being operated in Machon 9 (Israel holds a 1973 patent on laser isotopic enrichment). According to Vanunu the production-scale plant has been operating since 1979-80. The scale of a centrifuge operation would necessarily be limited due to space constraints, and might be focused toward enriching depleted reactor fuel to more efficiently use Israel's uranium supply. A laser enrichment system, if developed to operational status, could be quite compact however and might be producing weapon grade material in substantial quantities. If highly enriched uranium is being produced in substantial quantities, then Israel's nuclear arsenal could be much larger than estimated solely from plutonium production.
Israel produces uranium domestically as a by-product of phosphate mining near the Dead Sea but this amounts to only 10 tons a year, and is grossly insufficient for its needs. Israel has addressed this shortfall by reprocessing the low burnup spent fuel to recover uranium (which most nations do not do). It is also known to have purchased at least 200 tons of natural uranium on the world market under an alias. A major source though was some 600 tons of uranium provided by South Africa in a quid pro quo for Israel's assistance on its weapons program. Combined with uranium recycling, and the possible use of enrichment to stretch the uranium supply, these quantities may be sufficient to account for Dimona's fuel supply to the present date.
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Israeli delivery systems
Israel can undoubtedly deploy nuclear weapons using its air force. The aircraft and crews dedicated to nuclear weapons delivery are located at the Tel Nof airbase. Originally the F-4 Phantom II acquired in 1969 was probably the designated carrier, today it would be the F-16. The F-16 has an unrefueled radius of action of 1250 km, extending out to western Iran, the shores of the Black Sea, Riyadh, or the Libyan border. With refueling it can travel much farther of course, and an unrefueled one-way mission could take it as far as Moscow.
Israel also possesses medium-range ballistic missiles: the Jericho-1 (Ya-1 "Luz") with a 500 kg payload, and a range of 480-650 km (operational since 1973); and the Jericho 2 (either Ya-2 or Ya-3) with a 1000 kg payload and a range of over 1500 km (operational since 1990). Under development is the Jericho-2B with a range of 2,500 km. These missiles were almost certainly developed specifically as nuclear delivery systems (although chemical warheads cannot be ruled out). About 50 Jericho-1s and 50 Jericho-2s are believed to have been deployed. Israel also has a 100 or more U.S. supplied Lance tactical missiles, with a range of 115 km (72 miles). Although these were supplied with conventional warheads, they could very well have been outfitted with nuclear or chemical ones.
Jericho 1
This is believed to be named Luz and designated YA-1 by Israel. It is based on the French missile MD-600 built by Dassault and was developed during the 1960s.
Specifications
Length: 10 m
Width 1.0 m
Launch weight 4500 kg
Propulsion: Two stage solid propellant
Range: 500 km
Payload: 500 kg
Jericho 2
Jericho-2 development is indigenous, and started soon after the Jericho-1 was deployed. Test launches began in 1986 and the first two had ranges of 465 km (1986) and 820 km (1987). The Jericho-2 shares the first two stages of the civilian Shavit (Comet) space launch vehicle, which has launched Israel's four satellites, the Offeq-1, 2, and 3 reconnaissance satellites, and the Amos communications satellite.
Shavit space launch vehicle, Offeq-2 launch on 3 April 1990 (13 K)
Specifications
Length: 12 m
Width 1.2 m
Launch weight 6500 kg
Propulsion: Two stage solid propellant
Range: 1500 km
Payload: 1000 kg
The Jericho 1 and 2 are deployed near Kfar Zachariah and Sderot Micha about 23 km east of Jerusalem (and about 40 km southeast of Tel Aviv). Located a few kilometers to the northwest is Tel Nof air base. Images of the missile complex made by commercial satellites have been published in recent years, and September 1997 Jane's Intelligence Review published a 3-D analysis of high resolution pictures taken by the Indian IRS-C satellite.
The complex is compact - smaller than 6 km x 4 km. The missiles are mobile, being deployed on transporter-erector-launchers (TELs), and are based in bunkers tunneled into the side of the limestone hills. There are no signs of missile silos. TELs require firm, accurately leveled ground in order to launch, and maximum missile accuracy requires pre-surveyed launch points. Consequently there are a number of prepared launch pads (paved culs-de-sac) connected to these bunkers by paved roads. Images of an actual Jericho 2 TEL indicate that it is about 16 m long, 4 m wide, and 3 m high. It is accompanied by three support vehicles (probably a power supply vehicle, a firing control vehicle, and a communications vehicle). The Zachariah missile base was enlarged between 1989 and 1993 during the Jericho-2 deployment. A few kilometers north of Tel Nof is the Be'er Yaakov factory where the Jericho missiles and the Shavit are believed to have been manufactured.
From its deployment location in central Israel the Jericho-1 missile can reach such targets as Damascus, Aleppo, and Cairo. The Jericho-2 can reach any part of Syria or Iraq, and as far as Teheran, and Benghazi, Libya. The Jericho-2B will be able to reach any part of Libya or Iran, and as far as southern Russia. The short range of the Lance limits it mainly to battlefield use, although the Syrian capital of Damascus is in range from much of northern Israel. According to Jane's World Air Forces, Israel has three Jericho-equipped missile squadrons.
Also located at the site are a group of 21 bunkers thought to contain nuclear gravity bombs. Five of the larger ones are about 15 m wide and 20 m long, and rise 6 m above ground.
The Jewish state has already tested these missile´s capabilities.
In Israeli newspaper Ha´aretz (English Internet Edition), May 3, 2000, in the article "Israeli missile test too close for U.S. Navy cruiser's comfort. Scientists think Israel has long-range ballistic arms", Amnon Barzilai, Ha'aretz Defence Correspondent, reports:
The new version of the Jericho-2 missile reportedly includes most neighboring countries in its range, and its accuracy is considered to be very good. The U.S. National Security Agency has monitored the test program of the Jericho-2 and has recorded several test firings over the Mediterranean. According to the Federation of American Scientists, test firings of the missile at ranges in excess of 1300 kilometers have been conducted in South Africa.According to the organization, the capability of Israel's ballistic missiles has been estimated to be far greater. Based on calculations derived from the Shavit rockets carrying the Ofek satellites, Israel's ballistic missiles are capable of carrying a nuclear payload across ranges in excess of 5,300 kilometers. But experts at the Pentagon estimate that an Israeli missile with a 7,200-kilometer range is possible. Another estimate was given in July 1990 by University of Maryland physicist Steve Peter, who calculated that the Shavit rocket has a range of 4,000 kilometers with a maximum payload of 775 kilograms. All these assessments place the whole of the Middle East within the range of Israel's ballistic missiles.
But Israel isn´t satisfied with only possessing a ballistic missile capability to deliver its weapons of mass destruction.
The July 1, 1998, article in The Washington Times, "Israel buying 3 submarines to carry nuclear missiles", by Martin Sieff, reports on the latest Zionist conquest in obtaining delivery systems for its nuclear arms:
The respected Israeli newspaper Ha'aretz reported June 8 that Israeli military planners want to mount nuclear-armed cruise missiles on the new submarines.[...]
Maj. Gen. Avraham Botzer, former commander of the Israeli navy, told Israeli television in December 1990 that his country needed submarines not just to attack enemy warships but also as platforms for weapon systems to deter against an attack by weapons of mass destruction.
"The submarines must be [an instrument] of the state of Israel, not just the navy," Gen. Botzer said.
"Submarines all over the world serve as part of the deterrent system against nonconventional warfare. They are a way of guaranteeing that the enemy will not be tempted to strike pre-emptively with nonconventional weapons and get away scot-free."
A recent Pentagon study said Israel has developed an air-launched cruise missile that should be operational by 2002. The missile, called the Popeye Turbo, will have a range of more than 200 miles, the U.S. report said.
U.S. military analysts said the Popeye could easily be adapted for launch from a submarine.
Anthony Cordesman, co-director of the Middle East program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, wrote in a study published June 3 that the Popeye cruise missile was capable of carrying a nuclear warhead.
Jane's Intelligence Review reported Sept. 1 that photo reconnaissance indicated Israel had stored around 150 nuclear warheads and 50 Jericho II intermediate range missiles to carry them at Zachariah air force base southeast of Tel Aviv. Zachariah means in Hebrew, "God remembers with vengeance."
The London-based Jane's also estimated "that the Israeli arsenal may contain as many as 400 nuclear weapons with a total combined yield of 50 megatons."
The Jericho is believed to have a 3,000-mile range and carry a payload of just under 1 ton, easily enough to accommodate even a hydrogen bomb.
The article "Fears Of New Arms Race As Israel Tests Cruise Missiles" by Uzi Mahnaimi and Peter Conradi London Sunday Times June 18, 2000, describes how Israel therafter has test-fired cruise missiles capable of carrying nuclear warheads. The tests, involving two German-built Dolphin-class submarines, took place off the coast of Sri Lanka. The Israeli-made missiles, which were equipped with conventional warheads, hit targets at sea at a range of about 930 miles.
The Carnegie Endowment for International Peace published a report early in June 2002, detailing the Israeli nuclear weapons program. That booklength report on global nuclear weapons proliferation, Deadly Arsenals - Tracking Weapons of Mass Destruction, included an entire chapter on Israel's nuclear, chemical and biological weapons program.
The Carnegie authors wrote, "Probably the most important nuclear-related development in Israel is the formation of its sea-based nuclear arm. By July 2000 Israel completed taking delivery of all three of the Dolphin-class submarines it had ordered at the Thyssen-Nordseewerke shipyard in Kiel, Germany. In doing so, it is widely believed, Israel moved significantly toward acquiring a survivable second-strike nuclear capability. All indications are that Israel is on the way to finalizing a restructuring of its nuclear forces into a triad, like the United States.
"Since the early 1980s (and probably even earlier) the Israeli navy (jointly with other governmental agencies) lobbied hard for the notion that Israel should build a small fleet of modern diesel submarines for `strategic purposes,' an Israeli euphemism for a sea-launched nuclear capability... It is also believed (but not confirmed) that the most sensitive aspect of the project, the cruise-missile technology that renders the diesel submarines nuclear-capable launching platforms, was developed and built in Israel... According to one report in the London Sunday Times (June 18, 2000), by early 2000 Israel had carried out the first launching tests of its cruise missiles."
The Carnegie study concluded, "A fleet of three submarines is believed to be the minimum that Israel needs to have a deployment at sea of one nuclear-armed submarine at all times."
The fact that Israel has achieved a deployable nuclear triad was also advertised in a June 15, 2002, report in the Washington Post, under the headline, "Israel Has Submarine-Based Atomic Arms Capability".
Further revelations were released in an article in the Los Angeles Times on Oct. 12th, 2003, where two unnamed Bush Administration officials disclosed, and an Israeli official confirmed, that Israel really has modified U.S.-supplied nuclear-armed cruise missiles, and installed them on the three German-built submarines in its navy.
All three spoke on condition of anonymity.
Also on Sunday October 12th, 2003, The Observer on-line edition published the following article on these latest revelations:
Israel deploys nuclear arms in submarines
Peter Beaumont in London and Conal Urquhart in Jerusalem
Israeli and American officials have admitted collaborating to deploy US-supplied Harpoon cruise missiles armed with nuclear warheads in Israel's fleet of Dolphin-class submarines, giving the Middle East's only nuclear power the ability to strike at any of its Arab neighbours.The unprecedented disclosure came as Israel announced that states 'harbouring terrorists' are legitimate targets, responding to Syria's declaration of its right to self-defence should Israel bomb its territory again.
According to Israeli and Bush administration officials interviewed by the Los Angeles Times, the sea-launch capability gives Israel the ability to target Iran more easily should the Iranians develop their own nuclear weapons.
Accompaning these disclosures the Israeli daily Yediot Aharonot also on the same Oct. 12th, 2003, published a photo of the Dolphin submarine, with graphics explaining how it could "sneak up" toward Iran and fire its nuclear warheads, thus underlining the threat these submarines pose to the states which are opposing Zionist expansionism in the region.
Again this kind of information, published in the medias of the Jewish state, cannot be perceived as anything but another hidden threat from the leaders of that state, threats directed against Iran and any other country that opposes Israel´s military might.
***
Israeli targeting systems
The Jewish author Seymour Hersh relates extensive (and highly successful) efforts by Israel to obtain targeting data from U.S. intelligence. Much satellite imaging data of the Soviet Union was obtained through the American spy, the Jew Jonathan Pollard (Pollard spied for Israel and he provided it with U.S. radar-images of targets in the Arab countries and in the Soviet Union. These pictures were crucial, since they serve the guidance system of Israel's Jericho 2 missile, which became operational just at that time, in 1984 and 1985).
Satellite imagery from a U.S. KH-11 satellite for example was used to plan the 7 June 1981 attack on the Tammuz-1 reactor at Osiraq, Iraq. This attack, carried out by 8 F-16s accompanied by 6 F-15s punched a hole in the concrete reactor dome before the reactor began operation (and just days before an Israeli election) and delivered 15 delay-fuzed 2000 lb bombs deep into the reactor structure (the 16th bomb hit a nearby hall). The blasts shredded the reactor and blew out the dome foundations, causing it to collapse on the rubble.
This was the world's first attack on a nuclear reactor.
Since 19 September 1988 Israel has had its own satellite reconnaissance system and thus no longer needs to rely on U.S. sources. On that day the Offeq-1 satellite was launched on the Shavit booster, a system closely related to the Jericho-2 missile. Offeq-2 went up on 3 April 1990. The launch of the Offeq-3 failed on its first attempton 15 September 1994, but was retried successfully 05 April 1995.
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The Zionist Nuclear Threat
Zionist strategies - threats of using nuclear weapons
Resorting to the nuclear option, i.e. attacking Israel´s opponents with the most horrendous of weapons, is something that is always taken into consideration in Zionist military planning.
History shows that this option has been contemplated at several times by the leaders of the Jewish state.
For example it is widely reported that Israel had two bombs in 1967, and that Prime Minister Eshkol actually ordered them armed in Israel's first nuclear alert during the Six-Day War.
It has to be remembered that this war was nothing but a Jewish blitzkrieg, a carefully planned operation with the aim of maximum land grab and expansion of Israel´s borders. The propaganda about Israel being threatened by annihilation in 1967 has been refuted by the most distinguished of Jewish sources and Israeli leaders.
And after 1967 the nuclear bombing option has been contemplated by Israel at several occassions.
The anti-Zionist Jew Israel Shahak writes in his book "Open Secrets: Israeli Nuclear and Foreign Policies" (Pluto Press,1997) on the bloodthirst of Jewish super hero Moshe Dayan during the October 1973 Yom Kippur (or Ramadan) War:
Dayan, the Chief of Staff, the commander of the Air Force, all talked about Damascus. "We must smash Syria within the next 24 hours", said the Chief of Staff to the accompanying officers. "We have 400 tanks now fighting like hell. Therefore the Syrian cities of Damascus, Aleppo, Homs and Latakia should be obliterated. I must do something dramatic enough to make Syria cry `Whoah!', to make them beg us `Please stop firing!' For that purpose I need something that will deprive them of all electricity, destroy all their power stations, and scorch their earth"'.
Fearing territorial defeat in the October 1973 War, the Zionists in Israel assembled 13 twenty-kiloton atomic bombs.
Author Seymour Hersh reports that the decision was made by Zionist PM Golda Meir and her "kitchen cabinet" on the night of 8 October. This resulted in the Jericho missiles at Hirbat Zachariah and the nuclear strike F-4s at Tel Nof being armed and prepared for action against Syrian and Egyptian targets. U.S. Sec. of State at the time, the German-born Zionist Jew Henry Kissinger, was apparently notified of this alert several hours later on the morning of 9 October, which helped motivate a U.S. decision to promptly open a resupply pipeline to Israel (Israeli aircraft began picking up supplies that day, the first U.S. flights arrived on 14 October).
Thus possessing nuclear arms and threatening to use them - Jewish styled nuclear extortion - payed off.
Continual threats from the Zionist leadership of using their weapons of mass destruction are frequently made, although they never make a headline in the Zionist-controlled medias i the West.
War Criminal and present Zionist leader Ariel Sharon has even been quoted as saying, “Arabs may have the oil, but we have the matches.”(Mark Gaffney, Dimona: The Third Temple? The Story Behind the Vanunu Revelation, p. 165., Vermont: Amana Books, 1989).
"We possess several hundred atomic warheads and rockets and can launch them at targets in all directions, perhaps even at Rome. Most European capitals are targets for our air force. Let me quote General Moshe Dayan: 'Israel must be like a mad dog, too dangerous to bother.' I consider it all hopeless at this point. We shall have to try to prevent things from coming to that, if at all possible. Our armed forces, however, are not the thirtieth strongest in the world, but rather the second or third. We have the capability to take the world down with us. And I can assure you that that will happen before Israel goes under."- Martin van Creveld, Israeli professor of military history at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem. In an interview in the Dutch weekly magazine: Elsevier, 2002, no. 17, p. 52-53.
Commenting on the crisis with Iraq in the Israeli newspaper Jerusalem Post, political analyst Yossi Ben-Aharon wrote on 9 February 1998 that "it should be made absolutely clear to the Iraqi dictator from the outset that any attempt against Israel will trigger, at the very least, a devastation of Iraq's western provinces."(Yossi Ben-Aharon, "Repeat Performance", Jerusalem Post, 9 February, 1998).This of course also is a direct threat that any attack against the Zionist state will trigger a nuclear response.
Israel Shahak also writes in his book "Open Secrets":
A long-standing Israeli custom commands the generals in active service to stop short of saying too much in interviews, but it lets semi-official experts or retired generals reveal the Israeli strategic intentions to the nation's elite in a more informative manner. The explanation of the crucial and most sensitive Israeli strategic aims, concerning the role of nuclear weapons in overall Israeli strategy was left to Oded Brosh.
[...]
Regarding the uses of Israeli nuclear weapons during a war, Brosh sees two major options. The first, `the last-minute option' is defined as `a scenario which in fact presumes that Israel will refrain from making any nuclear threats unless it is defeated by conventional weapons, or can realistically expect such a defeat as imminent, or is threatened by use of non-conventional weapons'. In this way `the Arab leaders can be denied a victory' by the threat of `the destruction of Arab civilization'. In my view, this can be interpreted as meaning that Israel has contingency plans for cases of extreme emergency which envisage a devastation by nuclear weapons of a considerable number of Arab urban centres and such crucial installations as the Aswan Dam (whose destruction was envisaged in Israel before 1973). This awful possibility needs to be faced, however horrifying may be the thought about its direct effects on the Arab world and indirect effects upon the entire world in terms of massive human casualties and the long-term effects of radioactivity.
[...]
Brosh argues that `we need not be ashamed that the nuclear option is a major instrumentality of our defence as a deterrent against those who may attack us. The three big democracies have relied on the same deterrent for decades.' The very comparison of Israel's strategic aims with those of the US, Britain and France is an irrefutable proof of Israel's ambition to achieve the status of a superpower. But Israel can become a superpower only if it succeeds in establishing a hegemony over the entire Middle East."
Provoking wars and using nuclear arms against Syria is also part of the Zionist strategies. Shahak writes in "Open Secrets":
Numerous translations of mine from the Hebrew press envision, from time to time, a `pre-emptive' Israeli war as likely and as directed against Syria, which has been long regarded by Israel as its enemy number one. Particularly relevant in this context is the 18 February 1991 speech by Yitzhak Rabin (as the head of opposition) to the Labor Knesset faction. Rabin's speech contained three crucial points. The first point was that Israel was doomed to live forever in war, or under the threat of war with the entire Arab world, but at this point of time especially with Syria. The second was that in all its wars Israel `must assume an essentially aggressive role, so as to be in the position to dictate the terms of a conclusion'. Prerequisite to that is `a further increase of the offensive power of Israeli Air and Armour forces needed to achieve a quick victory'. The third was Rabin's criticism of Arens (then the Defence Minister) for letting Iraqi missiles hit Israel: `What had we told them [the Arabs]? If you send missiles on Tel Aviv, Damascus will be turned into a ruin. If you send missiles also on Haifa, not only Damascus but also Aleppo will cease to exist. They will be destroyed root and branch. Without dealing only with missile launchers, we will devastate Damascus.' Various Israeli commentators, e.g. Uzi Benziman and Reuven Padatzur of Haaretz and Ya'akov Sharett of Davar, understood these words as intended to mean that Israel had already threatened Syria (and other Arab countries as well) with obliteration of its cities by nuclear weapons.
The latest Zionist threats have mainly been directed against the sovereign Muslim state of Iran, which also explains the Western Zionist infiltrated mass medias fixation on the issue of alleged Iranian weapons of mass destruction.
Shahak writes in "Open Secrets":
Since the spring of 1992 public opinion in Israel is being prepared for the prospect of a war with Iran, to be fought to bring about Iran's total military and political defeat. In one version, Israel would attack Iran alone, in another it would `persuade' the West to do the job. The indoctrination campaign to this effect is gaining in intensity.Shahak gives the example of an interview with Daniel Leshem, a retired senior officer in the Israeli Military Intelligence, now member of the Centre for Strategic Research at the Tel Aviv University, published in Israeli paper Al Hamishmar (19 February, 1993) under the title "Iran needs to be treated just as Iraq had been", where Leshem speaks of the necessity of provoking a war against Iran:
Hence Leshem believes that Israel should make Iran fear Israeli nuclear weapons, but without hoping that it might deter it from developing their own; he proposes `to create the situation which would appear similar to that with Iraq before the Gulf crisis'. He believes this could `stop the Ayatollahs, if this is what the world really wants'. How to do it? `Iran claims sovereignty over three strategically located islands in the Gulf. Domination over those islands is capable of assuring domination not only over all the already active oilfields of the area, but also over all the natural gas sources not yet exploited. We should hope that, emulating Iraq, Iran would contest the Gulf Emirates and Saudi Arabia over these islands and, repeating Saddam Hussein's mistake in Kuwait, start a war. This may lead to an imposition of controls over Iranian nuclear developments the way it did in Iraq.Shahak states further in the same book:
Provoking Iran into responding with war or measures just stopping short of war, is also elaborated by many other commentators.
In Al Hamishmar (19 February, 1993), the political correspondent Yo'av Kaspi also interviews the notorious Zionist "hawk", professor Shlomo Aharonson. Shahak quotes from the interview and writes:
There is a lot more in the same vein before Aharonson concludes: `We should see to it that no Palestinian state ever comes into being, even if Iranians threaten us with nuclear weapons. And we should also see to it that Iran lives in permanent fear of Israeli nuclear weapons being used against it.'
***
Apart from the aggressivness of Zionist political and military establishment in Israel, the very same establishment is also infiltrated by even more extremist Jews, who more dogmatically adhere to Jewish Law and the genocidal teachings of the Jewish Bible, the Torah, and the Talmud. To these people Armageddon is just God´s will. These pious Jews, will not, in difference to their smarter and more scheming brethren, take political and propagandistic consequences into calculation, but actually stick to the teachings of the Jewish scriptures.
The assassination of former Israeli PM Yitzhak Rabin has shown the impact of these groups within the Zionist security/military apparatus.
One horrific scenario is that the Gush Emunim, a fanatic Jewish religious organization with significant influence in Israel, or other Jewish zealots, would hijack a nuclear device to - for instance - “liberate” the Temple Mount and pave way for the building of the third Jewish temple, or as an other possible example, threatening the use of hijacked nukes to force the expulsion of remaining Palestinians.
A 1997 Jane's Intelligence Review article reviewing the so-called "Israeli Defence Forces", repeatedly stressed the possibilities of, and the need to guard against, a religious, right wing military coup, especially as the proportion of religious in the military increases (Ed Blanche, “Is the Myth Fading for the Israeli Army? - Part 1”, Jane's Intelligence Review, 8, no. 12 (December 1996), 547-550 and “Is the myth fading for the Israeli Army? - Part 2”, Jane's Intelligence Review 9, no. 1 (January 1997), 25-28.)
Israel Shahak writes in his above mentioned book "Open Secrets" on this issue:
Not only is the prospect of Dimona one day becoming another Chernobyl something to be seriously discussed. The prospect of Gush Emunim ('The Block of the Faithful'), or some secular right-wing Israeli fanatics, or some of the delirious Israeli Army generals, seizing control of Israeli nuclear weapons and using them in accordance with their `knowledge' of politics or by the authority of `divine command' cannot be precluded either. In my view the likelihood of the occurrence of some such calamity is growing. We should not forget that while Israeli Jewish society undergoes a steady political polarization, the Israeli Security System increasingly relies on the recruitment of cohorts from the ranks of the extreme right.In the same book Shahak also writes:
By 1992, Israel already abounds in Jewish religious zealots whose influence within the Security System is growing steadily. Gush Emunim or the followers of any extremist Hassidic rabbi are quite capable in my view of activating such scenarios even in peacetime for the sake of thus advancing their Messianic prophecies which by definition imply that God will protect the Jews from any injury and inflict devastation on Gentiles alone.
It is a global duty, for the sake of world peace, to spread information on this apocalyptic threat in order to bring about an Israeli disarmament, and thus preventing these fanatics from realizing their evil and absurd visions of destruction and conquest.
***
Inspections
"At present, by not being able to talk about Israel's nuclear program, you can't talk about any aspect of arms control. The American viewpoint should be frankly to block proliferation regardless of what country is involved."- Anthony Cordesman, Georgetown University professor in Voice of America, on May 5th, 2000.
Israel is widely believed to have nuclear weapons capability but has not signed on to major agreements, including the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, which is aimed at curbing the spread of nuclear arms.Many people in the Middle East wonder about the fuss over Iran's nuclear programme, which is for peaceful purposes, when it is known Israel is a major nuclear power. As party to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, NPT, Iran signed in 1968 when the NPT came into existence, Iran has repeatedly stated said it is compelled to develop a nuclear programme for peaceful purposes only.
It is Israel that introduced nuclear weapons into the Middle East. As early as 1948, it began scientific research with the help of France to acquire a nuclear capability. With a suggested capability of between 200 and 400 thermonuclear and nuclear weapons, Israel today stands as one of the leading nuclear powers in terms of an offensive military arsenal.
While the U.S. is pressing Iran to sign an additional protocol or addendum to the NPT which will allow the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) to make unnannouced, on-the-spot inspections which are deemed to be more searching than the regular inspections, the Jewish state of Israel - a well established nuclear power - is left unnoticed.
One can just promptly conclude that the so-called "objective" and "independent" international body IAEA has been turned into an instrument for Zionism. The organizations role in aiding the Zionist-U.S. effort in the question of alleged weapons of mass destruction in Iraq before the 2003 war and invasion, illustrates this very well.
As has been revealed IAEA leading figure, the Swede Hans Blix, himself can trace Jewish ancestry (namely his grandmother), and he has a long history as a political activist within the Swedish "Folkpartiet" (the Liberal Party), among whose leading figures one finds the most rabid of Zionists, like Hadar Cars for instance, who is a long time personal friend to Mr. Blix and until 2003 headed the Association of Sweden-Israel, the No. 1 pro-Israel friendship association in Sweden.
After helping in the Iraq-WMD debacle the very same compromised organization IAEA - as soon as the Zionist lobby in the U.S. desires - stands ready to harass the next state on the Zionists hit list, namely Iran, initiating processes that provide the Western medias with the proper media headlines to legitimate U.S. threats and war mongering.
While simultanously the question of Israel´s nuclear program and weapons are forgotten.
The IAEA lap-dog status could be noted already in 1999 when a report by IAEA which assessed the nuclear performance of various states, made no mention of Israel's failure to observe the agency's safeguard system. Officials at the IAEA also admitted they were not operating a fully effective and comprehensive safeguard system in Israel as they are in Iraq, "because the agency has no right to implement such safeguards in Israel since Israel is not a party to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT)."
"It is not the weakness of the safeguard system, but rather a consequence of state sovereignty," Mohamed El-Baradei, director-general of the IAEA, said on the issue. "We are not an international nuclear police that can force its way to facilities it feels it must visit," El-Baradei said.
"All we can do is report a case of non-compliance to the UN Security Council which has the legal power to make a state fulfill its obligations."
This very lame attitude towards Israel and respect of its "state sovereignty" illustrates the complete decay of IAEA as an independent body.
"What surprises us is that at a time when the International Atomic Energy Agency is intensifying its efforts and monitoring (NPT) members countries ... we see that it continues to ignore the rejection of Israel in not joining the treaty."
"This constitutes a serious threat to the security and stability of the whole region."
- Saudi Arabian Foreign Minister Prince Saud al-Faisal at the annual meeting of the U.N. General Assembly, reported by BBC News, published Sept. 30, 2003.
***
So if Israel suddenly signed the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), and paved way for international inspections, what could one expect from these inspections?
History will tell.
When there was a time that Israel did actually allow for "inspections" of its facilities - in the beginning of its nuclear program - these inspections turned out to be nothing but a Zionist directed farce.
To "assure" the U.S. government that no nuclear bombs were being produced at the Israeli government's Dimona nuclear bomb factory, Israeli Prime Minister Ben-Gurion "agreed to permit regular inspections of the plant by American experts, but he secretly ordered severe restrictions on the inspectors' access," according to Triple Cross by Louis Toscano, the former United Press International Jerusalem Bureau Chief.
The Israel´s Nuclear Arsenal book by Peter Pry, notes that the 1969 U.S. inspection team "complained in writing that because the Israelis made their earlier inspection hurried and limited and did not permit them to move freely, they could not guarantee that there was no weapons-related work being done at Dimona." And according to Triple Cross, on one second-floor corridor at the Machon 2 nuclear bomb factory are two elevators "that dropped into the heart of the weapons plant," but the entrance to the corridor where the elevator doors are located "had been routinely bricked up when American inspectors were shown the building."
After 1969, even the previously limited U.S. inspections of the Dimona Nuclear Bomb Factory were no longer allowed by the Israeli government. And in November, 1976, thirteen U.S. Senators who were on a Middle East fact-finding tour were not allowed to examine the Dimona Nuclear Bomb Factory. According to Triple Cross, taped to a wall in Machon 2 in 1977 was "a newspaper clipping about the senators' attempted visit and the government's denial that any weapons were being built at Dimona."
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Appendix
A short essay on the history of Israel's Nuclear Weapons Program
The Zionist state of Israel's involvement with nuclear technology literally extends back to the founding of the country in 1948. A host of Jewish scientists emigrated to Palestine during the thirties and forties, particularly one Ernst David Bergmann - later the director of the Israeli Atomic Energy Commission and the founder of Israel's efforts to develop nuclear weapons. The Weizmann Institute of Science actively supported nuclear research by 1949, with Bergmann heading its chemistry division. Also in 1949, Francis Perrin - French nuclear physicist, atomic energy commissioner, and personal friend of Bergmann's - visited the Weizmann Institute, after which Israeli scientists were invited to the newly established French nuclear research facility at Saclay. A joint research effort was subsequently set up between the two nations.
At this time France's nuclear research capability was quite limited. France had been a leading research center in nuclear physics before the war, but had fallen far behind developments in the U.S., the USSR, Britain, and even Canada. Israel and France were thus at a similar levels of expertise at the time.
In the 1950s and early 1960s, the colonial power France and the newly established Jewish colonial state "Israel" in occupied Palestine had very close relations. France was Israel's principal arms supplier, and as instability spread in France's colonies in North Africa, Israel provided valuable intelligence obtained from its contacts with sephardic Jews in those countries.
Consequently the development of nuclear science and technology in France and Israel remained closely linked in the early fifties, for example Jewish scientists from Israel were involved in the construction of the G-1 plutonium production reactor and UP1 reprocessing plant at Marcoule.
Israel also managed to get France´s collaboration (along with Britain) in planning and staging the joint Suez-Sinai operation against the sovereign Arab state of Egypt in October 1956. The Suez Crisis, as it became known, proved to be the genesis of Israel's nuclear weapons production program.
Six weeks before the operation Israel felt the time was right to approach France for assistance in building a nuclear reactor. Canada had set a precedent a year earlier when it had agreed to build the 40 MW CIRUS reactor in India. Shimon Peres, a key aide to Prime Minister (and Defence Minister) David Ben Gurion, and Bergmann met with members of the CEA (France's Atomic Energy Commission). An initial understanding to provide a research reactor appears to have been reached during September.
On the whole the Suez operation, launched on 29 October was a disaster for both France and Britain whereas for Israels the invasion was a stunning success for the Zionist cause, allowing Israel to occupy the entire Sinai peninsula by 4 November. The French and British invasion of Egypt on 6 November failed - the attempt to advance along the Suez canal bogged down and then collapsed under fierce U.S. and Soviet pressure. Both European nations pulled out.
On 7 November 1956, a secret meeting was held between foreign minister Golda Meir, Peres, and French foreign and defence ministers Mssrs. Christian Pineau and Maurice Bourges-Manoury. In this meeting the initial understanding about a research reactor may have been substantially modified, and Peres seems to have secured an agreement to assist Israel in developing a nuclear deterrent.
After some further months of negotiation, the initial agreement for assistance took the form of an 18 MW (thermal) research reactor of the EL-3 type, along with plutonium separation technology. At some point this was officially upgraded to 24 MW, but the actual specifications issued to engineers provided for core cooling ducts sufficient for up to three times this power level, along with a plutonium plant of similar capacity. How this upgrade came about remains unknown.
The reactor was secretly built underground at Dimona, in the Negev desert of southern Israel near Beersheba. Hundreds of French engineers and technicians filled Beersheba which, although it was the biggest town in the Negev, was still a small town. Many of the same contractors who built Marcoule were involved, for example the plutonium separation plants in both France and Israel were built by SGN. The Ground was broken for the EL-102 reactor (as it was known to France) in early 1958. The heavy water for the reactor was purchased from Norway, which sold 20 tons to Israel in 1959 allegedly for use in an experimental power reactor Norway insisted on the right to inspect the heavy water for peaceful use for 32 years, but was permitted to do so only once, in April 1961, prior to it being loaded into the Dimona reactor tank.
Israel used a variety of subterfuges to explain away the activity at Dimona - calling it a "manganese plant" among other things (although apparently not a "textile plant" as most accounts claim). U.S. intelligence became aware of the project before the end of 1958, took picture of the project from U-2 spy planes, and identified the site as a probable reactor complex. The concentration of Frenchmen was certainly impossible to hide.
In 1960, before the reactor was operating, France, now under the leadership of de Gaulle, reconsidered the deal and decided to suspend the project. After several months of negotiation, an agreement was reached in November that allowed the reactor to proceed if Israel promised not the make weapons and announced the project to the world, work on the plutonium plant halted.
On 2 December 1960, before Israel could make the announcement, the U.S. State Department issued a determination that Israel had a secret nuclear installation. By 16 December this became public knowledge with its appearance in the New York Times. On 21 December Ben Gurion announced that Israel was building a 24 MW reactor "for peaceful purposes".
Over the next year the relationship between the U.S. and Israel was strained over the issue. The U.S. accepted Israel's claims at face value in public, but exerted pressure privately. Although Israel did allow a cursory inspection by physicists Eugene Wigner and I.I. Rabi, PM Ben Gurion consistently refused to allow international inspections. The final resolution was a commitment from Israel to use the facility for peaceful purposes, and an agreement to admit a U.S. inspection team once a year. These inspections, begun in 1962 and continued until 1969, were only shown the above-ground part of the buildings, which continued down many levels underground. The above ground areas had simulated control rooms, and access to the underground areas was kept bricked up while the inspectors where present.
In 1962 the Dimona reactor went critical, and the French resumed work on the plutonium plant, believed to have been completed in 1964 or 1965. The acquisition of this reactor and related technologies was clearly intended for military purposes from the outset (not "dual use") as the reactor has no other function. The security at Dimona (officially the Negev Nuclear Research Center) is stringent, an IAF Mirage was actually shot down in 1967 for straying into Dimona's airspace. There is little doubt then, that some time in the late sixties Israel became the sixth nation to manufacture nuclear weapons.
According to Jewish author Seymour Hersh, PM Levi Eshkol delayed starting nuclear weapons production even after the Dimona facility was finished. The reactor remained in operation so the plutonium continued to collect, whether it was separated or not. It is generally believed that the first extraction of plutonium occurred in 1965, and that enough plutonium was on hand for one weapon during the Six Day War in 1967 although whether a prototype weapon actually existed or not is unknown. Hersh relates that Moshe Dayan gave the go ahead for starting weapon production in early 1968, which is when the plutonium separation plant presumably went into full operation. After this Israel began producing three to five bombs a year. William E. Burrows and Robert Windrem, on the other hand, assert in Critical Mass that Israel actually had two bombs available for use in 1967, and that Eshkol actually ordered them armed in Israel's first nuclear alert during the Six Day War.
Israel began purchasing Krytrons in 1971. These are ultra high speed electronic switching tubes that are "dual use", having both industrial and nuclear weapons applications.
Considerable nuclear collaboration between Israel and South Africa seems to have developed around 1967 and continued through the 70s and 80s. During this period the racist Apartheid régime in South Africa was Israel's primary supplier of uranium for Dimona. An open question remains regarding what role Israel had (if any) in the 22 September 1979 nuclear explosion in the south Indian Ocean which is widely believed to be a South Africa-Israel joint test.
New Reports of Israeli-South African Nuclear Collaboration
April 21, 1997
According to a report published in the Israeli daily paper Ha'aretz on Sunday April 20, 1997. Israel assisted South Africa in developing nuclear weapons in the early 1980s. The paper based its report on interviews with South African officials, including Deputy Foreign Minister Aziz Pahad, and retired Gen. Constand Viljoen, who was South African chief of staff from 1980-1985, the period during which nuclear weapon development took place.
Speculation about such cooperation has been rife since the detection of a suspected nuclear test over the South Atlantic in 1979 (never tied to any country). Firm information about at least indirect nuclear cooperation between the two countries has been available since South Africa declassified its weapon program in 1993. South Africa has previously revealed receiving gram quantities of tritium, a critical material for advanced weapons, from Israel but authoritative reports of direct collaboration in weapon development has so far been lacking.
Pahad, however, told Ha'aretz that Israeli and South African scientists cooperated "on very specific equipment" designed for military use. "The nuclear issue was top secret and many documents were destroyed," Pahad said. He could not be reached by the Associated Press for further comment. However, aides said that the deputy foreign minister has made similar statements in the past.
Viljoen, was quoted as saying, "We wanted to get nuclear knowledge from whoever we could, also from Israel."
Ha'aretz also cited past reports that Israel purchased 550 tons of uranium from South Africa for its own nuclear plant in Dimona. In exchange, Israel supplied South Africa with nuclear know-how and material to increase the power of nuclear warheads, the newspaper said.
(Reports from Associated Press were used in preparing this article.)
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