Organization: Queen's University at Kingston
Date: Sat, 12 Dec 1992 05:23:16 EST
From: Andy <2893684@QUCDN.QueensU.CA>
Newsgroups: soc.culture.jewish
Subject: Z MAGAZINE: Israel and the Nuclear Problem

In article <1992Dec12.055347.3905@mont.cs.missouri.edu>, harelb@math.cornell.edu
(Harel Barzilai) says:
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>Topic 42        Israel and the Nuclear Problem
>pnews   "Z"      8:37 pm  Dec 11, 1992
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>Subject: Israel and the Nuclear Problem
>From: Hank Roth <odin@world.std.com>
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><<< via P_news/p.news >>>
>From: Philip Feeley <pfeeley@unixg.ubc.ca>
>To: odin@world.std.com <Hank Roth>
>
>
>    =============================================================
>     I S R A E L   A N D   T H E   N U C L E A R   P R O B L E M
>    =============================================================
>                by Gideon Spiro, Z Magazine Nov. '92, p 38-39
>
>
>        Continued international    efforts   to    neutralize   Iraq's
>              [although not the means used --HB]
>nonconventional military capabilities  deserve the support of everyone
>who cares about the well-being of the Middle East, and the security of
>the global community.  Meanwhile, unfortunately, the recent efforts to
>disarm Iraq are sharply contradicted by the  international community's
>silence regarding  the nuclear,  chemical  and  biological  weapons of
>Iraq's  chief   rival:  Israel.  This double    standard is especially
>troubling, since it was Israel that started the non- conventional arms
>race in the region when it decided, in  the 1950s, to become a nuclear
>power and build the Dimona reactor with the cooperation of France.
>
>        The basic facts about Israel's nuclear arsenal have  been know
>since 1986, when Mordechai Vanunu  handed over  the internal plans  of
>the Dimona plant to the London Sunday Times.   Vanunu, who worked as a
>nuclear  technician  at the facility  for  nine years,  revealed  that
>Israel  had over  300 nuclear bombs,  far more than any think-tank  or
>intelligence  experts had imagined.    But does a  country like Israel
>need such   weapons?   The  answer, in  my  opinion,  is unequivocally
>no--even after   allowing for Israel's  legitimate  security concerns.
>Plainly, no defensive military needs--not even deterrence--can justify
>such an arsenal.
>
>        Unfortunately,  nuclear  weapons have tempted Israel's leaders
>to  believe they can  lord it over the  Middle East, maintaining their
>nuclear  monopoly with  raw  military   force,  as needed,  and  James
>Bond-style  operations.   Prime Minister Menachem Begin's  decision in
>1981 to bomb  the Iraqi Osirak research reactor  was  an expression of
>this Israeli perception of  power.   Though  such tactics may  receive
>welcome cheers in  Tel Aviv, they  should be viewed as the provocative
>acts that they are.
>
>        Moreover, the perception of  power that  drives  such a policy
>may be an illusion.  With hindsight it is clear that the 1f981 raid on
>Baghdad not only  did not deter  Iraqi nuclear  ambitions, it may even
>have  fueled them.  Following  the  Gulf War,  the  UN inspection team
>concluded,  based on their  review of Iraqi government documents, that
>Israel's 1981  raid  served  to   accelerate   rather  than  frustrate
>Hussein's nuclear program.
>
>        Nor is it likely that Israel's nuclear capabilities will deter
>other  nations from pursuing  the nuclear option.  Iran apparently  is
>making a major bid to join the nuclear club.   In  late March 1992 the
>German weekly, Stern, interviewed  a senior Iranian  leader who stated
>that Israel's nuclear arsenal "leaves us no  choice but to acquire the
>same weaponry."
>
>        And  Syria and  Egypt already have  armed themselves  with the
>poor  nation's  alternative   to  the  bomb, chemical   and biological
>weapons, in an effort to protect themselves until such time  that they
>can acquire nukes.
>
>        Some argue that nuclear  weapons  are  less dangerous in   the
>hands of Israel than in the hands of an ayatollah or a Saddam Hussein,
>since "Israel  is  a  responsible democratic  state."  But such  views
>reflect a naive understanding of the situation in the Middle East.
>
>        In the first place,   Israel's history of occupation  and  its
>continuing  military  rule over  two million  Palestinians is  not the
>behavior of a responsible state--just the opposite, in fact.
>
>        Secondly,  because the harsh realities  of  arms trade and the
>effects  of militarization exert  such a powerful corrupting influence
>on all states in  the Middle East,  the differences between democratic
>and totalitarian governments  can  sometimes narrow and  even   vanish
>altogether.
>
>        Just as the Iraqi  decision to build  nuclear weapons was made
>by only one man, Saddam Hussein, so also the  earlier Israeli decision
>was  made  by  one man  alone, David  Ben  Gurion.   Nor  did Israel's
>democratic institutions play any  role in that decision.  Indeed, over
>the years, the nuclear  issue has never  once been openly discussed in
>the  Knesset  (Israel's  parliament)  and   only rarely  has  it  been
>mentioned in the Israeli press.  Considering this wall of silence, the
>differences  between democratic  Israel and  totalitarian  Iraq on the
>nuclear issue seem almost irrelevant.
>
>        Nor do  the  Islamic states  have a   monopoly on  nationalist
>religious  fundamentalism.   Jewish   fundamentalism   also exists and
>influences a large proportion  of  the Israeli  population.  Jews with
>extremist views hold  many   positions  of power  throughout   Israeli
>society: in the military, the government, the weapons industry, and in
>the    financial and industrial  sectors.   And  Jewish fundamentalist
>thrive across most of the wide spectrum of  Israeli politics, from the
>hawkish  wing of the Labor  Party  to  Likud and  the far  right.  The
>danger posed by such people  close  to  the Israeli nuclear trigger is
>not fundamentally different from the threat of  a nuclear-armed Saddam
>Hussein.
>
>        There is also a  rude irony  in the fact that, should Israel's
>leaders one day decide to use nuclear  weapons, the fateful step could
>be self-defeating.  In a  geographically compressed region such as the
>Middle East, any local use of nukes certainly would contaminate Israel
>with  radioactive fallout.  Furthermore,  even  in peacetime the  mere
>presence of nuclear reactors and bombs  carries the  ever-present risk
>of a nuclear accident.  But unlike Russia, where  people were  able to
>flee to safety, Israel is so tiny that  even a mini-Chernobyl would be
>a national catastrophe.
>
>        And there  is the matter of  nuclear  waste.  Due to  the long
>standing   Israeli government  policy  of  total  secrecy,  even today
>Israeli citizens  do  not  know  what has  been done  with  the  waste
>generated by the Dimona reactor over the past 30 years.  No  one knows
>what safety precautions--if any-- have been implemented to protect the
>nearby towns and villages.  No  debate on nuclear  waste has ever been
>held in Israel.  Nor has any political party made the issue a  part of
>its agenda.
>
>        In December 1991, three decades after the establishment of the
>Dimona facility,  the  first anti-nuclear   demonstration was held  in
>front of the  Dimona  reactor by the  Israeli Committee  for Mordechai
>Vanunu.  Demonstrators called on the government to release information
>about storage of  nuclear waste, to  open the reactor to international
>supervision, to sign the nuclear nonproliferation treaty, and  to halt
>production of nuclear weapons.  And the  demonstrators also called for
>the release of Mordechai Vanunu.
>
>        Indeed, it  is not possible   to talk about  Israel's  nuclear
>weapons without  mentioning Vanunu.   It  was  Vanunu   who   took the
>courageous step  of exposing  Israel's  lie that it  would  not be the
>first to introduce  nuclear arms into  the  Middle East--whereupon the
>Israeli  government reacted immediately  to  silence Vanunu.   He  was
>kidnapped from Rome and prosecuted in Israel behind closed doors.  And
>for  nearly six years,  since the day  he   was highjacked, Vanunu has
>remained in solitary confinement.
>
>        Though the cruel  measures  used against Vanunu raise  serious
>doubts about Israel's democratic pretensions, Israeli officials try to
>justify their  behavior by  comparing   Vanunu with the spy   Jonathan
>Pollard.  But it is a false equation.  Pollard was  a U.S. citizen who
>sold state secrets  to  another country.  Vanunu,  on the other  hand,
>acted as an exemplary citizen on behalf of the truth.  In fact, it was
>Vanunu's  commitment  to  democracy- -not  the   lure of   money--that
>compelled him to expose the lies of his government.
>
>        Vanunu is  more  favorably compared with  Daniel  Ellsberg and
>Tony Russo, who together released the Pentagon  Papers and showed that
>the U.S. government was lying to the American people about the Vietnam
>War.   Later their  efforts were backed  up by a  U.S.  court  when it
>rejected the Nixon administration's efforts  to prevent publication of
>the Papers.  In so  doing  the court  protected the American  public's
>right  to  know   the    facts  about   its  government's  activities.
>Unfortunately, because Israel does not  have a constitution,  the same
>rights are not protected by law in Israel.
>
>        Another measure   of    Israel's   irresponsibility  is    its
>development of biological weapons  at a research facility in NesZiona,
>near Tel Aviv.   This  research  on biological warfare   violated  all
>international conventions.  Once again, the Israeli government hid the
>project from  its citizens,  and employed military censorship to block
>any   information from  reaching  the  public.  Several months ago,  a
>leading  Israeli  newspaper was prohibited    by military censors from
>printing an article describing research at the NesZiona Institute.
>
>        If Israel's leaders were truly responsible, they would ask the
>United States to help  initiate negotiations to  transform  the Middle
>East into a nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons free zone.   Had
>we an Israeli version of South Africa's De Klerk, Israel would already
>have announced  its  intention to  end further production  of  nuclear
>weapons, and to  destroy those weapons  already existing--as part of a
>peace treaty with its Arab neighbors.   But this has not happened, not
>is it likely to happen in the near future.
>
>        The international community has every reason  to be alarmed by
>the spreading arms race in the Middle East.   And it has a  moral duty
>to work  toward   the dismantling of  all     nuclear,  chemical,  and
>biological weapons in the region.  However, due to Israel's dependence
>on the United  States, the U.S. alone has  the means, and there  for a
>special obligation, to use its considerable  influence to prevail upon
>Israel to sign the non-proliferation treaty  already  approved by most
>of the world's nations, and to submit to international inspections.
>
>        Israel's nuclear  weapons are not simply  an internal  Israeli
>issue, they are   a  world concern.  It  is   high time that  Israel's
>continuing   refusal  to   comply  with international nonproliferation
>standards be brought before the UN Security Council.  Israel should be
>held to the same standards that are now being  implemented in the case
>of Iraq.
>
>(The author is   an Israeli  journalist and  peace activist living  in
>Jerusalem, Israel.)
>
>
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