Does Israel have nuclear weapons?

This is an old story, but it is one I shared with a co-worker when
they asked me to prove to them that IS.RA.EL had nukes.


www.theguardian.com...

"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.

The documents, uncovered by an American academic, Sasha Polakow-Suransky, in research for a book on the close relationship between the two countries, provide evidence that Israel has nuclear weapons despite its policy of "ambiguity" in neither confirming nor denying their existence.

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."

thanks to the generosity of the U.S.

While the Washington press corps obsessed over Hillary Clinton’s e-mails at the State Department, reporters were missing a far more important story about government secrets. After five decades of pretending otherwise, the Pentagon has reluctantly confirmed that Israel does indeed possess nuclear bombs, as well as awesome weapons technology similar to America’s.

Early last month the Department of Defense released a secret report done in 1987 by the Pentagon-funded Institute for Defense Analysis that essentially confirms the existence of Israel’s nukes. DOD was responding to a Freedom of Information lawsuit filed by Grant Smith, an investigative reporter and author who heads the Institute for Research: Middle East Policy. Smith said he thinks this is the first time the US government has ever provided official recognition of the long-standing reality.

Link

This article seems to state the US has admitted it. Maybe Grant Smith has something on the net about the FOIA.

December 1966 is a given date for the formulation, and the year before that there was an agreement with the US that they would 'never be the first to use them'. Kind of daft saying that, if there was nothing under the bed. There is also a given* estimate of 400 warheads.

* No idea where that figure comes from, other than not Israel.

I forgot, the FBI seems to think that Israel got hold of 800 Krytron triggers clandestinely at some stage, (I think they said they worked for Kellogs corn flakes or something like that)

About 200 low yield

a reply to: wasaka
Its no secret they have had them for a long time. I mean really? I thought that was common fact.
In fact, they have talked about using them in the past.

a reply to: wasaka

Well, Mordecai Vanunu had pictures of the required equipment & a bomb being assembled at Machon 8 & 9 in Dimona.

And there was an underground test in the Negev.

originally posted by: bobw927
thanks to the generosity of the U.S.

I think that the first nukes they had were from stolen US separated enriched uranium.

So, not exactly with full cooperation.

originally posted by: chr0naut
a reply to: wasaka

Well, Mordecai Vanunu had pictures of the required equipment & a bomb being assembled at Machon 8 & 9 in Dimona.

And there was an underground test in the Negev.

There is the Vela incident as well...

The Vela Incident, also known as the South Atlantic Flash, was an unidentified "double flash" of light detected by an American Vela Hotel satellite on September 22, 1979, near the Prince Edward Islands off Antarctica, which many believe was of nuclear origin.

The most widespread theory among those who believe the flash was of nuclear origin is that it resulted from a joint South African and Israeli nuclear test.

The topic remains highly disputed today.

Vela Incident

Here is an article in the Atlantic

Israel's Worst-Kept Secret

Former CIA Director Robert Gates said so during his 2006 Senate confirmation hearings for secretary of defense, when he noted—while serving as a university president—that Iran is surrounded by “powers with nuclear weapons,” including “the Israelis to the west.”

Former President Jimmy Carter said so in 2008 and again this year, in interviews and speeches in which he pegged the number of Israel’s nuclear warheads at 150 to around 300.

Here is a PDF document on ATS. I remember checking this out while doing archiving here years back.

Link to VELA document

Not a very smart move giving nuclear technology to bunch of religious extremists that believe in the end of the world.

I would much rather Iran had them.

imo, it doesn't matter! the cat is out of the bag already as pakistan is cooking nukes for it's it's buddies in the ME.

hell if the paycheck is large enough, they'll make one for you too!

a reply to: wasaka

Doesn't anyone use wikipedia anymore?

Nuclear Ambiguity.

I see what they did there.

en.wikipedia.org...

a reply to: grey580

I saw that entry. Claiming neither Yes or No usually means Yes.

originally posted by: cenpuppie
imo, it doesn't matter! the cat is out of the bag already as pakistan is cooking nukes for it's it's buddies in the ME.

hell if the paycheck is large enough, they'll make one for you too!

No, they should bring the price down if they want to bust into the private sector. If they were going to do that though, they probably missed a gold rush with postal workers.

No country has nuclear bombs it's all a lie. MOAB FOAB these are the two most powerful bombs.

originally posted by: AmericanZombie
No country has nuclear bombs it's all a lie. MOAB FOAB these are the two most powerful bombs.

Wait, what about Hiroshima and Nagasaki? Pretty sure that happened.

originally posted by: bobw927
thanks to the generosity of the U.S.

Sorry but that isn't right. Israel stole quite a bit of nuclear tech from America. Seeing how Israel never signed the NPT so it would have been illegal to give or sell them any tech. Netanyahu himself helped to smuggle stolen triggers for nukes during operation pinto.

In 2006, former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert told Germany's Sat.1 channel: "Iran, openly, explicitly and publicly, threatens to wipe Israel off the map. Can you say that this is the same level, when they are aspiring to have nuclear weapons, as America, France, Israel and Russia?"

This was the first public admission by any member of the Israeli government, past or present, that they did indeed possess nuclear capabilities. They're also less constrained than other Nuclear capable nations as they have refused to take part in the non proliferation treaty which even Iran is a signatory to. Despite all of this and the geopolitical climate they are constantly surrounded by, the only country to ever use nuclear weapons in anger(and unnecessarily so at that ) is the U.S. Despite the constant rhetorical and verbal threats towards them, Israel has demonstrated considerable restraint in the context of the big picture.