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Israel's secret nuclear threats
Milan Rai & Emily Johns
The greatest danger to the peo
ples of the Middle East, includ
ing the people of Israel, comes
from Israel's determination to retain
control of the land it conquered 40
years ago, and its willingness to use
nuclear weapons to maintain its dominance of these territories.
Israel is committed to a semi-open
nuclear policy referred to as the "Samson
option", a threat to bring down the entire
Middle East, and perhaps even the world,
to maintain its controlling position, and
to prop up allied authoritarian states in
Saudi Arabia, Egypt and elsewhere.
Nuclear bombs and Israel's wars
Nuclear weapons have been a live policy
option in Israel for 40 years. We've
known for some time (because of Avner
Cohen's landmark study Israel's Bomb)
that Israel, which started a nuclear
weapons programme in the 1950s, actu
ally assembled and put on "operational
alert" two deliverable nuclear bombs
weeks before its June 1967 assault on
Egypt, Jordan, and Syria.
Israel went on fullscale nuclear alert
again during the first Gulf war in 1991.
An Israeli commentator urged before the
war, in October 1990, that Iraq should be
told that "any Iraqi action against Israeli
civilian populations, with or without gas,
may leave Iraq without Baghdad."
This is the kind of unclear and
"opaque" language that all Israeli leaders
have used about their nuclear weapons
(owning up to proliferation would imme
diately end over $2bn in annual US aid).
Well, this is the language used by all
Israeli leaders except current prime minister Ehud Olmert, who in December
2006 accused Iran of "aspiring to have
nuclear weapons, as [do] America, France,
Israel, Russia".
Iran copying Israel?
Israeli nuclear expert Avner Cohen draws
a parallel between Israel's "opaque"
nuclear history and Iran's suspected ambitions: "It may well be that some Iranians
have come to believe that by mimicking the Israeli model as much as they could,
they would get all the prestige and deter
rence effects they need but without leav
ing the Nuclear NonProliferation Treaty,
let alone without testing or declaring
such a bomb."
The "secret weapon"
In 1992 Israeli nuclear insider Oded
Brosh linked Israel's nuclear weapons to
the fact that "the Saudi royal family is not
going to reign forever" and that "the
Egyptian regime may change".
Israel Shahak discussed these and other
semiofficial remarks in Open Secrets: Israeli
nuclear and foreign policies. He argued that
Israel seeks domination of the entire Mid
dle East -- including by propping up
allied dictatorships -- "without hesitating
to use for the purpose all means available,
including nuclear ones".
Bringing down the temple
Israel's nuclear force, like all nuclear arse
nals, is not simply a lastditch defence, to
be used only to preserve national destruction. (Even in these circumstances, the
image of Samson bringing down the tem
ple on himself and his enemies indicates
this is a doctrine of national suicide and
possibly of regional genocide.)
Israel Shahak quotes the first director
of the Israeli Institute for the Develop
ment of Weapons, Munya Mardoch, who
said, "The moral and political meaning of
nuclear weapons is that states which
renounce their use are acquiescing to the
status of vassal states. All those states
which feel satisfied with possessing conventional weapons alone are fated to
become vassal states". Israel is
determined to be a dominant
state, not a vassal state.
As the 1973 ArabIsraeli war
began, the US wanted to "let
Israel come out ahead, but
bleed" (Secretary of State Henry
Kissinger). The US deliberately
delayed the supply of arms in
order to allow the Arab states to
win some territory and some
selfrespect, and to lay the basis
for serious peace negotiations.
The Israeli government decid
ed to put its nuclear forces on
alert in order to frighten the US
into speeding up the supply of
weapons. The threat succeeded,
as Kissinger, alarmed at the
prospect of nuclear war, immediately ordered the acceleration
of the arms resupply. (See
Hersh.)
Threatening Iran
In May 2006, in response to
Iranian President Ahmadinejad's
supposed threat to wipe Israel
off the face of the earth, Israeli
deputy prime minister Shimon
Peres said, "They want to wipe
out Israel... when it comes to
destruction, Iran too can be
destroyed."
Ahmadinejad was misquoted
-- he was referring to the politi
cal state of Israel, not Israel as a
nation -- and the sentiment has
been expressely withdrawn by
the Iranian Foreign Minister on
18 May.
Shimon Peres, on the other
hand, was criticised for being
too open.
Israel's nuclear doctrine
threatens national suicide,
regional catastrophe and possi
bly global war, in the interests
of power, not self-preservation.
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