From: harelb@math.cornell.edu (Harel Barzilai)
Newsgroups: misc.activism.progressive
Subject: Z MAGAZINE: Israel and the Nuclear Problem
Date: 12 Dec 92 05:53:47 GMT
Followup-To: alt.activism.d
Organization: ?
Originator: daemon@pencil.cs.missouri.edu


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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> 


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     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
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                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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