20 dec 2013
Hebrew press sources reported that Moscow had pledged to refrain from taking any political steps that would harm Israel's interests, by confronting the attempts aimed at disarming Israel of its nuclear weapons. Maariv newspaper said in its Friday edition that Russian president Vladimir Putin told Israeli premier Benjamin Netanyahu, during a private meeting in Moscow last month, that his country would oppose the efforts to convene an international conference to strip the Middle East of nuclear weapons.
It added that Putin promised that "Russia would block efforts to convene the nuclear arms conference," after Netanyahu stressed that threats to disarm Israel of its nuclear weapons would harm its interests in the middle east.
"Putin even made it clear to Netanyahu that Russia would not do anything to harm Israel", the newspaper said.
Putin added that despite the close relationship between Israel and the US, with whom Russia's relationship is strained, Russia would stand by Israel's side.
It added that Putin promised that "Russia would block efforts to convene the nuclear arms conference," after Netanyahu stressed that threats to disarm Israel of its nuclear weapons would harm its interests in the middle east.
"Putin even made it clear to Netanyahu that Russia would not do anything to harm Israel", the newspaper said.
Putin added that despite the close relationship between Israel and the US, with whom Russia's relationship is strained, Russia would stand by Israel's side.
11 dec 2013
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In an interview with Press TV, David Duke, the former member of the House of Representative, shares his thoughts regarding the head of the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) urging Israel to join the Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC) |
10 dec 2013
Ahmet Uzumcu, director general of the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) holds the medal and the diploma during the Nobel Peace Prize awards ceremony at the City Hall in Oslo December 10, 2013
Israel, Egypt and North Korea should renounce chemical weapons, especially after Syria joined the convention banning them and three other nations plan to do so, the chief of an international watchdog said on Tuesday. Ahmet Uzumcu, head of the Nobel Peace Prize-winning Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW), said Angola, Myanmar and South Sudan were preparing to join the pact.
"Now since Syria has become a member country, I think (Israel) can reconsider," Uzumcu told Reuters in Oslo, where he accepted the 2013 Nobel award for the OPCW.
Israel, which has observer status at the OPCW, signed the convention in 1993, but has never ratified it.
As with its presumed nuclear arsenal, Israel has never publicly admitted having chemical weapons. Intelligence Minister Yuval Steinitz said in September that Israel would be ready to discuss the issue when there was peace in the Middle East.
"I don't see any excuse for not joining the convention," Uzumcu said. "Three (nations) are very close to membership and I hope the others will reconsider their positions."
The OPCW's mission gained critical importance this year after a sarin gas attack outside Damascus in August killed hundreds of people, exacerbating a 2-1/2-year-old conflict in Syria in which more than 100,000 have died.
Syria then agreed under a deal arranged by the United States and Russia to destroy all of its 1,300 tonnes of sarin, mustard gas and other lethal agents, averting U.S. missile strikes.
"The only consolation is that those attacks led to renewed efforts by the international community to eliminate them," Uzumcu said, referring to chemical weapons around the world.
CHALLENGES
Work is Syria is hampered by security challenges and needs more money but the Syrian government is doing its best to cooperate and OPCW expects soon to secure a port where the deadliest chemicals can be neutralised offshore, he said.
"There are some contacts which are under way and we may be informed within a week to 10 days," Uzumcu said, without identifying the port. "The Syrian government has been quite cooperative, constructive and transparent so far."
The United States is donating a naval ship and equipment to destroy Syria's most dangerous chemical weapons but securing a port has proven especially difficult and the OPCW is at risk of missing its December 31 deadline to remove these weapons from Syria.
Getting rid of the less dangerous weapons is also a challenge, unless more funds are forthcoming, Uzumcu said.
"The financial contributions have been encouraging but we expect more because we have built a trust fund for the second category of chemical substances, which will have to be destroyed at commercial plants," he said.
"The United States will cover all the costs for the priority-one chemical weapons. For the second category of weapons, we estimate 35 to 40 million euros," Uzumcu said.
The OPCW hopes to remove all chemical weapons from Syria by February 5 and to destroy them by June 30. The most dangerous of the chemicals, about 500 tonnes, will be processed by the United States and stored at an undetermined location.
The U.S. ship cannot sail into a Syrian port so current plans call for Danish and Norwegian merchant ships to get the chemicals out, some to be transferred to the U.S. vessel and the less lethal ones to commercial chemical plants for incineration.
Israel, Egypt and North Korea should renounce chemical weapons, especially after Syria joined the convention banning them and three other nations plan to do so, the chief of an international watchdog said on Tuesday. Ahmet Uzumcu, head of the Nobel Peace Prize-winning Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW), said Angola, Myanmar and South Sudan were preparing to join the pact.
"Now since Syria has become a member country, I think (Israel) can reconsider," Uzumcu told Reuters in Oslo, where he accepted the 2013 Nobel award for the OPCW.
Israel, which has observer status at the OPCW, signed the convention in 1993, but has never ratified it.
As with its presumed nuclear arsenal, Israel has never publicly admitted having chemical weapons. Intelligence Minister Yuval Steinitz said in September that Israel would be ready to discuss the issue when there was peace in the Middle East.
"I don't see any excuse for not joining the convention," Uzumcu said. "Three (nations) are very close to membership and I hope the others will reconsider their positions."
The OPCW's mission gained critical importance this year after a sarin gas attack outside Damascus in August killed hundreds of people, exacerbating a 2-1/2-year-old conflict in Syria in which more than 100,000 have died.
Syria then agreed under a deal arranged by the United States and Russia to destroy all of its 1,300 tonnes of sarin, mustard gas and other lethal agents, averting U.S. missile strikes.
"The only consolation is that those attacks led to renewed efforts by the international community to eliminate them," Uzumcu said, referring to chemical weapons around the world.
CHALLENGES
Work is Syria is hampered by security challenges and needs more money but the Syrian government is doing its best to cooperate and OPCW expects soon to secure a port where the deadliest chemicals can be neutralised offshore, he said.
"There are some contacts which are under way and we may be informed within a week to 10 days," Uzumcu said, without identifying the port. "The Syrian government has been quite cooperative, constructive and transparent so far."
The United States is donating a naval ship and equipment to destroy Syria's most dangerous chemical weapons but securing a port has proven especially difficult and the OPCW is at risk of missing its December 31 deadline to remove these weapons from Syria.
Getting rid of the less dangerous weapons is also a challenge, unless more funds are forthcoming, Uzumcu said.
"The financial contributions have been encouraging but we expect more because we have built a trust fund for the second category of chemical substances, which will have to be destroyed at commercial plants," he said.
"The United States will cover all the costs for the priority-one chemical weapons. For the second category of weapons, we estimate 35 to 40 million euros," Uzumcu said.
The OPCW hopes to remove all chemical weapons from Syria by February 5 and to destroy them by June 30. The most dangerous of the chemicals, about 500 tonnes, will be processed by the United States and stored at an undetermined location.
The U.S. ship cannot sail into a Syrian port so current plans call for Danish and Norwegian merchant ships to get the chemicals out, some to be transferred to the U.S. vessel and the less lethal ones to commercial chemical plants for incineration.
25 nov 2013
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Former US President John F. Kennedy in his open car
An American political commentator says Israel was behind the assassination of former US President John F. Kennedy because he opposed Israel’s plans of becoming a nuclear power in the Middle East. Dr. Kevin Barrett made the remarks in an interview with Press TV on Saturday, a day after Americans commemorated the 50th anniversary of Kennedy’s death. “Anyone with any common sense knows that Israel getting nuclear weapons was a complete disaster for the world,” he said. |
“The Israelis are fanatical extremists who feel that they are being persecuted everywhere they go and they have to be extremely harsh, unyielding and aggressive as well as deceptive and violent with the world. So they have a terrible track record of extreme deception, lies and extreme violence. They are ruthless, they are psychopathic and they are the most likely…to use nuclear weapons,” Barrett added.
“President Kennedy like President Eisenhower and all rational Americans obviously wouldn’t want Israel to have nuclear weapons. Kennedy tried to shut down the Israeli nuclear program. [Former Israeli Prime Minister David] David Ben-Gurion resigned in protest and less than six months later Kennedy was dead and Israel was on its way to becoming a nuclear power,” he stated.
On November 22, 1963, Kennedy was killed by sniper Lee Harvey Oswald in Dallas. He was shot as he rode in an open car through the city.
Although official inquiries have determined Oswald, a former Marine Corps veteran, was responsible for the assassination, Kennedy's murder is still shrouded in mystery.
The 46-year-old president, who had been in office only for three years, is often ranked among the country’s most revered presidents.
However, Kennedy is also remembered for ordering one of the most disastrous parts of the Cold War, the failed Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba by a CIA-trained paramilitary force of Cuban exiles.
Kennedy was the fourth US president to be killed in office. Many refuse to believe the assassination could be the act of a single man.
“President Kennedy like President Eisenhower and all rational Americans obviously wouldn’t want Israel to have nuclear weapons. Kennedy tried to shut down the Israeli nuclear program. [Former Israeli Prime Minister David] David Ben-Gurion resigned in protest and less than six months later Kennedy was dead and Israel was on its way to becoming a nuclear power,” he stated.
On November 22, 1963, Kennedy was killed by sniper Lee Harvey Oswald in Dallas. He was shot as he rode in an open car through the city.
Although official inquiries have determined Oswald, a former Marine Corps veteran, was responsible for the assassination, Kennedy's murder is still shrouded in mystery.
The 46-year-old president, who had been in office only for three years, is often ranked among the country’s most revered presidents.
However, Kennedy is also remembered for ordering one of the most disastrous parts of the Cold War, the failed Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba by a CIA-trained paramilitary force of Cuban exiles.
Kennedy was the fourth US president to be killed in office. Many refuse to believe the assassination could be the act of a single man.
14 nov 2013
A political commentator says the world should focus on Israel’s nuclear weapons program and urge the five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council to more speedily dismantle their nukes.
Hamid Golpira made the remarks in an interview with Press TV on Wednesday.
Most experts estimate that Israel has about 200 nuclear warheads, largely based on information leaked to the Sunday Times newspaper in the 1980s by Mordechai Vanunu, a former worker at the Israel's Dimona nuclear reactor.
Israel, which has started several wars in the region in its 65-year history of occupation, maintains a policy of deliberate ambiguity over its nuclear weapons program and does not allow international inspectors to visit its nuclear sites.
Hamid Golpira made the remarks in an interview with Press TV on Wednesday.
Most experts estimate that Israel has about 200 nuclear warheads, largely based on information leaked to the Sunday Times newspaper in the 1980s by Mordechai Vanunu, a former worker at the Israel's Dimona nuclear reactor.
Israel, which has started several wars in the region in its 65-year history of occupation, maintains a policy of deliberate ambiguity over its nuclear weapons program and does not allow international inspectors to visit its nuclear sites.
On the other hand, the illegal US-engineered sanctions on Iran have been imposed based on the unfounded accusation that Tehran is pursuing non-civilian objectives in its nuclear energy program.
Iran rejects the allegation, arguing that as a committed signatory to the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) and a member of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), it has the right to use nuclear technology for peaceful purposes.
In addition, the IAEA has conducted numerous inspections of Iran's nuclear facilities but has never found any evidence showing that Iran's civilian nuclear program has been diverted to nuclear weapons production.
Commenting on why there is so much hype about Iran’s peaceful nuclear energy program but no serious discussion about Israel’s nuclear weapons program, Golpira said, "There’s the rub, that’s the point. Israel has nuclear weapons, and some other countries have nuclear weapons too, even the NPT grants the five countries to have temporarily nuclear weapons, but the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty says eventually they must dismantle their nuclear weapons.
“Israel and some other countries have nuclear weapons and they are not signatories to the NPT. So, they are technically not violating the treaty because they have not signed it, but at the same rate, it is becoming a certain kind of international law that they are not supposed to be having a nuclear weapons program like this.
“And on top of that they have this nuclear ambiguity -- they have this official policy that we don’t say if we have nuclear weapons and we don’t say if don’t - [but] most people are pretty certain that they do have nuclear weapons. The fact is that the world is not coming down on Israel, which has nuclear weapons, or pushing the five countries that have a kind of temporary pass in the NPT to more speedily dismantle their nuclear weapons…Although there is not exact timetable, but the NPT says even these countries must eventually dismantle their nuclear weapons, and it must be a nuclear-weapons free world, and there must be a total nuclear disarmament. At least, that is what one of the articles of the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty says.”
Addressing the UN Conference on Disarmament in September in New York, Iranian President Hassan Rouhani called for the total elimination of nuclear weapons and global nuclear disarmament.
“As long as nuclear weapons exist, the risk of their use, threat of use and proliferation persists. The only absolute guarantee is their total elimination,” Rouhani said.
Iran rejects the allegation, arguing that as a committed signatory to the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) and a member of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), it has the right to use nuclear technology for peaceful purposes.
In addition, the IAEA has conducted numerous inspections of Iran's nuclear facilities but has never found any evidence showing that Iran's civilian nuclear program has been diverted to nuclear weapons production.
Commenting on why there is so much hype about Iran’s peaceful nuclear energy program but no serious discussion about Israel’s nuclear weapons program, Golpira said, "There’s the rub, that’s the point. Israel has nuclear weapons, and some other countries have nuclear weapons too, even the NPT grants the five countries to have temporarily nuclear weapons, but the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty says eventually they must dismantle their nuclear weapons.
“Israel and some other countries have nuclear weapons and they are not signatories to the NPT. So, they are technically not violating the treaty because they have not signed it, but at the same rate, it is becoming a certain kind of international law that they are not supposed to be having a nuclear weapons program like this.
“And on top of that they have this nuclear ambiguity -- they have this official policy that we don’t say if we have nuclear weapons and we don’t say if don’t - [but] most people are pretty certain that they do have nuclear weapons. The fact is that the world is not coming down on Israel, which has nuclear weapons, or pushing the five countries that have a kind of temporary pass in the NPT to more speedily dismantle their nuclear weapons…Although there is not exact timetable, but the NPT says even these countries must eventually dismantle their nuclear weapons, and it must be a nuclear-weapons free world, and there must be a total nuclear disarmament. At least, that is what one of the articles of the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty says.”
Addressing the UN Conference on Disarmament in September in New York, Iranian President Hassan Rouhani called for the total elimination of nuclear weapons and global nuclear disarmament.
“As long as nuclear weapons exist, the risk of their use, threat of use and proliferation persists. The only absolute guarantee is their total elimination,” Rouhani said.
8 nov 2013
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The United States has defended its plans to spend billions of dollars to upgrade and modernize its nuclear arsenal.
This is while the US President has always maintained that the US will decrease its nuclear weapons stockpile, like the agreement with Russia in the NEW START program. Why does the US feel it needs nuclear weapons to maintain superiority, and yet preach other nations against having them? |
16 oct 2013
Natanz Nuclear Facility
by James M Wall
This week’s Geneva nuclear table talks pit Iran against the Big Five Security Council members, plus Germany.
Iran sits alone at the table, seeking release from its “sanctions jail” incarceration from its jailers, the Big Five plus one nations.
Israel will not be in the room, even though the region’s self-proclaimed “only democracy”, is Iran’s chief accuser in these talks.
Israel’s leaders will be back home, hiding behind what Israel calls its “ambiguity wall”, a metaphorical entity which hides at least 80 Israeli nuclear war heads, plus the material to build hundreds more.
The ambiguity wall has protected Israel’s growing nuclear arsenal from the world’s eyes since the 1950s. In 1986, Mordechai Vanunu, an Israeli nuclear technician working in Dimona, breached the wall when he leaked the country’s nuclear secrets to a British newspaper.
Vanunu said Israel had at least 100 nuclear weapons. He was kidnapped by Israeli Mossad agents in Rome and quickly convicted of espionage and treason. He served a jail term of 18 years, 11 of which were in solitary confinement.
by James M Wall
This week’s Geneva nuclear table talks pit Iran against the Big Five Security Council members, plus Germany.
Iran sits alone at the table, seeking release from its “sanctions jail” incarceration from its jailers, the Big Five plus one nations.
Israel will not be in the room, even though the region’s self-proclaimed “only democracy”, is Iran’s chief accuser in these talks.
Israel’s leaders will be back home, hiding behind what Israel calls its “ambiguity wall”, a metaphorical entity which hides at least 80 Israeli nuclear war heads, plus the material to build hundreds more.
The ambiguity wall has protected Israel’s growing nuclear arsenal from the world’s eyes since the 1950s. In 1986, Mordechai Vanunu, an Israeli nuclear technician working in Dimona, breached the wall when he leaked the country’s nuclear secrets to a British newspaper.
Vanunu said Israel had at least 100 nuclear weapons. He was kidnapped by Israeli Mossad agents in Rome and quickly convicted of espionage and treason. He served a jail term of 18 years, 11 of which were in solitary confinement.
Israeli whistleblower Mordechai Vanunu. In the back, a satellite image of Israeli nuclear facility and reactors, Dimona.
After his release in 2004, Vanunu was forbidden to leave the state of Israel or speak with journalists. Born in Marrakech, Morocco, to a Sephardi rabbi, Vanunu learned the hard way that it is not nice to talk about what goes on behind Israel’s “ambiguity wall”.
The wall continues to be accepted as “ambiguious” by world media and governments, thanks to the powerful influence of the United States, Israel’s big brother protector and financial sugar daddy. Thanks to big brother, the talks in Geneva are proceeding as though Iran’s major accuser is not needed in the nuclear table talks.
Iran, sitting as the “accused” in Geneva, does not put its nuclear facilities behind an “ambiguity” wall. The BBC offers a close look at Iran’s various nuclear production sites. This report relies on Iran’s open stance regarding its program, in contrast to Israel’s lack of transparency.
Iran resumed uranium enrichment work at Natanz in July 2004, after a halt during negotiations with leading European powers over its program.
It announced in September 2007 that it had installed 3,000 centrifuges, the machines that do the enrichment. In 2010, Iran told the IAEA Natanz would be the venue for new enrichment facilities – construction of which would start around March 2011.
This is the facility at the heart of Iran’s dispute with the United Nations Security Council.
The Council is concerned because the technology used for producing fuel for nuclear power can be used to enrich the uranium to a much higher level to produce a nuclear explosion.
Of course fuel produced for nuclear power can be used to produce a nuclear explosion. There is no secret about this reality. Iran wants what every developed nation wants, a developed nuclear power system, and the option to build stronger, more lethal, stuff.
Were it not for a desire to compete for military power among nations like the Big Five, plus Germany, all of whom are well armed with nuclear weapons, the world would have moved decades ago to eliminate all nuclear weapons.
They have not, so we are left with the larger powers working hard to limit nuclear arms to those who have already crossed into nuclear arms territory. Once into that territory, nations are asked to sign the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. Israel, of course, has never signed the treaty, nor has it been pressured to do so.
Meanwhile, in Geneva, The Guardian reports the not-yet-public opening proposal from Iran to the peace talks:
The Iranian delegation to international talks in Geneva has presented proposals which it claims will end the longstanding deadlock over its nuclear programme.
After his release in 2004, Vanunu was forbidden to leave the state of Israel or speak with journalists. Born in Marrakech, Morocco, to a Sephardi rabbi, Vanunu learned the hard way that it is not nice to talk about what goes on behind Israel’s “ambiguity wall”.
The wall continues to be accepted as “ambiguious” by world media and governments, thanks to the powerful influence of the United States, Israel’s big brother protector and financial sugar daddy. Thanks to big brother, the talks in Geneva are proceeding as though Iran’s major accuser is not needed in the nuclear table talks.
Iran, sitting as the “accused” in Geneva, does not put its nuclear facilities behind an “ambiguity” wall. The BBC offers a close look at Iran’s various nuclear production sites. This report relies on Iran’s open stance regarding its program, in contrast to Israel’s lack of transparency.
Iran resumed uranium enrichment work at Natanz in July 2004, after a halt during negotiations with leading European powers over its program.
It announced in September 2007 that it had installed 3,000 centrifuges, the machines that do the enrichment. In 2010, Iran told the IAEA Natanz would be the venue for new enrichment facilities – construction of which would start around March 2011.
This is the facility at the heart of Iran’s dispute with the United Nations Security Council.
The Council is concerned because the technology used for producing fuel for nuclear power can be used to enrich the uranium to a much higher level to produce a nuclear explosion.
Of course fuel produced for nuclear power can be used to produce a nuclear explosion. There is no secret about this reality. Iran wants what every developed nation wants, a developed nuclear power system, and the option to build stronger, more lethal, stuff.
Were it not for a desire to compete for military power among nations like the Big Five, plus Germany, all of whom are well armed with nuclear weapons, the world would have moved decades ago to eliminate all nuclear weapons.
They have not, so we are left with the larger powers working hard to limit nuclear arms to those who have already crossed into nuclear arms territory. Once into that territory, nations are asked to sign the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. Israel, of course, has never signed the treaty, nor has it been pressured to do so.
Meanwhile, in Geneva, The Guardian reports the not-yet-public opening proposal from Iran to the peace talks:
The Iranian delegation to international talks in Geneva has presented proposals which it claims will end the longstanding deadlock over its nuclear programme.
Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif (R) speaks with his Swiss counterpart Didier Burkhalter during a meeting on the sideline of nuclear talks on October 16, 2013 in Geneva
Iran’s foreign minister, Mohammad Javad Zarif, gave an hour-long PowerPoint presentation of the proposals, entitled “Closing an unnecessary crisis: Opening new horizons”, to senior diplomats from the US, UK, France, Germany, Russia, and China at the Palace of Nations in Geneva on Tuesday.The presentation was not made public, but it is believed to lay out a timetable for a confidence-building deal that would place limits on Iran’s nuclear program in return for relief from sanctions and international recognition of the country’s right to enrich uranium.
A recent story in the Los Angeles Times, published September 15, 2013, demonstrated that Israel’s media protection had begun to slip.
Israel has 80 nuclear warheads and the potential to double that number, according to a new report by U.S. experts.
In the Global Nuclear Weapons Inventories, recently published in the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, proliferation experts Hans M. Kristensen and Robert S. Norris write that Israel stopped production of nuclear warheads in 2004.
But the country has enough fissile material for an additional 115 to 190 warheads, according to the report, meaning it could as much as double its arsenal.
Iran’s foreign minister, Mohammad Javad Zarif, gave an hour-long PowerPoint presentation of the proposals, entitled “Closing an unnecessary crisis: Opening new horizons”, to senior diplomats from the US, UK, France, Germany, Russia, and China at the Palace of Nations in Geneva on Tuesday.The presentation was not made public, but it is believed to lay out a timetable for a confidence-building deal that would place limits on Iran’s nuclear program in return for relief from sanctions and international recognition of the country’s right to enrich uranium.
A recent story in the Los Angeles Times, published September 15, 2013, demonstrated that Israel’s media protection had begun to slip.
Israel has 80 nuclear warheads and the potential to double that number, according to a new report by U.S. experts.
In the Global Nuclear Weapons Inventories, recently published in the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, proliferation experts Hans M. Kristensen and Robert S. Norris write that Israel stopped production of nuclear warheads in 2004.
But the country has enough fissile material for an additional 115 to 190 warheads, according to the report, meaning it could as much as double its arsenal.
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Previous estimates have been higher but the new figures agree with the 2013 Stockholm International Peace Research Institute yearbook on armament and international security. The yearbook estimated 50 of Israel’s nuclear warheads were for medium-range ballistic missiles and 30 were for for bombs carried by aircraft, according to a report in the Guardian.
The Times story included the usual boiler plate caveat required in covering Israel’s nuclear arsenal. Although widely assumed a nuclear power, Israel has never acknowledged possessing nuclear weapons or capabilities and continues to maintain its decades-old “strategic ambiguity” policy on the matter, neither confirming nor denying foreign reports on the issue. |
Foreign Policy carried a report September 9, that on the chemical weapons front, Israel does not have clean hands.
Syria’s reported use of chemical weapons is threatening to turn the civil war there into a wider conflict. But the Bashar al-Assad government may not be the only one in the region with a nerve gas stockpile. A newly discovered CIA document indicates that Israel likely built up a chemical arsenal of its own.
It is almost universally believed in intelligence circles here in Washington, that Israel possesses a stockpile of several hundred fission nuclear weapons, and perhaps even some high-yield thermonuclear weapons. Analysts believe the Israeli government built the nuclear stockpile in the 1960s and 1970s as a hedge against the remote possibility that the armies of its Arab neighbors could someday overwhelm the Israeli military. But nuclear weapons are not the only weapon of mass destruction that Israel has constructed.
Reports have circulated in arms control circles for almost 20 years that Israel secretly manufactured a stockpile of chemical and biological weapons to complement its nuclear arsenal. Much of the attention has been focused on the research and development work being conducted at the Israeli government’s secretive Israel Institute for Biological Research at Ness Ziona, located 20 kilometers south of Tel Aviv.
But little, if any, hard evidence has ever been published to indicate that Israel possesses a stockpile of chemical or biological weapons. This secret 1983 CIA intelligence estimate may be the strongest indication yet.
According to the document, American spy satellites uncovered in 1982 “a probable CW [chemical weapon] nerve agent production facility and a storage facility… at the Dimona Sensitive Storage Area in the Negev Desert. Other CW production is believed to exist within a well-developed Israeli chemical industry.”
Meanwhile, as the Geneva talks proceed, President Obama appears to be ready for the U.S. and Iran to work toward more cordial relations. That telephone call the President shared with Iranian President Hassan Rouhani has begun to pay dividends.
This has not been well received in Saudi Arabia, one of the few remaining Middle Eastern countries still friendly with Israel. Iran’s Fars News Agency reported the Saudis response to the improved Washington-Teheran relationship:
Saudi officials have reportedly become deeply upset and anxious over the Iranians’ success during President Hassan Rouhani’s recent visit to New York and the possible start of rapprochement between Tehran and Washington, and are seeking a way to sabotage the trend, a source said.
“The Saudi officials are highly distressed over this rapprochement and have held a meeting on September 24 in the presence of President of the Royal Court Khalid al-Tuwaijri, Commander of the National Guard Mutaib bin Abdullah, Interior Minister Prince Mohammed bin Nayef and National Security Council Secretary and Intelligence Chief Prince Bandar Bin Sultan,” an informed source close to the Saudi Royal family told FNA on Sunday.
“At the meeting the relations between Iran and the US and the settlement of Iran’s nuclear issue with the Group 5+1 (the five permanent UN Security Council members plus Germany) came under study and Iran’s growing chances of success on this path were assessed to be much dangerous to Saudi Arabia’s national security,” the source added.
Syria’s reported use of chemical weapons is threatening to turn the civil war there into a wider conflict. But the Bashar al-Assad government may not be the only one in the region with a nerve gas stockpile. A newly discovered CIA document indicates that Israel likely built up a chemical arsenal of its own.
It is almost universally believed in intelligence circles here in Washington, that Israel possesses a stockpile of several hundred fission nuclear weapons, and perhaps even some high-yield thermonuclear weapons. Analysts believe the Israeli government built the nuclear stockpile in the 1960s and 1970s as a hedge against the remote possibility that the armies of its Arab neighbors could someday overwhelm the Israeli military. But nuclear weapons are not the only weapon of mass destruction that Israel has constructed.
Reports have circulated in arms control circles for almost 20 years that Israel secretly manufactured a stockpile of chemical and biological weapons to complement its nuclear arsenal. Much of the attention has been focused on the research and development work being conducted at the Israeli government’s secretive Israel Institute for Biological Research at Ness Ziona, located 20 kilometers south of Tel Aviv.
But little, if any, hard evidence has ever been published to indicate that Israel possesses a stockpile of chemical or biological weapons. This secret 1983 CIA intelligence estimate may be the strongest indication yet.
According to the document, American spy satellites uncovered in 1982 “a probable CW [chemical weapon] nerve agent production facility and a storage facility… at the Dimona Sensitive Storage Area in the Negev Desert. Other CW production is believed to exist within a well-developed Israeli chemical industry.”
Meanwhile, as the Geneva talks proceed, President Obama appears to be ready for the U.S. and Iran to work toward more cordial relations. That telephone call the President shared with Iranian President Hassan Rouhani has begun to pay dividends.
This has not been well received in Saudi Arabia, one of the few remaining Middle Eastern countries still friendly with Israel. Iran’s Fars News Agency reported the Saudis response to the improved Washington-Teheran relationship:
Saudi officials have reportedly become deeply upset and anxious over the Iranians’ success during President Hassan Rouhani’s recent visit to New York and the possible start of rapprochement between Tehran and Washington, and are seeking a way to sabotage the trend, a source said.
“The Saudi officials are highly distressed over this rapprochement and have held a meeting on September 24 in the presence of President of the Royal Court Khalid al-Tuwaijri, Commander of the National Guard Mutaib bin Abdullah, Interior Minister Prince Mohammed bin Nayef and National Security Council Secretary and Intelligence Chief Prince Bandar Bin Sultan,” an informed source close to the Saudi Royal family told FNA on Sunday.
“At the meeting the relations between Iran and the US and the settlement of Iran’s nuclear issue with the Group 5+1 (the five permanent UN Security Council members plus Germany) came under study and Iran’s growing chances of success on this path were assessed to be much dangerous to Saudi Arabia’s national security,” the source added.
The source said that the Saudi officials have decided to use all their diplomatic and intelligence capabilities and possibilities as well as their lobbies in the US to blockade a rapprochement between Tehran and Washington and Bandar bin Sultan was assigned to study possible ways of stirring tension between Iran and the US. “The meeting also decided that any plan developed in this regard should be coordinated with the Israeli lobbies, which are also angry at the positive atmosphere created between Iran and the US,” the source concluded.
The times they really “are a-changin’” when Israel’s U.S. lobby forces are forced to make common cause with those of Saudi Arabia.
The times they really “are a-changin’” when Israel’s U.S. lobby forces are forced to make common cause with those of Saudi Arabia.
