DOD Stymies Access To Report On Israel's Nukes

The U.S. Defense Department is so far refusing to produce a report that discusses nuclear technology issues in Israel, in response to a researcher's request for information.

     The report at issue is called "Critical Technology Issues in Israel and NATO Countries," written nearly three decades ago. It is not classified.


     Grant Smith, founder of the Washington-based Institute for Research: Middle Eastern Policy, Inc., filed a request for the report under the Freedom of Information Act three years ago. When the government failed to produce the document, he followed up with a pro se complaint in September.


      In a November answer, government lawyers argued simply that Smith had "failed to state a claim."


     U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan is presiding over the matter and has expressed concern about the pace at which this case is proceeding.


     "I'd like to know what is taking so long for a 386-page document," she said at a Nov. 

21st hearing in federal court in Washington. "The document was located some time ago."


     "It certainly wasn't our intention to circumvent the procedures in this case," said Special Asst. U.S. Attorney Laura Jennings. "Our thought was that it would, in fact, expedite the process."

     The report "Critical Technology Issues in Israel and NATO Countries" appears to involve super computers and nuclear capability. It was cited but not identified by title in The Jerusalem Post in a 1990 article, "Supercomputers Slow in Coming."

     Similarly, it was referred to in general terms in a 1995 issue of a publication called The Risk Report that discussed a dispute among U.S. federal agencies over whether to sell a powerful computer from Cray Research to a group of Israeli universities.

     "The United States approved the sale of powerful computers that could boost Israel's well-known but officially secret A-bomb and missile programs," said the Risk Report article. 

"A 1987 Pentagon-sponsored study found that Technion University, one of the schools in the network, was helping design Israel's nuclear re-entry vehicle. U.S. officials say Technion's physicists also worked in Israel's secret weapon complex at Dimona."

     The article also said Hebrew University and the Weizmann Institute, two other Israeli institutions which, as members of the Inter-University Computation Center, would have access to the Cray supercomputer, had been cited in the same Pentagon study.

     The push to get hold of the Pentagon report is set against the backdrop of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.

     Israel has not signed the treaty.

     Iran, on the other hand, has signed the treaty.

     In his complaint, Smith noted that the Weizmann Institute, Technion, and Hebrew University raise large sums of tax-exempt donations through affiliates in the United States. 

The American Society for Technion-Israel Institute for Technology Inc., for example, reported raising more than $65 million in tax-exempt contributions in 2011.


     According to publicly available tax filings by non-profits, the American Committee for the Weizmann Institute of Science reported $59 million in tax-exempt contributions in 2012, and American Friends of Hebrew University raised nearly $48 million in that same year.


     Smith's complaint noted that those substantial sums are sent to Israel in addition to the $86 billion in direct foreign aid Israel has received from U.S. taxpayers since 1987 when the Pentagon report was written.

     "The Symington Amendment to the Foreign Assistance Act of 1961 prohibits most U.S. foreign aid to any country found trafficking in nuclear enrichment equipment or technology outside international safeguards," said Smith's complaint. "The Glenn Amendment of 1977 to the Foreign Assistance Act of 1961 calls for an end to U.S. foreign aid to countries that import nuclear reprocessing technology."

     On the same day as the Nov. 21st court hearing over the government's delay in producing the report, government lawyer Jennings filed a motion saying that "non-disclosure" agreements applied to the report. "We've become aware of these non-disclosure agreements that apply," she said at the hearing. "We'll now need to do a line by line review."


     Smith, representing himself, said: 

"So what we've seen most recently is that the government is now coming up with novel ways to try and delay this by talking about mandatory disclosure reviews. We don't think it's meaningful that their captive think tank may have signed NDAs. Perhaps they even have a sock puppet in the Pentagon that signs NDAs on their behalf. It would be the same from our perspective."

     Judge Chutkan answered, "I'm not willing to characterize the government responses as necessarily trying to be evasive or deceptive."


     During the Nov. 21st hearing, Judge Chutkan asked DOD counsel Mark Herrington how long ago the document had been located.


     "Quite a while ago," he answered.


     "But Mr. Herrington, this case was filed on September 23," the judge continued. "We are talking about one document that's 386 pages long. I've reviewed my share of documents in my career. It should not take that long to review that document and decide what needs to be redacted."


     Describing the Defense Department as "a gigantic bureaucratic machine," Herrington reiterated the government position that it was in fact trying to eliminate delays in producing the report. He said he thought the government could meet a deadline imposed by the judge for responding to Smith's complaint.


     "We were hoping to have had a decision two days ago," he explained. "Came close, didn't quite get there."


     "Didn't quite get where?" asked Chutkan.


     "Making a determination to release the document," replied Herrington, who proceeded to cite Thanksgiving week as an additional complication.


     "What we'd like the Court to do," Smith answered, "is to realize that the Department of Defense has failed to respond. If it's necessary that we file an additional motion requesting your personal in-camera review of the document in question, that's what we'd like to do."


     Chutkan concluded the hearing by granting a short extension of time to the government. "And I want to caution the government that I'm going to be looking with disfavor on further motions for extensions of time," she warned.


     In a late December filing, the government against asked for more time, calling their motion a request for a schedule "modification." 

     The motion also changed the government's explanation for the ongoing delay, saying the government was checking with Israel to see if its government had any objections to the report's release. There was no further mention of any non-disclosure agreement.

     In his response, Smith said: "Given the Defendant's overall bad faith approach to the Plaintiff's public interest FOIA, in camera review by this Court would now be the most efficient and fair way to determine their release status."


     A ruling on Smith's request for release of the report "Critical Technology Issues in Israel and NATO Countries" could come as soon as Friday.

By JANET MCMAHON

Israel Drops Cancer-Inducing Bombs On Gazans

IMEMC – According to Al Ray Palestinian Media Agency, Dr. Erik Fosse recently stated to Press TV that the majority of patients hospitalized in Gaza are civilians injured in attacks on their homes, and that about thirty percent of these victims are children.

Dense Inert Metal Explosive, known as DIME, is an explosive device developed to minimize damage to things that are incidental to the intended target, known as “collateral damage”.

The bombs reportedly effect a relatively small but rather significantly damaging blast radius, and are believed by medical experts to have severe biological effects on those hit with the bomb’s micro-shrapnel.

DIME munitions were developed by the US Air Force, in 2006, and have since been tested repeatedly on the people of Gaza, who, according to the Electronic Intifada, have long served as involuntary lab rats for Israel’s weapons industry.

DIME bombs contain tungsten, a cancer-causing metal which helps to produce blasts which slice through flesh and bone, often completely destroying the lower limbs of people within the blast radius.

The doctor also says that some Palestinians in the besieged enclave have been wounded by a new type of weapon which even doctors with previous experience in war zones do not recognize.

Israel has used banned weapons in the past, including depleted-uranium and white phosphorus, which is nearly impossible to extiguish and leaves its victim hideously burned and scarred, should he or she even survive such an attack.

The ground assault continues in Gaza, today, with nearly 300 reported deaths and over 2,000 wounded in Gaza, to include elderly, disabled and children not even a year old — all victims of targets which include mostly civilian homes, hospitals and municipal facilities.

Source: International Middle East Media Center

See related link: Israel DIME Weapon effect on Gaza-Article and Gallery

(Warning — graphic images)

Israeli State Terrorism In Gaza

“Protective Edge,” the cartoonish name given to the latest Israeli military offensive against the occupied people of Palestine, is representative of the inverted reality whereby the 1.7 million captive and largely defenseless Palestinians in Gaza are the vicious aggressors against the peace-loving settlers of Israel. Similar to the inverted reality in the U.S., where the myth of the innocent settler was created to justify the systematic slaughter of Indigenous peoples, the genocidal policies of Israel are camouflaged by the transformation of its position from an armed colonial invader to one of victim.

This repositioning is aided and abetted in the U.S. by a corporate media whose world view and angle of reporting is framed by the innocent settler narrative. This narrative simultaneously liquidates and normalizes the colonial relationship between the colonizer and the colonized so that the occupied territories are not occupied but transformed into “disputed” territories  and all forms of resistance on the part of Palestinians becomes terroristic.

Informed by this imperial vision, the corporate media not only parrot Israel’s victim narrative but go even further with the creation of the two-equal-sides fiction. Mainstream coverage laments how both sides are locked in battle or a spiral of violence, giving the absurd impression that the violence in the occupied territories is a conflict between two forces with similar power and equal moral standing.

It should be clear that attempting to conceptually equate the force of the state of Israel, one of the most powerful militaries in the world, with a resistance movement of a captive people trapped by land and sea in an open-air concentration camp on one of the most densely populated strips of land on the planet is a position that is fundamentally immoral. Yet for most editors and reporters in the U.S., pro-Zionist liberals and their counterparts in the Christian Zionist movement as well as some elements of the European press and public, the conceptual blinders of white supremacist colonial consciousness makes it impossible to see the immorality inherent in this construction of the so-called conflict.

The position for most of the world is that the latest assault on the Palestinian people is a war crime and an ongoing crime against humanity. That position was affirmed by the international Court of Justice, which ruled that as an occupying military power Israel has an obligation under the Fourth Geneva Convention of 1949 to protect the rights of civilians under military occupation. [i]

Within this legal framework, the killing of civilians under occupation, indiscriminate shelling of Palestinian communities, collective punishments, house demolitions, arbitrary imprisonment, the theft of water and other natural resources and the building of settlements in occupied territories are all considered war crimes and crimes against humanity.[ii]

That is the real story that should be communicated to the general public in the U.S. But instead, the public is being led to believe that the Israeli military assault is a legally and morally justified response to aggression from Hamas. From this perspective there is no special responsibility on the part of the Israeli authorities to protect the rights of Palestinians under military occupation, and the actions of the Israeli government in response to the killings of the three Israeli teenagers is seen as a measured and rational response.

Colonialism and The Humanitarian Fraud

Only the most naive believe the current military assault has anything to do with “defense” issues related to the symbolic resistance offered from Hamas via the firing of rockets into Israel. Honest commentators on this issue know that Israel provoked the response from the Palestinian resistance with the mass repression it launched in Gaza after the killings of the three Israeli teenagers in order to use the response to justify its attack on Hamas. An attack meant to destroy the newly established unity government of the Palestinians.

The colonialist mentality sees any resistance, no matter the form, as illegitimate, punishable by death and unrelenting terror. That message is clear for Palestinians as their homes are reduced to dust and the people dig out the bodies of their children, spouses, fathers and grandmothers. The other message communicated to Palestinians, once again, and which they understand all too well, is that compared to the lives of the settlers their lives are worthless and there is no “responsibility to protect” for them.

The assault on the people and the institutions of Gaza has as its objective the eradication of the people of Gaza – not necessarily in the physical sense, only because at this stage in global consciousness any such attempt would galvanize universal opposition, but to erase Gaza as a functioning society, to destroy it politically, culturally, spiritually and psychologically. A process that IIan Pappe refers to as “incremental genocide,[iii] that whatever the label is terroristic in its’ most naked, brutal and devastating effect.

When genocide or systematic ethnic cleansing is not a viable option, reducing the indigenous population to a weak, terrorized and dependent condition is the next best thing for settler policy. The targeting of the civilian infrastructure and governing institutions by the Israeli military makes it clear that this is the objective of the current attack on Gaza.

The international community has failed to hold the Israeli state accountable for war crimes and other serious violations of international law over the last four decades. Human rights organizations and United Nations special procedures have produced detailed reports on the crimes committed by Israel over the last four decades without the perpetrators being brought to justice.[iv] And when it comes to Israel, humanitarian intervention and the responsibility to protect is exposed as the imperialist ideological construct that it is.

Images of Palestinian children being dug out of bombed-out residential buildings have not resulted in calls for humanitarian intervention to save a population that may be the most brutalized on the planet today. Instead weak and pathetic calls are made for “both sides” to show restraint and protect “civilians” as though a distinction can be made or is ever made between combatants and non-combatants when it is the whole people who are seen as the enemy by Israeli authorities.

Richard Falk, the United Nations Special Rapporteur on Palestinian human rights points out the hypocrisy of the West when it comes to Israel.

“…instead of condemning such recourse to massive violence as “aggression” that violates the UN Charter and fundamental international law principles, the reaction of Western diplomats and mainstream media has perversely sided with Israel. From the UN Secretary-General to the president of the United States, the main insistence has been that Hamas must stop all rocket attacks while Israel is requested ever so politely to show “maximum restraint”.[v]

What is the future for Palestine? Is reconciliation possible within the context of an ongoing colonial relationship? Is a two-state solution still viable with more than 500,000 settlers occupying almost half of the land that was supposed to be the Palestinian state, a land base that is just 22 percent of original Palestine before the establishment of Israel?

Frantz Fanon argues that:

“One world, either that of the settler or that of the native, must be destroyed to bring the colonial system to an end. Not simply a military defeat or a political deal – the total destruction of the other mode of living.”

As the Israelis continue to steal Palestinian land, murder, degrade and humiliate Palestinian people, and create “facts on the ground” that make it impossible to establish a viable, independent Palestinian state, it is becoming clear that the only solution to the original sin of the Zionist project is authentic decolonization where the presence, humanity and sovereignty of the colonized is restored.

Authentic decolonization is the only solution because the inner logic of the colonial/capitalist process suggests that Fanon’s assertion is correct – that there can be no reconciliation of Palestinian self-determination and independent development with the continuation of the Israeli state as a settler state. Because even within the framework of the so-called two state solution, the material basis of the Israeli colonial project is dependent on the continued expansion and expropriation of Palestinian land and the subordination of Palestinian people.

So while some Palestinians and their supporters still hope for a two-state solution, Israeli rulers also understand Fanon’s position that “only one mode of living will survive” and are moving to destroy Palestinian resistance. This is the real story of Gaza and all of the occupied territories – an ongoing crime that degrades all of us who are forced to witness it.

Ajamu Baraka is a human rights activist, organizer and geo-political analyst. His latest publications include contributions to two recently published books “Imagine: Living in a Socialist USA” and “Claim No Easy Victories: The Legacy of Amilcar Cabral.” He can be reached atinfo.abaraka@gmail.com and www.AjamuBaraka.com

 Notes.

---

[i] See “Legal Consequences of the Construction of a Wall in the Occupied Palestinian Territory,” http://www.icj-cij.org/docket/files/131/1677.pdf

[ii] For a summation of the relevant articles of the convention related to the Occupied Palestinian Territories, see Francis Boyld, “The International Laws of Belligerent Occupation,”http://www.ifamericansknew.org/cur_sit/boyle.html

[iii] http://electronicintifada.net/content/genocide-gaza/6397

[iv] The reports on Israeli violations are too numerous to detail here but the comprehensive UN examination of Israeli violations reflected here:http://www2.ohchr.org/english/bodies/hrcouncil/docs/12session/A-HRC-12-48.pdf

is an example of detailed violations without any effective follow-up.

[v] Tormenting Gaza, Aljazeera,http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/2014/07/tormenting-gaza-201471362221821466.html

Israeli Barbarism

One of the horrific effects of Israel's barbaric assault on the Palestinians of Gaza, is the death of this innocent angel.

The father mourns the death of his child, which had a huge portion of ots head blown off, courtesy of Israel.

Imam Khomeini Space Center - Iran

Courtesy Of The: Nuclear Threat Initiative (NTI)

Iran inaugurated the Semnan Spaceport (now known as the Imam Khomeini Space Center) in early 2008, with a test launch of the Kavoshgar 1 (Explorer 1) rocket, which appeared to be a modified Shahab-3B. [1] Construction of the complex reportedly began in 2003. [2] Satellite images taken of the site in 2009 show extensive infrastructure development including the construction of a horizontal rocket assembly and checkout building, and an engine test stand. [3]

The older launch complex is comprised of a circular pad, which replaced the original dirt patch. It has a collapsible umbilical tower to support the Safir space launch vehicle (SLV) and other rockets. In February 2009, Iran successfully launched an 'Omid' satellite weighing 27kg into orbit from the Semnan site using the Safir two-stage rocket. [4] In May 2009, Iran successfully tested a Sejil 2 medium-range surface-to-surface missile launched from or close to the Semnan site. [5]

In March 2010, satellite images revealed the construction of a second launch pad roughly 3km east of the original site. [6] It includes a gantry tower, an umbilical tower, and two flame trenches. The gantry tower is aproximately 45m tall, which far exceeds the needs of the Safir or Simorgh SLVs.

Iran also constructed an engine test stand, suggesting it will test new or indigionous designs.

Sources:

[1] Aresu Eqbali, "Iran Opens First Space Centre, Launches Rocket," AFP, 4 February 2008; James Hackett, "Iran's Great Missile Leap," The Washington Times, 25 February 2008, www.washingtontimes.com.
[2] "Nuclear Iran, Production Capability," Jane's CBRN Assessments, 1 October 2009, www.janes.com.
[3] "Massive Construction Visible at Iran's Missile and Space Center at Semnan," Defense Update, 5 November 2009, www.defense-update.com.
[4] Geoffrey Forden, "Congratulations Iran!" Arms Control Wonk Blog, 3 February 2009, www.armscontrolwonk.com.
[5] Ali Akbar Dareini, "Iran Tests Missile with Range that Can Hit Israel," AP Online, 21 May 2009; "Iran Missile Test Appears 'Successful,' U.S. Officials," AFP, 20 May 2009.
[6] Yaakov Katz, "New Iranian Missile Launch Pad Revealed," The Jerusalem Post, 7 March 2010, www.jpost.com.

Israeli Theft Of U.S. Weapons-Grade Nuclear Material Declassified

On March 18, 2014 ISCAP, the highest declassification authority in the U.S., released 84 pages (PDF) of formerly secret information about investigations into the illegal diversion of weapons-grade nuclear material from a Pennsylvania plant into the clandestine Israeli nuclear weapons program.  Files now available to the public from IRmep’s ISCAP process include:

4/2/1968 Letter from the Director of the CIA alerting the Attorney General (PDF) about a huge loss of material fromPennsylvania’s Nuclear Materials and Equipment Corporation (NUMEC). “It is critical for us to establish whether or not the Israelis now have the capability for fabricating nuclear weapons which might be employed in the Near East.”

03/09/1972 FBI memorandum (PDF) “On the basis of the foregoing it must be assumed for the purpose of U.S. national security that diversion of special nuclear materials to Israel by Dr. [Zalman] Shapiro and his [NUMEC] associates is a distinct possibility.”

07/28/1977 Notes of a briefing from CIA’s Associate Deputy Director for Operations Theodore Shackley to the Carter administration National Security Council  (PDF) “I also asked Shackley to get us a rundown on the political aspects—e.g. when were the President and Congressional officials briefed on the Israeli weapons program, on the NUMEC connection, and what were their reactions.  In December, Carter was briefed on the NUMEC problem as President-elect by Bush in Georgia…I do not think the President has plausible deniability.  The CIA case is persuasive…”

08/02/1977 Memo to Carter from Zbigniew Brzezinski ”So far as we know however, (and we have made serious effort to discover it) there is nothing to indicate active CIA participation in the alleged theft…There is a tremendous amount of interest in this issue in Congress…We face tough sledding in the next few weeks in trying to keep attention focused on ERDA’s technical [overall U.S. nuclear material loss] arguments..on the FBI investigations, and away from the CIA’s information.”

All released CIA evidence and former Tel Aviv Station Chief John Hadden suggest the severely undercapitalized NUMEC was “an Israeli [smuggling] operation from the beginning.” Multiple health-related lawsuits have been filed targeting companies that later assumed NUMEC ownership. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers currently estimates its toxic cleanup of NUMEC will cost$500 million.  No damage claims have yet been filed against the Israeli government.

IRmep is a Washington-DC based nonprofit researching U.S. Middle East policy formulation.

The Merkava Tank

Tell Israel U.S. Will Attack Israeli Jets If They Try To Attack Iran

The national security adviser for former President Jimmy Carter, Zbigniew Brzezinski, gave an interview to The Daily Beast in which he suggested President Obama should make it clear to Israel that if they attempt to attack Iran's nuclear weapons sites the U.S. Air Force will stop them.

"We are not exactly impotent little babies," ... "They have to fly over our airspace in Iraq. Are we just going to sit there and watch? … We have to be serious about denying them that right. That means a denial where you aren’t just saying it. If they fly over, you go up and confront them. They have the choice of turning back or not. No one wishes for this but it could be a 'Liberty' in reverse." [Brzezinski said]

The USS Liberty was a U.S. Navy technical research ship that the Israeli Air Force mistakenly attacked during the Six Day War in 1967.

Israeli Death Merchants And Palestinian Guinea Pigs

By Gilad Atzmon

“The Lab” is a new groundbreaking Israeli documentary film that redefines our entire understanding of the Jewish state, its aims, its identity and its global destructive role. It is a fundamental and most important commentary on Israel.

In “The Lab”, Director Yotam Feldman exposes the Israeli military industry and its operation, and interviews key figures in Israel’s “security’ trade. He elaborates on the role of the industry within the Israeli society and economy – in the last few years Israeli “security” exports reached an unprecedented 7 billion US dollars a year. A full 20 per cent of Israeli exports are military or military related. Approximately 150,000 families in Israel are dependent on that industry. Israel is now the fourth biggest military exporter.

Here is a clip from “The Lab”:



In the last decade every Israeli military operation led to an immediate and sharp increase in Israeli military export around the world: weaponry, systems, intelligence, strategies, doctrines, knowledge and experience.

Feldman gives us a glimpse into a very organized universe. We visit Israeli weapon fairs around the world and see arenas filled to capacity with foreign generals, officials and diplomats shopping for Israeli military products. The message is clear: the 7 billion dollars is just part of the story. The Israeli military elite is now deeply interwoven with the political and military elite of every country around the globe. This emerging Israeli business buys the Jewish state influence and support.

Watch foreign generals shopping for Israeli military products:



“The Lab” makes it evidently clear that the Palestinian civilian population in the West Bank and Gaza are viewed as guinea pigs for Israeli tactics, weaponry and fighting philosophy (“Fighting Torah” – Torat Lechima – as the Israelis call it). The destruction of the Palestinians has now been transformed into a very profitable industry. We are dealing here with nothing short of highly calculated murder.

Through a set of fascinating interviews, Feldman conveys a very genuine picture of the Israeli death merchants. Feldman lets them talk, he hardly interferes. They are sharp, they are genuine, they are even funny at times, occasionally witty, and a few of them, might even be charming if you did not know who they are. But make no mistake: they are sinister, and some of them are clearly psychotic. They are mass murderers and they are free. They sell destruction and havoc and do it very successfully.

Watch the Israeli army’s Yoav Galant, the planner and executioner of Operation Cast Lead, coldly discussing “ratios”:



As an Israeli-born and raised musician and writer, I think I can recognize Israeli dedication, perseverance and creativity when I see it, no matter in what field it is deployed. (Perhaps I was lucky to be rescued by bebop.) The talent of those Israeli death angels is used to amplify human misery. The consequences are tragic.

Game Changer

It is hadrly a secret that a century of Palestinian struggle has led to practically nothing. The state of the Palestinian solidarity movement is even more embarrassing. Feldman’s film, “The Lab”, is a game changer, for it can explain decades of impotence.

We are immersed in flawed terminology – “colonialism”, “apartheid”, “conflict resolution”, “Zionism” are just a few examples. Gaza is now a vast laboratory – the Israelis are the “scientists” and the “technicians”, the Palestinians are the “guinea pigs”.

Watching “The Lab” must lead all of us to fundamentally question our notions. We are dealing with a premeditated war crime. The notion of resolution (as in “two-state solution”), for instance, is not applicable. It is clear beyond doubt that in the real world the “scientist” does not negotiate with the “guinea pig”. The “scientist” also doesn’t consider sharing reality with his “guinea pig” in a “one democratic state”. Yotam Feldman’s “The Lab” is a glimpse into the Israeli mind: you clearly do not find much compassion there.

For decades we were foolish to examine the success and failure of Israeli military operations with reference to Israeli military and political “objectives” as we surmised them. We were clearly wrong.

As we learn from Feldman’s film, the real objective of Israeli operations may as well be examining new doctrines and operational systems in order to distribute them around the world soon after. Ehud Barak, for instance, wasn’t exactly the most sophisticated Israeli minister of defence – he clearly failed to defend his people or even make them feel secure. However, he was very successful in selling Israeli weapons and doctrines.

The prospect of Tel Aviv being subjected to a barrage of rockets may be seen by Israelis as devastating news but, from a military-industrial point of view, it was a golden opportunity to examine and promote the Israeli anti-missile system, the Iron Dome. If I am correct here, it becomes clear that, as with the Palestinians, more and more Israelis are also becoming “guinea pigs” in this ever growing military laboratory.

One may wonder how and when “the Zionist dream” transformed itself into a military business. Only a few of us, writers and scholars, have attempted to answer this question. The transformation of the Jewish state into an oppression factory seems to be a direct outcome of Israel’s supremacist ideology. If we want to understand what is happening in the Jewish state, we must first grasp the notions of choseness, Jewishness and Jewish identity politics.

I guess that enough Palestinians in Gaza do realize by now that they have been part of an Israeli experiment. Too often we learn from Palestinian doctors that while treating casualties of Israeli aggression they encounter new types of wounds. “The Lab” explains it but it isn’t Palestine alone. We also witness a growing similarity between the operational mode of police forces around the world and the Israeli military’s treatment of the Palestinians.

Watching Yotam Feldman’s “The Lab” explains it all. We are all Palestinians. We are either occupied by Israel or by its proxy forces around the world – those who are trained in Israel and implement Israeli weaponry and tactics.

Gilad Atzmon is an Israeli-born musician, writer and anti-racism campaigner..His New Book: The Wandering Who? A Study Of Jewish Identity Politics http://www.gilad.co.uk

Netanyahu: Iran Yet To Cross Nuclear Red Line

Image:  Bibi Shows Cartoon of Mass Destruction to UN, by DonkeyHotey

PM tells Israeli ambassadors gathered in Jerusalem "... as of now Iran has yet to cross it".

During a speech at the UN in September, the prime minister held up a cartoon-like drawing of a bomb with a fuse and literally drew a red line just below a label reading "final stage" to a bomb, in which Iran was 90% along the path of having sufficient weapons-grade material.

Experts put that at the point that Iran has amassed enough uranium, purified to a level of 20%, that could quickly be enriched further and be used to produce an atomic bomb.

Via: "Y-Net News"

Why Israel Should Trade Its Nukes

Stop Iran's Centrifuges By Accepting A Nuclear-Free Middle East

Uri Bar-Joseph writes,
Courtesy of "Foreign Affairs"

On September 19, to nobody’s surprise, Shaul Chorev, the director-general of Israel’s Atomic Energy Commission, announced that his government would not attend an upcoming conference devoted to establishing a nuclear-free Middle East. The announcement reaffirmed Israel’s long-standing position that a nuclear-free zone can come about only as a consequence of a lasting regional peace. Until such a peace is achieved, Jerusalem will not take any tangible steps toward eliminating its nuclear weapons.

At least on the face of it, this stand is sensible. For 45 years, Israel has been the only nuclear power in the Middle East, enjoying a formidable strategic safety net against any existential threat. Since 1957, Israel has invested tremendous resources in building up a solid nuclear arsenal in Dimona. Today, according to various estimates, this stockpile comprises some 100–300 devices, including two-stage thermonuclear warheads and a variety of delivery systems, the most important of which are modern German-built submarines, which constitute the backbone of Israel’s second-strike capability. For Israel to give up these assets in the midst of an ongoing conflict strikes most Israelis as irrational.

This consensus, however, overlooks the fact that Israel’s nuclear capability has not played an important role in the country’s defense. Unlike other nuclear-armed states, Israel initiated its nuclear project not because of an opponent’s real or imagined nuclear capability but because of the worry that, in the long run, Arab conventional forces would outstrip the power of the Israel Defense Forces (IDF). As early as the 1950s, Israeli Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion sought to manage the threat of modernizing Arab armies, which were inspired by pan-Arab sentiment and backed by the Soviet Union, by developing the ultimate deterrent. Shimon Peres, the architect of Israel’s nuclear program and now Israel’s president, relentlessly argued in public speeches and writings that Israel needed to compensate for the large size of the Arab armies with “science” -- a code word for nuclear arms.

As it turned out, however, Arab conventional superiority never materialized. Ever since Israel crossed the nuclear threshold on the eve of the 1967 war, the qualitative gap between Israel’s conventional forces and those of its Arab neighbors has only grown. 

Today, particularly as the Syrian army slowly disintegrates, the IDF could decisively rout any combination of Arab (and Iranian) conventional forces. This advantage, combined with the United States’ support for Israel, is what has kept Arab countries from taking up arms against the Jewish state -- not the fear of nuclear retaliation. 

If, of course, Iran were to obtain a nuclear weapon, the arsenal at Dimona would no longer be irrelevant; it would be an important hedge against Iran. But far from being a secure balance, as the international relations theorist Kenneth Waltz has argued, this state of affairs would be highly unstable, especially at first. The two states deeply distrust one another and lack any effective channels of communications. Since Iran would not have a second-strike capability and the Israelis often prefer preemption in conflicts, Jerusalem might be tempted to launch a nuclear first strike. Moreover, other nearby countries, such as Saudi Arabia, might themselves seek nuclear weapons, further destabilizing the region and raising the possibility of an unintentional nuclear exchange.

The problem for Israel, however, is that a strike on Iran might carry grave consequences, especially since the IDF cannot completely destroy Iran’s nuclear infrastructure on its own. Israel can delay Iran’s nuclearization, but it cannot prevent it. Meanwhile, a military strike could provoke a great backlash, including missile and rocket attacks by Iran, Hezbollah, and Hamas on Israeli population centers. Just as worrisome, a strike would provide the Iranian regime with a handy justification for its decision to go nuclear.

And so Israel finds itself in a strategic dilemma: it considers an Iranian bomb an existential threat, but it cannot stop Iran’s nuclearization by itself or without provoking an unpredictable backlash.

Fortunately, Israel has a way out of this strategic limbo: by agreeing to give up its nuclear arsenal. Instead of rejecting the calls for a region free of weapons of mass destruction,... participate in such an initiative -- joining in a similar sacrifice by all other regional actors, including Iran. 

The conventional wisdom is that this would be a bad bargain for Israel, giving up too much in exchange for too little. But such a bold move could set in motion a long-term process that might end the bitter stalemate over Iran’s nuclear program. Iran has been calling for a nuclear-weapon-free zone in the Middle East since 1974 and perceives the Israeli arsenal as a great threat, so it will have no choice but to support the initiative. And purely from a security perspective, Israel would be safer in a WMD-free region. It would maintain its conventional superiority and its ability to deter conventional challenges -- all the while eliminating the prospect of nonconventional threats, such as an Iranian nuclear bomb or Syrian chemical weapons.

Of course, Israel is not likely to actually abandon its own nuclear arsenal anytime soon, and, even if it did, it would not lose the know-how and the capability to produce nuclear arms in the future. But a change in policy that started Israel in this direction would at the very least increase the pressure on Iran to give up its own nuclear project.

Several developments might eventually encourage Jerusalem to take the plunge:

... the status quo of the last 45 years, during which Israel succeeded in maintaining its regional nuclear monopoly with hardly any external pressures, is becoming increasingly untenable. 

If Israel does ultimately resort to the unilateral use of military force against Iran, international pressure will build for Israel to give up its strategy of nuclear opacity, to come clean about its own arsenal, and to take tangible steps toward establishing a nuclear-free Middle East. 

After all, the logic of using force to secure a nuclear monopoly flies in the face of international norms. 

The same pressure might come about if the international sanctions against Iran prove to be successful and Tehran agrees to limit the country’s nuclear development, or if an American-led coalition destroys Iran’s nuclear facilities. 

Moving toward a nuclear-free Middle East may be the price that Jerusalem will be asked to pay for the efforts taken by the international community to bail Israel out of a threatening situation. 

On the other hand, if Iran does become a nuclear state, Israeli voters may pressure their government to give up the country’s nuclear weapons in exchange for Iran doing the same. 

According to a 2011 survey conducted by Shibley Telhami of the University of Maryland, 65 percent of Israeli Jews prefer that neither Iran nor Israel have nuclear weapons.

Israel’s nuclear capability has never been essential for the defense of the country, and it would become important only if Iran were to get its own nuclear weapon. But that dangerous outcome, especially for a one-bomb state like Israel, need not materialize. 

If Israel commits to a Middle East free of weapons of mass destruction, offering up its own nuclear capability as a bargaining chip, it may finally make good use of its most controversial strategic asset.

American Nuclear Hypocrisy

By Dr. Elias Akleh
Courtesy Of "The People's Voice"

Hypocrisy is the most prominent characteristic of the successive American administrations. The observer could easily detect this hypocrisy when it comes to administration’s policies towards the Middle Eastern countries generally and towards the Palestinians specifically. One of the administration’s latest hypocritical acts was the cancellation of the Middle East nuclear weapons-free zone conference that was scheduled mid this month in Helsinki, Finland.

The international Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) was opened in July 1968 for member signatures in an attempt to limit the spread of nuclear weapons. It stressed the importance of developing nuclear-weapons-free zones especially in regions of conflict such as in the Middle East, as well as establishing zones free of all weapons of mass destruction. The treaty encourages the cooperation, respect and support of all nuclear-weapons states for its protocols in order to maximize the effectiveness of creating nuclear-weapons-free zones.

In its May 2010 conference, 189 member countries of the NPT agreed to develop a plan for a meeting to lay the groundwork for creating a nuclear-free zone in the Middle East (ME). The US, UK, and Russia are the co-sponsors of this meeting. All the Middle Eastern countries, except Israel, agreed to attend the meeting. A ME nuclear-free zone would be the sixth such zones in the world. The other five are the 1986 Rarotonga Treaty with 13 southern Pacific states, the 1997 Bangkok Nuclear Disarmament Treaty with 10 countries, the 2009 Central Asian States nuclear free region with five countries, the 2009 Pelindaba Pact in Africa with 28 countries, and the 2002 Tlatelolco Pact with 33 Latin American and Caribbean countries.

Only Iran and Israel possess nuclear technology and industry. Iran is a member of the NPT and had subjected its nuclear facilities for many inspections by the IAEA. The agency has installed video cameras mounted in every Iranian nuclear facility constantly monitoring every move. All indications including CIA reports indicate that the Iranian nuclear facilities are peaceful. Israel, on the other hand, is not a member of the NPT, and is known to have nuclear weapons, some of which are mounted on German-made submarines sailing in the Persian Gulf.

Mordechai Vanunu was an Israeli nuclear technician, who worked in the Israeli Negev Nuclear Facility in Dimona, where Israel was building nuclear weapons. In October 1986 he revealed, with pictures, in the British Sunday Times, the fact that Israel had developed 150 nuclear bombs. For his revelation Vanunu was kidnapped by Israeli Mossad agents from Italy, imprisoned in Israel for 18 years, including more than 11 years in solitary confinement, before being released in 2004 on the conditions not to leave the country and not to talk to press.

Most intelligence agencies, including CIA and FBI, knew that Israel has been developing nuclear weapons as early as the 1960s. It is also known that France had helped Israel build the nuclear facilities, Britain had provided Israel with the necessary heavy waters, and the US has provided Israel, or allowed its agents to steal US government-owned weapons-grade nuclear material from Nuclear Materials and Equipment Corporation (NUMEC); a nuclear processing facility in Apollo, Pennsylvania. The Institute for Research: Middle Eastern Policy (IRmep) posted its investigative report about this theft.

In the early 1980s Israel, with the full cooperation of Milco International Inc.; an American company, had deceptively and illegally smuggled approximately 800 krytron tubes from the US. A krytron is a small tube filled with gas and functions as a very high-speed switch that is part of the detonation system in nuclear weapons. Krytron is considered as a dual-use product by the US and its purchase and/or export requires a special permit from the US. Corbett Report Radio had conducted an interview with Gant F. Smith, Research Director for IRmep, discussing Israel’s theft program of the American nuclear material to build Israeli nuclear weapons since the 1960s. Smith also goes over some declassified government documents tying Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu to the smuggling ring. You can watch the whole interview here. IRmep posts many documents on its website proving that Israel had been spying on the US and stealing its nuclear technology and nuclear materials since early 1960s.

Israel did not only build many nuclear bombs but is also selling them. The case of Israel’s attempt to sell nuclear bombs to apartheid South African government is just one example that is well know and well documented. The Guardian published the memos and the minutes of meetings between Shimon Perez, then Israel defense minister, and Pieter Willem Botha, then South Africa’s Minister of Defense, known as “The Big Crocodile”, during a 1975 sales deal that included nuclear bombs mounted on Jericho missiles. I wonder who else Israel had sold nuclear bombs to!

Amazingly, and despite all these and other evidences of Israel’s possession of nuclear weapons and of Israeli crimes against the US, successive American administrations are still not only covering up these crimes but also rewarding Israel with latest American military technology and weapons, and each presidential candidate hastens to throw himself in AIPAC’s arms and kowtowing in Yad Vashem Holocaust Museum in Israel to receive the Zionist blessings.

When it comes to criminal Israel, American administrations go as far as criminalizing themselves by violating their own American laws to protect and support Israel financially, militarily, and politically. Under the Symington Amendment to the Constitution, it is illegal for the American government to give any military or financial aid to any country, which refuses to become a signatory to the NPT, and not allow its nuclear sites to be inspected. This violation, by itself, forfeits US status as an honest broker for peace in the ME. This explains the reason why the Arab and Islamic Worlds perceive the US as a complete partner to Israel in its occupation of Palestine and in its terrorist wars against its neighbors.

Although it is known to the whole world that Israel is a nuclear power, its government defiantly maintain a policy of deliberate ambiguity; neither acknowledging nor denying its possession of nuclear weapons. Yet some of its high ranking politicians, rabbis, and military leaders had often times threatened to nuke Mecca in Saudi Arabia and to nuke Iranian peaceful nuclear facilities.

In 2010 when the decision to have a conference discussing nuclear weapon-free zone in the ME was made, Israeli President Netanyahu hurried to meet US President Obama, who assured him that his administration would do everything to make sure that such conference would not single out Israel. Obama kept his promise by cancelling the conference. The State Department spokeswoman, Victoria Nuland, announced:

“As a co-sponsor of the proposed conference … the US regrets to announce that the conference cannot be convened because of present conditions in the Middle East and the fact that states in the region have not reached agreement on acceptable conditions for a conference.”

By “present conditions in the Middle East” Nuland was pointing to the war in Syria and to the political instability on Egypt. Yet, it is precisely because of the conditions in the region such a conference is needed. The major goal of the conference is to create a nuclear safe zone in this region of continuous conflicts. By “acceptable conditions” Nuland was undoubtedly meant the American condition that nobody is allowed to mention Israel’s nuclear weapons.

Nuland also explained that “a deep conceptual gap persists in the region” on how to handle regional security and arms control, adding that “outside states cannot impose a process on the region any more than they can dictate an outcome.” Alleviating Israeli fears of the outcome Nuland continued: “We would not support a conference in which any regional state would be subject to pressure or isolation”

Nuland’s statement is just full hypocrisy contradicting American actions. American administrations want Zionist Israel to be the sole possessor of nuclear weapons in the ME. Reagan’s administration approved and gave the green light to Israel’s 1981 attack against Iraq’s Osirak nuclear facility. The Bush administration, also, approved Israel’s 2007 attack against Syria’s alleged nuclear facility. Under the false claims that Iraq has nuclear and chemical weapons the US imposed severe economic embargo against Iraq, and finally invaded Iraq murdering at least one billion people, and creating three billions refugees. In the process the US used nuclear weapons in the form of depleted uranium against the population. Also under the false accusations that Iran is developing nuclear weapons, the US has imposed economic sanctions against Iran and against any country trading with Iran. On Friday 12/1/2012, the US Senate had approved a new round of economic sanctions against Iran. So much for Nuland’s statement that a process cannot be imposed by outside states, and subjecting one state under pressure or isolation. What naked flagrant hypocrisy!

The US and Israel should welcome the conference if curbing Iranian nuclear programme is their real concern. Iran had explicitly welcomed the conference and vowed its full participation and cooperation. During his August 2012 visit to Iran UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon visited Ayatollah Khamenei, who reiterated Iran’s stand on a ME nuclear weapons-free zone and that the UN should make serious efforts to allay the concerns regarding nuclear weapons. Ali Asghar Soltanieh, Iran’s ambassador to the UN IAEA told reporters: “Iran is determined to participate actively in the Helsinki conference … We are of the strong belief that all countries should be mobilizing themselves to make sure that this noble goal of a Middle East free from all the weapons of mass destruction will be realized.” Iran is the present Chair of the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) and is very active in pushing for nuclear-free zone in the ME. The NAM, the largest international organization after the UN, with 120 members, had dismissed the US allegations for cancelling the conference, and has demanded that Israel join the NPT.

The American nuclear hypocrisy was lately demonstrated when the US National Nuclear Security Administration had detonated plutonium in a deep shaft in Nevada National Security Site on Wednesday 12/5/2012, allegedly to test the safety and effectiveness of the American nuclear weapons. The test, known as Pollux, was conducted jointly by the Nevada National Security Site, the Los Alamos National Laboratory, and Sandia National Laboratories. International inspectors were not allowed to witness the test since the US had prevented access to its test sites since late 1990s.

Let us not forget that the US is the only country that used nuclear bombs against civilians in 1945. The US dropped an atomic bomb on the Japanese city of Hiroshima incinerating at least 140 thousand civilians in seconds. Three days later the US dropped another nuclear bomb on Nagazaki incinerating further 70 thousand civilians. Hundreds of thousands others died later due to radiation.