Revealed: how Israel offered to sell South Africa nuclear weapons

Revealed: how Israel offered to sell South Africa nuclear weapons

www.guardian.co.uk

Secret South African documents reveal that Israel offered to sell nuclear warheads to the apartheid regime, providing the first official documentary evidence of the state's possession of nuclear weapons.
The "top secret" minutes of meetings between senior officials from the two countries in 1975 show that South Africa's defence minister, PW Botha, asked for the warheads and Shimon Peres, then Israel's defence minister and now its president, responded by offering them "in three sizes". The two men also signed a broad-ranging agreement governing military ties between the two countries that included a clause declaring that "the very existence of this agreement" was to remain secret.

(visit the link for the full news article)



[edit on 23/5/2010 by BlackPoison94]

Wow.

That's mindblowing. Israel were continously saying that they will use the nuclear power for a responsible use, not like Iran and look at what we have...

Pure hypocrisy.

South African documents show that the apartheid-era military wanted the missiles as a deterrent and for potential strikes against neighbouring states.

The documents show both sides met on 31 March 1975. Polakow-Suransky writes in his book published in the US this week, The Unspoken Alliance: Israel's secret alliance with apartheid South Africa. At the talks Israeli officials "formally offered to sell South Africa some of the nuclear-capable Jericho missiles in its arsenal".

Among those attending the meeting was the South African military chief of staff, Lieutenant General RF Armstrong. He immediately drew up a memo in which he laid out the benefits of South Africa obtaining the Jericho missiles but only if they were fitted with nuclear weapons.

An image shown of the document:





www.guardian.co.uk
(visit the link for the full news article)


[edit on 23/5/2010 by BlackPoison94]

Are you trying to tell me people didn't know Israel had nukes? Well someone should've asked me...I've known this whole time.

That Israel and South africa have possesed Nuclear weapons (and, in the case of Israel, still does posess them) has been public knowledge for a very long time.

But why would the Israeli's co-operate with the racist (and not a million miles from their recent worst enemies ideology) south african leadership?

Well for hypothetical purposes only....

Suppose your countrys ruling elites perception of reality was that your people lived in a small country which was surrounded by enemies, fortunatley you had come across the materials and the technical know-how to build the ultimate counter strike weapon (how these materials and knowledge was obtained is another fascinating story!!!!). Israel is small, where can we test our new bomb? How about one of the most politically isolated nations in the world, maybe we can strike a deal where we can test our new weapon on their land? let's see what they want in return??

Well, clearly we could hypothesise that The South Africans might want help with a nuclear programme of it's own, in exchange for providing a test site.

All interesting Hersay...?

see the link below

The Vela Incident, Prince Edward Island 1979

Sleep tight

South Africa handed over its nuclear arsenal to be dismantled in the 1990s.
Like Israel, apartheid South Africa was founded in 1948, when the National Party won the elections (although the segregationist groundwork had been laid by the colonial British). During the Cold War both countries were seen as oases of Western power and advancement in "barberous", hostile regions. SA did not force blacks to modernize and provided reserves for its exploding black population - it also supplied the biggest hospitals in Africa, and produced thousands of black graduates in various fields, especially in medicine at MEDUNSA. It certainly focused on racism and exploitation to a degree, but it also provided more for blacks than most African countries. The fact that it became a pawn in Cold War politics, and defended itself from Marxist incursion from the soviets and Cubans hightened the oppressive atmosphere. Thatcher and Reagan supported apartheid under the maxim of "constructive engagement", and its regional wars were CIA inspired.
The fact is that apartheid lost its Cold War status when the Soviet Union fell in the early 1990s, and even its white population was in favour of reform.
The Jews in SA largely supported apartheid, and Justice Richard Goldstone even served on the aparteid legal bench during the repressive State of Emergency in 1986.
Apartheid's atomic bombs are history (although SA remains a major player in the arms industry today) - but to many (virtually the entire southern world) Israel remains a racist, apartheid state.
In fact the argument of apartheid SA/Israeli relations is often seen in reverse - apartheid is seen as evil because it historically associated with Israel.
Hate to get involved in mid-East issues, and cannot say what is right or wrong, but Israel is the quintessential race-based modern, apartheid state according to many.

PS. The Khulumani support Group and Jubilee 2000 are currently suing dozens of multi-national firms for cashing in on apartheid. So the whole globe did business with apartheid. Even the good ol' US (and they were never racist - ha, ha).

How is this breaking news? Everyone knows that S Africa had a nuclear weapons program back in the 70's and they even helped Israel carry out its first nuclear test. Back then there was great cooperation between the two countries.

quick someone call 1975 and tell them !!!!!!!!
second line.

Originally posted by princeofpeace
How is this breaking news? Everyone knows that S Africa had a nuclear weapons program back in the 70's and they even helped Israel carry out its first nuclear test. Back then there was great cooperation between the two countries.

Its there in the story : princeofpeace

Secret South African documents reveal that Israel offered to sell nuclear warheads to the apartheid regime, providing the first official documentary evidence of the state's possession of nuclear weapons.

The first official documentary evidence .

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Why everybody knows about the Israeli nuclear weapons program .....

The existence of Israel's nuclear weapons programme was revealed by Mordechai Vanunu to the Sunday Times in 1986. He provided photographs taken inside the Dimona nuclear site and gave detailed descriptions of the processes involved in producing part of the nuclear material but provided no written documentation.

link





[edit on 23-5-2010 by UmbraSumus]

reply to post by UmbraSumus


That's the same guy heading back to jail for communicating with foreigners.

So this will mean sanctions for Israel then. They have not signed the NPT and have been caught conspiring to spread nuclear weapons, even if it was 35 years ago.

Mabye Iran and Syria will be able to broker a deal where Israel sends its Uranium to Turkey in exchange for Medical Isotopes? I also wonder if U.S. missiles will be able to destroy Dimona if sanctions don't work?

i thought this had been know for years.israel and south africa used to trade arms with eachother during the embargo,and the us and britain would give weapons and tech to south africa via israel

The problem it's not if it's news or not. I think it's news because now they have a document proving that Israel has nuclear weapons.

The good thing about this article is to show how hypocrite countries like Israel and the U.S. are. One of them have hidden nukes, and the other one has already used 2 of these weapons, but they act like they have never seen these kinds of bombs before.

If countries like Iran or N.K. are considered a threat to the world because of nukes, so are the countries like Israel, U.S., Russia, etc. That's is what people should understand.

Everybody knew that BUT its now proved fact and undeniable. Israel can't say anymore.

And as the text point out:

The Israeli authorities tried to stop South Africa's post-apartheid government declassifying the documents at Polakow-Suransky's request and the revelations will be an embarrassment, particularly as this week's nuclear non-proliferation talks in New York focus on the Middle East.

They will also undermine Israel's attempts to suggest that, if it has nuclear weapons, it is a "responsible" power that would not misuse them, whereas countries such as Iran cannot be trusted.

Originally posted by Peruvianmonk
So this will mean sanctions for Israel then. They have not signed the NPT and have been caught conspiring to spread nuclear weapons, even if it was 35 years ago.

Mabye Iran and Syria will be able to broker a deal where Israel sends its Uranium to Turkey in exchange for Medical Isotopes? I also wonder if U.S. missiles will be able to destroy Dimona if sanctions don't work?

But then Americans will ask you the same question they asked the terrorists:

Why do they hate us?