Militaristic Israel's Nuclear Bomb Factory & Historic Secrecy--Part 1

During the 2008 election campaign both Democratic President-Elect Barack Obama and U.S. Secretary of State-Designate Hillary Clinton expressed their concern that the U.S. imperialist version of “Peace in the Middle East” would be threatened if the Iranian government acquired nuclear weapons. Ironically, the Zionist movement’s militaristic Israeli government in the Middle East--which Obama & Clinton regard as a U.S. government ally—has already been producing nuclear weapons at its Dimona nuclear bomb factory for many years.

Perhaps because most people in the world believe that the Holy Land should be a nuclear-free zone, the Israeli government set up its Dimona Nuclear Bomb Factory operation covertly and continued to be secretive about its nuclear war preparations during the 1990s. According to the Oct. 20, 1991 issue of the New York Times, “journalists working in Israel’ in the 1990s were “not allowed to publish anything substantial on Israel’s nuclear program.”

The book None Will Survive Us: The Story of the Israeli A-Bomb by Ami Dor-On and Eli Teicher, for example, which was scheduled to be published in 1980 by the two Israeli journalists, “was banned from publication by Israeli government censors” and Dor-On and Teicher were “allegedly threatened with prison sentences of 15 years to life if they defy the ban,” according to the book Israel’s Nuclear Arsenal by Peter Pry.

In 1952, the Ben-Gurion government of Israel “secretly founded the Israeli Atomic Energy Commission [IAEC] and placed it under the supervision of the Defense Ministry,” according to Israel’s Nuclear Arsenal. “The architect of both the bomb factory at Dimona and the 30-year effort to keep it secret,” former Israeli Prime Minister [and now-Israeli President] Shimon Peres, was then director-general of the Israeli Defense Ministry and he persuaded the then-Prime Minister Ben-Gurion “to pursue the nuclear option,” according to Louis Toscano’s Triple Cross book.

In The Fall of 1956, according to The Undeclared Bomb by Leonard Spector, “France secretly agreed to supply Israel with a sizeable plutonioum-producing reactor to be built at Dimona.” The agreement between the French and Israeli government to construct the Dimona nuclear reactor was signed on Sept. 17, 1956; on Oct. 10, 1956, “further details” were “set forth in a classified accord,” and in November 1956, the French government made a “secret pledge to help Israel develop nuclear arms,” according to The Undeclared Bomb.

Following the secret French-Israeli government agreements of 1956, “hundreds of French technicians flooded the Negev to construct the facility, including a plutonium processing plant underground to elude American and Soviet spy satellites,” and “by 1967 Israel had enough plutonium on hand to build its first bomb,” according to Triple Cross. The same book also noted that “to explain the feverish construction activity in the Negev, Ben-Gurion announced Israel was building a textile plant”; and, after the U.S. government discovered that what was actually being built at Dimona was a nuclear reactor, “Peres claimed the power produced at Dimona would be used to desalinate billions of gallons of sea water for the irrigation of the Negev.” On Dec. 21, 1960, when then-Israeli Prime Minister Ben-Gurion publicly acknowledged that a nuclear reactor—not a textile factory—was being built at Dimona, he had also “declared that the facility would be used exclusively for peaceful research and training,” according to The Undeclared Bomb. (end of part 1)

(Downtown 1/15/92)

Militaristic Israel's Dimona Nuclear Bomb Factory

During the 2008 election campaign both Democratic President-Elect Barack Obama and U.S. Secretary of State-Designate Hillary Clinton expressed their concern that the U.S. imperialist version of “Peace in the Middle East” would be threatened if the Iranian government acquired nuclear weapons. Ironically, the Zionist movement’s militaristic Israeli government in the Middle East--which Obama & Clinton regard as a U.S. government ally—has already been producing nuclear weapons at its Dimona nuclear bomb factory for many years.

According to Israel’s Nuclear Arsenal by Peter Pry, “Dimona’s corner of the Negev is ideal for hiding atomic bombs” because it is “protected from Jordan by the Dead Sea and the rough country of the eastern desert, and over 250 miles distant from the nearest Syrian military bases.”

At the Negev Nuclear Research Center, the Israeli government’s nuclear bombs are produced in “the windowless, two-story concrete building” next to the Dimona nuclear reactor, according to Triple Cross by Louis Toscano, a former United Press International Jerusalem Bureau Chief. The roof of the Dimona Nuclear Bomb Factory, which is called Machon 2, is “topped with an elevator tower” and its walls are “several feet thick,” according to the same book. Of the Negev Nuclear Research Center’s 2,700 workers, only 150 are allowed to enter the Holy Land’s Machon 2 nuclear bomb factory.

These 150 scientists and technicians build their nuclear bombs “in laboratories and work shops on six levels under the desert floor” and Machon 2 is “essentially a giant reprocessing plant” where plutonium is produced and “then fashioned into nuclear weapons,” according to Triple Cross. After the Machon 2 work on the nuclear bombs is completed, the bomb components are moved in convoys of unmarked cars to “a secret military airfield near Haifa,” where the spheres are “fitted with triggering devices and other technology needed to turn them into nuclear weapons,” according to the same book. Some of the Israeli government’s nuclear warheads in the 1980s were then used in nuclear-armed Jericho II missiles which were then deployed in hardened bunkers or silos by the Zionist movement’s Israeli government, according to The Undeclared Bomb by Leonard Spector, a senior associate in the 1980s at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

(Downtown 1/15/92)

Billionaire Warren Buffett's $4 Billion Israeli Investment

One reason the U.S. Corporate Establishment and its Big Media is still supporting the Israeli war machine’s brutal war against Palestinian civilians in Gaza (in violation of the Nuremberg Trial Accords, the UN Charter and international law) is that many U.S. corporations have invested a lot of money in the Zionist movement’s Israeli economy in recent years. U.S. Billionaire Warren Buffett's investment firm, for example, invested over $4 billion in Militaristic Israel a few years ago.

As the website of the American Israel Investments Associates at http://www.israelgrowth.com/about.html notes:

“With the highest GDP growth (5.2%) of any Western country (2005), Israel has become a very popular market for foreign investors. Warren Buffett’s $4 billion purchase of Iscar, his largest international investment ever, continues a trend that has sent foreign investors running to invest in the dynamic Israeli economy. Global stalwarts such as Johnson and Johnson, Intel, Ebay, Kodak, HP, Cisco, Alcatel, Broadcom, Microsoft, BMC Software, Verifone, and PMC Sierra all purchased Israeli companies in the last year.

“With more companies listed on NASDAQ than any other country except for the United States, Israel is the focus of more and more investor attention.

“Israel has become a destination for all types of investors who seek potentially high returns. Over $1.4 billion of venture capital money was invested in 2005. This ranks Israel second only to the United States in venture capital funding, outranking European and Asian rivals. As the privatization of government companies continues, the large global hedge funds and private equity firms have become very active players, investing billions of dollars in purchasing firms like Bank Leumi (Israel’s second largest bank) and Bezeq (the national phone company)."

Nuclear Israel And Its Special Influence Historically

“In the near term, there is little risk that Iraq’s now dormant nuclear program could lead to the production of nuclear arms or that Iraq could obtain nuclear weapons material clandestinely, because such material does not appear to be available for sale.” (The Undeclared Bomb by Leonard Spector in 1988)

“Israel has `hundreds’ of tactical and strategic nuclear weapons, including more than 100 nuclear artillery shells, nuclear landmines in the Golan Heights and hundreds of low-yield neutron warheads.” (The New York Times on Oct. 20, 1991)

Like the transnational oil companies and the government of Kuwait Inc., Nuclear Israel seems, historically, to have a special influence in U.S. political life. One reason for Nuclear Israel’s special historical influence is because its political allies in the United States are willing to spend a lot of money to fund the political campaigns of influential members of the U.S. Congress.

According to the 1990 book, Stealth PACs: How Israel’s American Lobby Seeks To Control U.S. Middle East Policy by Richard Curtis, “the ability to spend more on elections than any other special interest in the United States while remaining virtually invisible to the public, and to evade with impunity the letter and the spirit of the law limiting contributions to congressional candidates, are only two of the `special’ qualities of pro-Israel PACs [political action committees].” Seventy-eight pro-Nuclear Israel PACs, for example, donated more than $5.7 million to 477 candidates for the U.S. Congress during the 1988 U.S. election campaign.

Nuclear Israel is the only Middle Eastern nation that produces nuclear bombs on Middle East soil. At the Negev Nuclear Research Center in Dimona, the Israeli government continued to increase the size of its nuclear weapons arsenal in the 1990s. In his early 1990s book, The Samson Option: Israel’s Nuclear Arsenal and American Foreign Policy, Seymour Hersh estimated that the Israeli government possessed 300 nuclear warheads in the early 1990s.

(Downtown 1/15/92)

Obama's Secretary Of State-Designate Husband's Ambassador To Israel In 1990s

A U.S. Ambassador to Israel in the 1990s—former Clinton White House National Security Council Adviser Martin Indyk—apparently represented the special interests of the Militaristic Israeli Establishment before he was named by the husband of Obama Administration Secretary Of State-Designate Hillary Clinton to represent the Democratic Clinton Administration in Israel during the 1990s. As Peace And Its Discontents: Essays On Palestine In The Middle East Peace Process by Professor Edward Said noted:

“Consider…the extraordinary, not to say astonishing presence in the Clinton Administration of one Martin Indyk…An Australian, Indyk was employed by the Washington Institute on Near East Policy, a think-tank associated with AIPAC, the pro-Israeli lobby, and the Likud Party [of former MIT student Benjamin Netanyahu]. Literally a few days before he was appointed to the National Security Council in early 1993 Indyk was made an American Citizen.”

The same book also observed in 1995:

“The tragedy is not that peace was achieved but that it was not, even though much of the Western media have celebrated the achievements of what has been called the American `peace process.’

“…Arab views are rarely encountered in the mainstream American media…When reports of torture and killing of Palestinians by Israeli and Palestinian police appear, they are connected with neither the deeply flawed Oslo Accords nor with an Israeli and, behind it, an American policy which has maintained hundreds of Israeli settlements on Palestinian lands, continues to deploy a major army of occupation, intransigently confiscates and builds on Arab land in East Jerusalem (as part of the city’s forced Judaization), and resolutely denies Palestinians true freedom and national self-determination…According to Israeli figures, 70,000 more acres of Palestinian land have been expropriated or designated `security’ areas since September 1993 [as of 1995].”

(Downtown/Aquarian Weekly 10/16/96)

How Militaristic Israel Invaded Gaza In 1956

Former U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee Member Barack Obama claimed to be an "anti-war candidate" during his 2008 presidential campaign. But Democratic President-Elect Obama still hasn’t been very eager to condemn the recent invasion of Gaza by the war machine of his militaristic Israeli government political allies in 2009. Yet 2009 is not the only year in which the government of Israel ordered its troops to invade Gaza.

As the Palestine Book Project’s 1977 book, Our Roots Are Still Alive: The Story of the Palestinian People recalled:

“Over 750,000 Palestinians had been driven out of Palestine to create the state of Israel…King Farouk of Egypt took over the administration of the Gaza Strip…

“On May 5, 1951 General Bennike, head of the United Nations Treaty Supervision Organization, reported that Israeli troops had expelled 7,000 Arabs from el-Auja, a demilitarized zone near Egypt, and added the territory to Israel. Nothing was done…Israel’s only offer involving return of Palestinians was to accept 100,000 refugees from the Gaza Strip, if the Strip were added to the state of Israel.

“Palestinians rejected this solution and any other that did not promise the return of their land. In 1950, 25,000 refugees went on a hunger strike against UNRWA, stating they would rather starve than settle outside Palestine…

“…Merchants crossing Beersheeba from the Gaza Strip, their pack animals loaded with rice and sugar, found their centuries-old caravan routes blocked by Israeli troops…Soon many people had fathers and sons, mothers and daughters who had been killed on the Gaza caravan…

“…In 1952 an officers’ coup in Egypt overthrew the corrupt rule of King Farouk. Within two years, Gamal Abdel Nasser emerged as the dynamic nationalist leader of Egypt…

“In early February 1955, the Egyptian government tried and hanged three Israeli intelligence agents in Cairo for acts of terrorism. On February 28, Israeli troops attacked a camp in the Gaza Strip and killed 36 Egyptian soldiers. The United Nations condemned the raid, pointing out that there had been no Egyptian border crossing or other military act providing even a pretext for the raid…

“But Nasser would not be intimidated. On July 26, 1956, he nationalized the Suez Canal, a part of Egypt formerly controlled by Britain. Over 125,000 Egyptians had died building the canal for the British Empire…

“…In October 1956, under a secret agreement with Britain and France, Israel invaded…the Gaza Strip…

“…Israel continued to occupy the territory for five months before it reluctantly withdrew. When it left, UN troops were stationed in Gaza…

“In the Gaza Strip, the Israeli occupation had been especially brutal. As the soldiers moved into Gaza, they found a list of fedayeen in an Egyptian administration center. Systematically, they rounded up and executed 250 young Palestinians. Eighty died in a mass execution in a schoolyard.

“Still, during the five long months of Israeli occupation, small groups of Palestinians risked their lives to harass the Israeli soldiers…The seeds of resistance that sprouted in Gaza took root among Palestinians in many Arab countries…”

How Militaristic Israel Invaded Gaza In 1967

Former U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee Member Barack Obama claimed to be an "anti-war candidate" during his 2008 presidential campaign. But Democratic President-Elect Obama has not been very eager to condemn the recent invasion of Gaza by the war machine of his militaristic Israeli government political allies in 2009. Yet 2009 is not the first year in which the government of Israel ordered its troops to invade Gaza.

As the Palestine Book Project’s 1977 book, Our Roots Are Still Alive: The Story of the Palestinian People, recalled:

“On Monday morning, June 5, 1967, Moshe Dayan ordered the attack. Flying low to evade Egyptian radar, Israeli planes headed for Egypt’s airfields. The Israelis destroyed the entire Egyptian air force while it was still on the ground…Yet for twenty-four hours after the attack, the Voice of America broadcast unceasingly that Egypt had invaded Israel. It was a version of the war many Americans never questioned.

“Without air cover Egyptian troops in the Sinai desert were vulnerable targets. Thousands of Egyptian soldiers were killed or wounded. Using the shield of Mirage jets, Israeli tank brigades pushed through the desert with lightning speed, despite some fierce fighting in the Gaza Strip by Palestinians…

“By the end of the war, Israel had captured Syria’s Golan Heights, the Egyptian Sinai and Gaza, and Jordan’s West Bank. In six days, Israeli territory had tripled in size. A million more Palestinians—those in the West Bank and Gaza—were now under Israeli occupation…

“Israel’s triumph took 35,000 Arab lives and 600 Israeli lives. Many of the Arabs who died were civilians…

“In the summer nights following the June War, Israeli tanks and jeeps prowled the streets of the occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip. Israeli soldiers frequently stopped Palestinians for rough questioning. Any hint of defiance could lead to further questioning behind the closed doors of the nearest prison. The first Israelis to move into the occupied territories were the prison officials, the military administrators, and the Shin Beth—the Israeli secret intelligence service. Their job was to seek out any possible Palestinian resistance and eliminate it…

“Israel planned to break the Palestinians’ will to fight by harsh repression of all political activity….The Israelis not only outlawed political activity, but also attacked Palestinian economic and social institutions. They shut down Arab banks, schools and hospitals in the West Bank and Gaza, replacing them with Israeli institutions…

“Israel planned to keep the rest of the population in line by a combination of force and the creation of a colonial mentality among the people. Schoolteachers in the West Bank and Gaza were forced to teach Palestinian children courses that glorified the history of Israel and belittled Arab culture. Teachers who protested were fired…

“The crowded refugee camps of Gaza were largely isolated from outside reporters and contacts. There the Israeli drive to create a passive population took its most brutal form. Heavily-armed Israeli patrols descended on the camps and cities and rounded up people indiscriminately. In one such roundup in late 1967, Israeli soldiers forced two thousand men to lie half-submerged in a lake for twenty-four hours during a storm. Other `troublemakers’ were exiled to concentration camps in the Sinai Desert. Still, Israeli soldiers rarely dared to leave their jeeps as they patrolled Gaza. Wires stretched across the road at windshield level often caused their jeeps to screech to a halt. In 1968, 200 women defied a law forbidding demonstrations and marched on Gaza prison, demanding the release of 2,000 Palestinian prisoners….”